Structuring group projects
Much of what is true for individual assignments holds true for group assignments. In other words, it is important to clearly articulate the objectives of the assignment, explicitly define the task, clarify your expectations, model high-quality work, and communicate performance criteria.
However, group work has complexities above and beyond individual work. The way you structure group projects will depend on your goals, but as a general rule, it is important to think about how you will address the following issues (adapted from the group work model provided by Johnson, Johnson & Smith, 1991):
Interdependence
Depending on your objectives for a group assignment, it may be acceptable for students to employ a divide-and-conquer strategy rather than work closely together through every stage of the project. However, if your goals for the project are for students to collaborate throughout, it is important to structure interdependence into the assignment. There are different ways to achieve this, including the following:
Ensure sufficient complexity in projects so that students cannot work effectively alone, but must draw on one another’s knowledge and skills.
Ex. In one course on game design that includes students from Computer Science as well as the Arts, group assignments require students to incorporate both technical (e.g., programming) and aesthetic elements. This requires students from different disciplines to draw on one another’s strengths to complete the assignment successfully.
Create shared goals that can only be met through collaboration.
Ex. In one engineering course, teams compete against one another to design a boat (assessed on various dimensions such as stability and speed) by applying engineering principles and working within various budgetary and material constraints. The fun and intensity of a public competition encourages the team to work closely together to create the best design possible.
Limit resources to compel students to share critical information and materials.
Ex. In a short-term project for an architectural design course, the instructor provides student groups with a set of materials (e.g., tape, cardboard, string) and assigns them the task of building a structure that conforms to particular design parameters using only these materials. Because students have limited resources, they cannot divide tasks but must strategize and work together.
Assign roles.
Require students to assume roles within the group that will help facilitate collaboration.
Ex. In a semester-long research project for a history course, the instructor assigns students distinct roles within their groups: one student is responsible for initiating and sustaining communication with the rest of the group, another with coordinating schedules and organizing meetings, another with recording ideas generated and decisions made at meetings, and a fourth with keeping the group on task and cracking the whip when deadlines are approaching. The instructor rotates students through these roles, so that they each get practice performing each function.
Teamwork Skills
Don’t assume students already know how to work in groups. Many have had little experience with group work and even those who have had prior experience don’t necessarily know how to work successfully in groups or to transfer teamwork skills from one group context to another (Bosworth, 1994). Teamwork skills include, among other things, the ability to work with others to:
- assess the nature of the task
- break the task down into steps or stages
- plan a strategy
- articulate ideas and listen to alternative ideas
- coordinate efforts
- make decisions
- manage time
- resolve conflicts
To help their students develop these skills, instructors can:
Highlight the importance of process (and not just product).
You may want to identify important teamwork skills and explain their value in (and outside) the workplace by offering real-world examples of how teams function and illustrating what can go wrong when teamwork skills are weak.
One instructor asks students to generate a list of skills they believe employers look for. Often students answer this question with a set of domain-specific skills, such as drafting or computer programming. The instructor then contrasts their answers with the answers given by actual employers, who often focus on domain-general process skills such as “the ability to communicate clearly” and “the ability to work with others”. This activity serves to reinforce the process goals for group work assignments.
Provide direction.
Students often do not know where to begin to orchestrate work within a group and may require considerably more structure and guidance about group processes than instructors anticipate. By providing students with structure – and then gradually withdrawing that structure as they gain expertise – you can help them to recognize, develop, and apply critical teamwork skills. You might, for example:
- require students to submit a project proposal and timeline
- assign roles within groups (or require students to)
- set interim deadlines
- suggest ways for students to coordinate their schedules
- provide ways (e.g., discussion boards, an on-line collaboration tool) for group members to communicate with one another and with you
Even students who have considerable experience with group work may need to be reminded about some of these issues.
Address preconceptions about group work.
If students’ prior experiences with group work have been negative, they might have preconceptions that will affect their approach to the projects in your course. To uncover and address these preconceptions, you might ask students to list positive and negative aspects of groups based on their previous experiences; you can then ask them to brainstorm strategies for preventing or mitigating potentially negative aspects of group work. You might also explain to students how you have structured your assignment to minimize problems (such as the free-rider phenomenon) they may have encountered in the past.
Establish ground rules.
