Maximizing Student Outcomes Through Effective Group Projects
This session explores best practices for facilitating successful group projects in educational settings. Learn how to foster student cooperation by understanding team dynamics, establishing norms, defining roles, and implementing conflict resolution strategies. By leveraging collaborative learning, educators can help students improve retention, self-efficacy, and accountability while developing essential interpersonal skills for the workforce. Discover practical ways to design group assignments suitable for diverse class sizes and tackle common challenges to achieve positive results in student collaboration.
Maximizing Student Outcomes Through Effective Group Projects
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Presentation Transcript
Cool Tools for TeachingMay 2011Session One Presenters: Jan Gabel-Goes Gwen AtheneTarbox Making Group Projects Work: How to Maximize the Outcomes Of Group Work for your Students
Session One • How to get and maintain student cooperation through team dynamics, norms, roles, conflict resolution, contracts and follow through
The Philosophy of Collaborative Learning Why do group work? • Helps with retention, self efficacy, better learning of concepts, improves individual accountability. • Provides students with a vital skill for the world of work, growth in students’ interpersonal skills, critical thinking.
Who should use group work? • Group projects can work well for freshmen through grad students. • Shy students are more likely to learn and participate; outgoing students are more likely to learn to share ideas, rather than direct their peers • Everyone learns strategies to deal with positive and negative group dynamics
Establishing a Collaborative Learning Classroom What types of projects work well in the group setting? Oral and/or Written • Session Two will concentrate on designing assignments for group work for your class.
What size classes can use group work? • Collaborative learning can work in large lecture and small hands-on classes and everything in between. What size should groups be? • Group sizes can vary from “pair and share” to 6 maximum.
Achieving Results in a Collaborative Learning Classroom What are common problems with groups? How do you overcome the issues? • Strategies for dealing with the “storming” stage of group work. • Strategies for getting students to take responsibility for their group’s performance via contracts
How should groups be organized? • Self select v. instructor • Organized and diverse, not homogeneous • Must discuss Team Dynamics • Group Roles, Norms, Contracts • Dangers of Groupthink and Dysfunctional Behaviors • Conflict Resolution & Listening Styles
Group Dynamics • Interactions & processes that take place among the members of a team • Phases of team development which are Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing & Adjourning (Orientation, Conflict, Brainstorming, Emergence, Reinforcement) • Understand and appreciate each other’s strengths (and weaknesses) Checklist sheet
Group Roles • Leader/Manager/Organizer • Task Oriented: Time keeper, presenter • Team maintenance: researcher, get questions answered • Must make sense for the assignment and students in the team • Negative role: self-oriented member with hidden agenda to meet personal needs only
Group Norms • Informal standards of conduct that members share and that guide member behavior. • Examples: be at all team meetings, be available for out of class meetings, responsiveness to phone/email messages, extent to which equal share of work done, general contributor to team effort, promptness in completing work (sheet)
Contract Ideas/Uses • Agree on project goals • Bond first • Clarify individual responsibilities • Establish clear processes • Avoiding writing as a group but can plan, research, outline together • Assign task of writing to one person or divide larger projects among multiple writers
Groupthink & Dysfunctional Behaviors • Groupthink occurs when peer pressures cause individual member to withhold contrary or unpopular opinions. Pressure to conform with accepted norms • Dysfunctional Behaviors & Antidotes • Ghosts • Controllers • Distracters • Pleasers • Blamers Get them talking to each other (& you if necessary) Here is where team coaches can help if available.
Conflict Resolution – Goal is Win/Win Strategy • Deal with minor conflict before becomes major • Communication is key – get all parties involved • Openness – get feelings out in the open before dealing with main issue
More conflict resolution • Research – seek factual reasons for the problem before seeking solutions • Flexibility – consider all brainstormed solutions before locking in on just one • Fair play • Alliance – get opponents to fight together against “outside forces” such as the competition instead of each other.
Make Team Meetings Count • Have an agenda sent out ahead of time • Keep discussion on track • Follow rules, Parliamentary Procedure • Robert’s Rules of Order • Encourage participation by all • Participate actively; read nonverbals • Establish follow up and close effectively
Listening skills helpful • Content listening: to understand and retain information • Critical listening: to evaluate information and make decisions • Empathic listening: to understand speaker’s feelings, needs and wants • Active listening, turn off biases and filters and listen with whole body
Assessment How and when to assess/evaluate group work? • Team scores v. individual scores • Instructor feedback, self feedback, and peer feedback (based on agreed upon team norms) • Timing: at end of the project with check in along the way is best.
Session Two tomorrow, same time, same place • Designing assignments for group work: changing methodologies and rubrics to reflect the group situation as part of the grading process. Linking assignments to learning outcomes. • Thanks very much! • Questions? • Source: Bovee & Thill, 2011, Excellence in Business Communication 9e, Pearson Education
