GROUP WORK

Why do group work?

Student assessment indicates that
students learn and retain information
better
Students report greater satisfaction in
courses where group work is assigned
Skills valued by employers

Types of group work

Ad-hoc temporary clusterings of students
Formal groups with a longer-term
project to complete
Study groups

Faculty and group work

Designing assignments
Assessing group work
Willing to sacrifice efficiency and control
to other goals

Reassurances
Bad experiences with groups
How your class will be different
Clear assignments, tasks, and grading

Rationale for group work

Why are you doing it?
What is the assignment?
Some direction about tasks, division of labor

What are you looking for in the finished

project?

Rationale for group work

How group work will be assessed
How groups will be monitored
What is the time commitment for groups
How to handle problems that arise

Creating effective groups

When to form
Size matters
4-5 is ideal, especially if students dont have lots of practice with
group work

Composition
Random
Carefully orchestrated
Some room for student preference?
Shared criteria
Meeting times

Effective assignments
Complex enough to warrant group work
For inexperienced it may help to identify roles

Motivating enough to invite engagement

Links to objectives of the course
Involving presentation to class or even outsiders?
Problem-solving
Client-based

Effective assignments
Class time for group work
Teach skills of group work
Fiechtner, S. B., and Davis, E. A. "Why Some Groups
Fail: A Survey of Students' Experiences with Learning
Groups." In A. Goodsell, M. Maher, V. Tinto, and
Associates (eds.), Collaborative Learning: A
Sourcebook for Higher Education.

Facilitate student interaction

Early opportunities that serve as icebreakers
Pair or group students in the first week
Ask students to identify components of
successful discussion and group work; set
norms

Sample assignments
Structured controversy: Groups of four explore
controversial topic. Students work in pairs. Each
pair takes a different side of the issue. The
groups of four meet, and each pair takes a turn
stating and arguing its position Next, each pair
must reverse its position and argue the opposite
position than the one it argued before. Lastly the
group of four as a whole discusses and
synthesizes all the positions to come up with a
group report. There may be a class presentation
where each group presents its findings.

Sample assignments
History: Write a medieval newspaper
Students conduct their research independently and use
group meetings to share information, edit articles,
proofread, and design the pages.

Science, engineering: Report on alternative

energy sources.
Each member of the group is responsible for research on
one source, and then all the members work together to
incorporate the individual contributions into the final report.

Assessing group work

Process, product, or both?
Who will assess: instructor, students, or
both?
Group marks, individual marks, or both?
Samples

Assessing group work

Example: A group of six students undertakes a
six-week research project on the geomorphology
of a particular region. They will produce a final
group report, for which they will receive a group
mark. In addition students will be assessed
individually: they are required to submit a
research diary recording their progress, relevant
diagrams and printouts and findings at weekly
intervals throughout the six weeks.

Troubleshooting group work

You are available for discussion
Peer assessment will be part of the
process
Equip students to troubleshoot their own
problems