Tomorrow I will be working with a group of roughly 65 professors at West Chester University. I am thrilled to have the opportunity to talk to the about PBL and the pedagogical foundations that support such learning. The organizers of the event did a survey and asked if the attendees had any requests or questions. One consistent theme ran throughout the submissions: How do we create functioning, collaborative groups? So I did a little thinking about the pieces of the puzzle the I consider when to facilitate effective collaboration and searched for some reputable sources for more ideas.
My thoughts on group work and collaboration:
- Group work is tricky. For me there are two goals with group work: individually assess student capabilities and fostering more effective collaboration skills. In order to accomplish this goal I grade a portion of the group work as individual and the other portion as group. For instance, at SLA we use a common rubric. There are 5 categories and for most group projects I assess the students individually on Research, Knowledge and Process while assessing the group grade through Design and Presentation. This allows for students to evidence individual learning while also collaborating on a group endeavor. I find that this lessens the… I’ll do everything myself syndrome that plagues group work.
- Another idea is to contract for the work… I create a work contract that identifies the different roles/products the group members are responsible for completing. All members of the group sign the contract. When there are concerns or questions, the contract is referenced and used to settle confusion or disputes.
- Allow students to identify one person in the room they would like to work with and then pair up the partners. Choosing to work with at least one person they know or trust goes a long way to moving the collaborative process along.
- Allow for mid-project reflection. Ask them how it is going. Let them tell you when it is going successfully or poorly and you should have some suggestions for course correction.
- Let students self-assess work. This gives you an interesting insight into how the student views their accomplishments while also providing some context to the whole learning endeavor.
- Use a project management tool to keep track of the progress. There are any number of project management tools out there to pick from – http://www.wrike.com/ or https://trello.com/ or http://www.zoho.com/projects/ or… google it, the list goes on. having the work process out in the open provides a level of transparency between group members and the instructor to communicate what is happening in the day to day working of the group.
- Call out the free rider. It is incumbent upon the instructor to address issues of the ‘free rider’. I have often severed them from a group and given them an adjusted (and hefty) individual version of the work if they persistently underperformed after multiple conversations about improving the working relationship.
- Don’t make every project group work. It is completely possible to have meaningful collaboration with your class while creating an independent project. Class time can be used to workshop ideas, assist in thinking, run scenarios, etc. Just because someone is working independently, doesn’t mean the classmates can’t collaborate on their work.
- Try to work on a group project yourself. Own the fact that it is challenging, and have some compassion for the difficulty that comes from working with others.
- Be prepared to keep tweaking your approach, talk to your colleagues, adjust the parameters… tinker. This is a process much like anything else and there is no list with all the special tricks that if you complete, you will have the perfect groups. This is learning as much for the instructor as the students.
What ideas do you have in the way of suggestions for effective collaboration and group work?
Great list of considerations. The “grading group work” part always seems to be where things get stuck for me. I really like the contract idea. Do you have any contracts (sample or actual) that you’d be willing to show?
Also, have you ever considered using something like Myers-Briggs TI to help build effective groups? Do you have students works in the same groups for multiple projects?
Thanks, again.
I’ll link back to some contracts … this is an individual contract that I am using now, and could be easily modified for a group project – https://sites.google.com/a/scienceleadership.org/what-if-history-project/project-description/work-contract
Regarding Myers-Briggs – I kind of like pairing people with others unlike themselves. I think that the whole process pushes people to learn new skills and such. In addition, at SLA, we have grades 9-11 in streamed classes – where they travel together to English, History and Science – and this level of familiarity does facilitate come level of comfort because they’ve worked with everyone in the class at some point in the year.
Diana,
Have you thought about how this type of approach would work in a corporate environment? I am curious of your thoughts on how an approach like yours would apply in a world of “adult professionals.” At my company, we often use cross-functional teams to drive major projects and find they can be bogged down by office politics, the free rider phenomenon, and lack of honest feedback of others’ performance.
Shane
I actually think about the outside of education applications of this approach a ton. One of the things I think we discount at the school level is how much impact we can have on the viability of positive work skills with our students. Many schools focus on control and compliance as the goal, which runs counter to a workplace that needs teamwork, collegiality and collaboration. The work that I have been pursuing works with students to develop not only the academic chops, but the soft skills of working with people so as to promote a path forward with serious opportunity for success. I think that there is much to be done, but waiting until adulthood to start to develop this skill set is too late. We can do better.
A big issue we see in the corporate world is the inabilty or inwillingness of project team members to hold each other accountable for performance. People believe the other team members will take it personally or that they are “ratting out” others. I think the suggestion for self assessment combined with an overall project assessment by each member of a team would allow senior management a good opportunity to look for performance gaps.
Shane
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