Overview
Group work refers to a learning method where students collaborate in small teams to achieve shared academic goals. These groups can range from two to several members, each contributing their unique skills, perspectives, and expertise to accomplish tasks and solve problems.
Authentic Workplace Elements of Group Work
- Collaboration: Students work together, combining their strengths and knowledge to achieve a common objective.
- Communication: Effective communication is crucial, as members discuss ideas, delegate tasks, and provide feedback to one another.
- Shared Responsibility: Each member is responsible for their assigned tasks, ensuring equitable contribution and accountability.
- Problem-Solving: Groups analyze complex issues, encouraging diverse viewpoints to find innovative solutions.
- Time Management: Collaborators must coordinate schedules and manage time efficiently to meet deadlines and complete assignments.
Educational Benefits of Group Work
- Enhanced Learning: Engaging with peers exposes you to different perspectives, deepening your understanding of subjects and concepts.
- Improved Communication Skills: Group work hones your ability to articulate ideas clearly, actively listen, and give constructive feedback.
- Critical Thinking: Collaborative discussions challenge your thinking, prompting you to analyze, evaluate, and refine your ideas.
- Skill Diversification: Groups often consist of individuals with varied skills, allowing you to learn from one another and develop new abilities.
- Preparation for the Workforce: In today's professional world, teamwork is invaluable. Group work equips you with practical experience for future careers.
- Cultivation of Empathy: Understanding diverse viewpoints fosters empathy and cultural competence, essential qualities in a globalized society.
- Challenges and Strategies: While group work offers numerous benefits, challenges such as conflicts, unequal contribution, and coordination issues may arise. To overcome these challenges, effective communication, mutual respect, clear roles, and regular feedback are essential.
Instructor's Role
Assigning group work in a college setting can be a powerful educational tool, but it requires careful planning and guidance from the instructor to ensure that the experience is positive and beneficial for all students involved. Here are the key roles and responsibilities of college instructors when assigning group work:
Clear Objective Setting
- Define Learning Goals: Instructors should establish clear objectives for the group project, outlining the skills and knowledge students are expected to gain.
- Explain Relevance: Clearly communicate the relevance of the task to the course material and real-world applications. Students should understand why they are doing the group work and how it contributes to their learning.
Formation of Groups
- Strategic Grouping: Instructors can either assign groups strategically, ensuring a mix of skills and backgrounds, or allow students to choose their groups, promoting autonomy and accountability.
- Consider Individual Strengths: Consider students' strengths and areas of expertise when forming groups to ensure a balanced distribution of skills.
Establishing Clear Guidelines
- Set Expectations: Clearly outline the project requirements, including tasks, deadlines, and evaluation criteria. Students should know what is expected of them and how they will be assessed.
- Address Roles: Define specific roles within the group (e.g., leader, researcher, presenter) to ensure that responsibilities are distributed evenly.
- Promote Communication: Encourage open communication within groups. Provide guidelines for effective collaboration and conflict resolution.
Monitoring and Support
- Regular Check-Ins: Schedule periodic check-ins to monitor the progress of each group. Address any challenges or concerns that arise during these meetings.
- Provide Support: Offer guidance and support as needed, clarifying concepts, providing resources, or suggesting strategies for effective teamwork.
Fair Assessment
- Individual and Group Evaluation: Clearly define how both individual and group performance will be evaluated. Balance between assessing the collaborative process and the final outcome.
- Peer Evaluation: Consider incorporating peer evaluations where students assess their peers' contributions. This promotes accountability and fairness.
Encourage Reflection
- Post-Project Reflection: After the completion of the group work, encourage students to reflect on the experience. This can include what they learned, challenges faced, and how they can apply their newfound skills in future endeavors.
Addressing Challenges
- Conflict Resolution: Provide guidance on how to resolve conflicts within groups. Encourage students to address issues professionally and constructively.
- Intervene when Necessary: If conflicts escalate or if some group members are not contributing, be prepared to intervene and offer appropriate solutions. By taking on these roles and responsibilities, college instructors can create a positive and enriching group work experience that enhances students' learning, teamwork, and communication skills, preparing them for future academic and professional challenges.
