GROUP WORK

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GROUP WORK

• Gen Ed Skill Area
• Elizabeth A. Lehfeldt
• Cleveland State University

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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

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Types of group work

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

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Faculty and group work

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

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Reassurances

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

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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?

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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

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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

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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

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Effective assignments

• Class time for group work
• Teach skills of group work
• http//www.ou.edu/pii/teamlearning/video.htm
• 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.
• http//dhc.ucdavis.edu/vohs/sec04-1.html

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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
• http//www.iml.uts.edu.au/learnteach/groupwork/uni
  t4.html

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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.

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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.

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Assessing group work

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

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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.

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Troubleshooting group work

• You are available for discussion
• Peer assessment will be part of the process
• Equip students to troubleshoot their own problems
• http//writing.colostate.edu/guides/processes/grou
  p/list8.cfm