Create ground rules for group behavior or ask students to do so themselves. You might then ask students to formally agree to these ground rules by signing a group learning contract (Barkley, Cross & Major, 2005).
One instructor asks students to generate answers to the question: What behavior by group members do you think will/won’t help the group function effectively? He then has students create a list of ground rules based on their answers: e.g., return e-mails from group members within 24 hours; come to meetings on time and prepared; meet deadlines; listen to what your teammates have to say; respond to one another’s comments politely but honestly; be constructive; criticize ideas, not people.
Build conflict-resolution skills and strategies.
Disagreements within groups can provide valuable opportunities for students to develop both better teamwork skills and better end products. However, it is important for students to learn how to handle conflict productively so that it does not inhibit learning. This may involve helping students to recognize when their opinions diverge, empowering them to speak up, providing them with the language to voice objections and preferences constructively, helping them develop strong listening skills, and providing strategies for resolving differences.
Some instructors hold group meetings in which every group member must identify one aspect of the group’s dynamic that they would like to see change. This strategy can help students overcome their natural inclination not to rock the boat, while giving them practice articulating objections courteously.
Other instructors help students develop conflict-resolution skills by structuring role-playing activities. Role-playing presents students with a common source of tension within groups (e.g., a domineering personality, a slacker, cultural differences in communication style) and then asks them to work toward a resolution, improvising dialogue and actions. Role-playing conflict-resolution in advance can help students recognize similar issues when they arise and respond to them creatively and appropriately.
Alert students to common pitfalls.
It is a good idea to alert students to common pitfalls, either of group work in general or issues specific to your assignment. Some common pitfalls of group work include underestimating the amount of time required to schedule meetings, coordinate access to labs, computer clusters, or studio space with other groups, get research materials from Interlibrary Loan, obtain IRB permission for research interviews, mail reports to external clients, prepare presentations, revise reports, etc.
To help students plan, you may want to give them a rough sense of how long various steps of the project are likely to take and warn them about matters they will need to attend to earlier than they might expect.
Foster metacognitive skills.
Encourage students to assess their own strengths and weaknesses (e.g., tendency to procrastinate, openness to criticism, strong oral communication skills) and to consider how these traits could potentially affect group dynamics.
One instructor asks students to complete a survey in which they assess their strengths and weaknesses. In groups, students then compare their results and then engage in a group discussion centered on the question: What mechanisms could your group put in place to capitalize on these strengths and compensate for these weaknesses? Answers generated include setting clear, irrevocable interim deadlines (if a number of group members are procrastinators), developing a system of turn-taking to make sure that everyone has the chance to speak (if there are shy group members), using flow charts to represent the task (for group members with a visual orientation or weak language skills), etc.
Incorporate process assessments.
Consider asking students to periodically evaluate their own or others’ contributions to the group in relation to a set of process goals, such as:
- respectfully listening to and considering opposing views or a minority opinion
- effectively managing conflict around differences in ideas or approaches
- keeping the group on track during and between meetings
- promptness in meeting deadlines
- appropriate distribution of research, analysis, writing
Process assessments help develop students metacognitive skills by requiring them to reflect on and become more conscious of their own behavior, to recognize and live up to their responsibilities as members of the team. Requiring students to reflect on group dynamics, moreover, can help them recognize and build on the team’s strengths and address its weaknesses.
Individual Accountability
It is possible for a student to work hard in a group and yet fail to understand crucial aspects of the project. In order to ensure that each student has met your criteria for understanding and mastery, it is important to structure individual accountability into your group work assignments. In other words, in addition to evaluating the work of the group as a whole, ask individual group members to demonstrate their learning via quizzes, independent write-ups, weekly journal entries, etc. Not only does this help you monitor student learning, it helps to prevent the “free-rider” phenomenon. Students are considerably less likely to slack off – and leave the work to more responsible classmates – if they know their individual performance will affect their grade.
One statistics instructor assigns student groups the task of presenting, synthesizing, and evaluating a set of articles on a particular topic. It is important to him that all the students in each group have a firm grasp of the complete set of readings, even if they individually only present one or two. Thus, he builds individual accountability into the project by warning students in advance that he will ask each of them questions about the readings they did not present. This ensures that students know and are able to articulate the key ideas for the full set of readings, and not just those they presented.
