Helping Students Learn Effectively
in a Group Project
Group projects present great challenges to
university students, particularly those in their first year of
study. In an investigation into university students' learning
difficulties (Ho, Chan, Sun and Yan, 2003), it is found that students
encounter difficulties both in terms of handling a major academic
problem on their own and in terms of working effectively collaboratively
in a team. Learning effectively in group projects requires skills
of two nature - one is planning and managing a problem
solving process and the other is working effectively
in a team.
In attempting to assist students to learn effectively in group
projects, the Learning to Learn Project has developed a student
workbook "Working Your Way through a Group
Project". In conjunction with this student workbook,
a Teacher Guide has also been developed where
you will find examples of simple activities making use of the
materials offered by the workbook in different scenarios, including:
Handling and managing a problem solving process
In a project, students not only have to deal with solving an academic
problem, at the same time they face the chore of organising and
managing a big task.
'The most difficult is the project because I didn't have to
do projects in the past ¡K In the projects we have to
take care of everything from the very beginning, the lecturers
will simply put in it a sentence or two. They want you to think
by yourselves, they don't want to tell you every single step.
Therefore, you need a lot of initiative.'
The above quotation from the study, although short, allows us
to diagnose in what way students are handicapped: they are threatened
by having to 'take care of everything'; they seem to be at a lost
of where to start and how to start 'from the very beginning' and
to find it demanding that they have to work out 'every single
step'; they feel rather helpless given that instruction from the
lecturer is only in 'a sentence or two'; and 'a lot of initiative'
happens to be a real challenge for them.
This suggests that in order for students to successfully complete
the academic task of the project they need to command, in addition
to cognitive problem solving abilities, a range of skills for
task planning, management and monitoring. Such skills could include
analysing the problem, searching for references, evaluating alternative
approaches to solution, time management, work flow management,
quality review and management, etc. Unfortunately, university
students generally have no prior exposure to the concept and practice
of such skills. As a matter of fact, they are expected to develop
such skills in the process of doing their project - which could
be seen as a learning objective for projects.
The implication of this for helping students learn to learn is
that assistance should be provided to guide students through the
planning and management of the project, and to facilitate them
in making use of the process to build up and internalise these
new skills.
Working effectively in a team
In a group project, students need to exercise many different skills
such as problem solving, team work skills, leadership, project
management, of which most of them have very limited or no experience
to.
'With group project, if you get some problematic
people, it's tough.' 'You talk about 4 or 5 hours with nothing
coming out.' 'The system of collective responsibility turns out
to be nobody's responsibility.' (Department E)
Working Your Way through a Group Project
This workbook is designed to assist students to learn effectively
in group projects. Students are advised to carry the workbook
to their group meetings such that they can refer to it for advice
anytime, anywhere when they are working on their project. There
are four sections in the workbook:
Section 1: "Frequently Asked Questions" (FAQs)
This section offers quick tips on common problems encountered
in doing group projects.
Section 2: "Working in a Group"
This section helps students to develop the essential teamwork
skills including: building a team, communication, making group
decisions, handling disagreement and leadership. For each topic,
useful advice for achieving better performance are provided through
the items of a self-evaluation checklist. By working through the
checklist and reviewing their own answers, students will become
aware of where and how to improve.
Section 3: "Working on a Project"
This section recommends to students, through interactive activities,
useful methods and tools for planning and managing a project.
Self-evaluation checklists on both group and individual performances
are included. By working through the checklists and reviewing
their own answers, students will become aware of where and how
to improve in terms of group work skills and project planning
and management.
Section 4: "Presentation"
This section provides students with practical guides on structuring
the content of a presentation, preparing presentation materials
and delivering a presentation. Again, self-evaluation checklists
are available for reviewing performance.
The student workbook 'Working Your Way through a Group Project'
is now available both in print version and on
web.
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