Benefits of Group Work
Just as in face-to-face courses, breaking a class up into groups is a great way to get students to collaborate. Here's some information on MHCC Instructors and group work
Benefits of Group Work
Group work benefits students in a variety of ways:
- They can master the material. Whether they are working on problems, answering questions about the reading, or discussing case studies, when students work together on content, they can master the basics. The reason they learn is pretty straightforward when students work with content in a group they are figuring things out for themselves rather than having the teacher tell them what they need to know.
- They can learn content at those deeper levels we equate with understanding. I just highlighted an article for the April issue of The Teaching Professor newsletter which reported that the explanations students wrote to justify a chosen answer were stronger after just seven minutes of discussion with two or three students. When students are trying to explain things to each other, to argue for an answer, or to justify a conclusion, that interaction clarifies their own thinking and often it clarifies the thinking of other students.
- They can learn how groups function productively. In order for groups to function productively, students must fulfill individual responsibilities. Productive group members come prepared, they contribute to the group interaction, they support each other, and they deliver good work on time. In order for individuals to function productively in groups, they have the right to expect the group to value their individual contributions, to address behaviors that compromise group productivity, and to divide the work equitably among members.
- They can learn why groups make better decisions than individuals. Students can see how different perspectives, constructive deliberation, questioning, and critical analysis can result in better solutions and performance. If students take an exam individually and then do the same exam as a group, the group exam score is almost always higher because students share what they know, debate the answers, and through that process can often find their way to the right answer.
- They can learn how to work with others. Group work helps students learn how to work with people outside their circle of friends, including those who have different backgrounds and experiences. They can even learn how to work with those who disagree with them, and others they might not "like" or want as friends.
Source: The Teaching Professor, March 20, 2013 LMSs offer a variety of tools to facilitate and manage group activities, but in order for group work to succeed, it's important to be very clear in assigning, managing and evaluating the work.
Group Strategies
Strategies for Group Assignments
- Explain to students why this activity is being done in a group. The best group activities fall into three categories.
- There's no right answer
- There are multiple perspectives
- There are too many resources for one person to gather
- Be upfront about instructions and responsibilities
- Provide clear evaluation criteria for work. Good and bad models are very useful.
- Scaffold assignments so there are several stages and due dates
- Offer students a tip sheet for working in groups.
Strategies for Management
- Check in frequently with groups. If they're using discussion boards, follow their progress
- Provide feedback on their work. Scaffolded assignments make this easy
- Encourage team building. Help them develop an identity. Assign a group charter with contact information, individual skills inventory, group goals and ground rules
- Promote accountability. Give self and peer evaluations. Consider having evaluations affect grades
- Assign a group leader to manage the project. Some students are really cut out for this
Strategies for Evaluation
- Assess individual as well as group performance
- Assess the group's process and the final product-especially if a goal is to help students develop teamwork skills
- Manage assessment using analytical or holistic rubrics that address multiple aspects of the work
- Create rubrics that align with individual responsibilities
- Give clear personalized feedback
Want help with configuring groups in Blackboard? Follow this link for a video tutorial Group Management.
Tips for Setting Up and Managing Groups in Blackboard
Planning to use Groups in Blackboard? The tips below will help you make the most of the group tool in Blackboard. Blackboard groups can be complicated for first-time users, so please reach out to Online Learning for help setting up groups in your class.
Building Groups
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- Build groups using Group Sets
- Create groups with more members than you think you want. Inevitably there are always a few students who don't participate and this minimizes "Remix fallout"
- Uncheck most tools. Your plan for group activities will help you choose the best tool. Narrow the path for clarity
- Configure settings to avoid major problems. See Critical Settings
Two Critical Settings
Critical Setting One: Change Student Group Permissions
- On Group page, click Group Settings
- From Group settings, UNcheck the two items
Critical Setting Two: Configure Group Discussions
- Edit Group Set properties
- Do not allow students to create forums
Avoid Remix
Try not to change the members of the groups during the term.
But if you MUST
- Merge the less active group with more active group
- Reconfigure a new group set at a later point in the term.
Managing Groups
- Add yourself to groups to keep people on track. (This process is not obvious. An Instructional Designer in OL can help!)
- Add your preview student to a group to see the content as students do. (Be sure to inform students who that is!)
- Use different group view tabs on your group page to see All Groups, Group Sets and All Users (student list with group affiliation).
Want help with setting up groups in Blackboard? Follow this link for a Bb video tutorial Creating and Managing Groups .