When students learn there will be group work in a course, they often let up a collective groan. Group work tends to leave a bad taste in students’ mouths due to their lack of understanding of group dynamics. If you plan to use group activities
Students can learn from and with each other in groups; that’s been well-established in the research. But student learning in groups doesn’t happen automatically, and it doesn’t happen regularly unless the group activity is carefully designed. The areas listed below identify the essential components of
If students don’t come right out and say they don’t want to work in groups, the nonverbal message comes through loud and clear. “Get together with those sitting near you. I’ve got something I want you to work on as a group.” Some students stretch
What’s the best way to put students into groups? It’s the first task that confronts teachers who want students to work together. And the best reply is one of those “it depends” answers. Here are the questions on which it depends.
Group projects teach collaboration skills that will be necessary in any job as well as non-job activities in groups such as clubs, religious organizations, and the Boy and Girl Scouts. With an increasingly distributed workforce, learning how to coordinate behavior at a distance has become
Group work is one of those areas that some business and engineering faculty think is essential because that’s what those students will be doing in the workplace. I don’t want to undermine that view, but I do want to say that there is more to
Working well collaboratively is an important skill to teach, but simply putting students together in groups and asking them to work together online doesn’t necessarily result in learning. A good way to ensure learning is to provide a rubric to help students understand what is
It’s a favorite assignment in upper-division major courses—have students collaborate on a research project. The rationale is straightforward. Students learn how to do research by doing it. Of course it depends, but in most fields, students new to research find it a daunting process that
It’s one of the questions always asked by faculty using group work. Sometimes students tell the teacher they want to form their own groups. Teachers worry about those students who aren’t well connected with others in the class. Will they be invited to join a
Study abroad programs can be quite complex because they require constant coordination between groups of students related to changing itineraries, transportation logistics, and unexpected incidents, among other concerns. Over the course of several study abroad programs, a few information technology (IT) faculty members experienced with
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