Pedagogy: Group Projects

[rockwood]

This afternoon's preparation for a group microteaching (essentially, teaching a very short lesson in order to practice teaching at all) tomorrow evening went very well; it seems we have most things down, we're within the proper time frame, and I have the Powerpoint saved in multiple locations just in case technology strikes.

However, thinking about this assignment has got me thinking about group projects in general. From a purely personal viewpoint, they're definitely not my favorite teaching method; coordinating with other people is a pain, the grading can feel unfair,  and presentations can be difficult to practice when they rely on audience participation.

On the other hand, from a pedagogical standpoint, most of those are potentially good things. Learning to coordinate with other people, work around scheduling conflicts, and overcome differences in learning style or level of interest are certainly valuable skills in and of themselves. Group planning, timing, and similar abilities are improved when students have to make educated guesses how long some segments will take, and errors in calculation teach them to modify and revise on the fly. Even having student grades 'unfairly' linked to their group-mates can teach responsibility, management, and leadership.

Of course, if a group is too unwieldy or ill-prepared to face these issues, all that results is frustration and failure, for which the teacher is at fault. Rather than letting that happen, perhaps by starting out too heavy on the project side of things, the teacher can start out simpler: assign small groups that have to coordinate outside of class (only two or three people each), to help them learn how to schedule and manage their time properly; or start with larger groups that meet solely during class time, so they can work on interpersonal and group skills rather than time management. If possible, assigning both individual and group grades may be initially helpful, so that students can see how their personal performance affected the overall result, and moving to pure group assessment will the be less of a shocker.

On my personal list of pedagogical theories, group projects rate somewhere in the middle: they may take more time than their content is worth, but the learning they allow extends beyond the content area. I would save big group projects primarily for sophomore or junior level students, introduce the freshmen to the concept with smaller projects, and then keep a few truly complex or involved projects for the senior level students, giving them a chance to really take over and co-teach for a lesson.

Blessed be,
~Nathan

Comments

[j00j.livejournal.com]

Group work has its place... My current field is extremely fond of it, and it's fortunate that in grad school the only real difficulty with it is scheduling (but then, I'm in a field that's generally known for being cooperative and helpful). That being said, my most valuable experiences of group learning have been in settings other than producing a standard sort of class project. The first experience was study groups in high school and college-- in a subject with really challenging material (accellerated chemistry/physics in high school, and linguistics in college), it's helpful to have more than one brain working on problems and making sense of the material-- people help each other. The other experience was a class project with a practical application-- we built a small computer lab for a nonprofit. A single person can't easily do that, certainly not in the amount of time we had. Plus again, more people for troubleshooting= better. But the standard group projects people do earlier in schooling do lay the foundations for this kind of teamwork. These are my current thoughts as a student, anyway.

[garrettplc.livejournal.com]

When you say "But the standard group projects people do earlier in schooling do lay the foundations for this kind of teamwork," that's exactly what I'm thinking should happen. As a highschool teacher, I'd be wanting to target these projects in order to foster a basic set of teamwork skills.

Not that everyone needs help to develop them; but if you start at the beginning with highschool freshmen, the ones who already 'get' academic teamwork will be learning the content, while the others get brought up to speed. Hopefully in time for college, where they (ideally) are spending more time on useful or interesting content, and are assisted by already having the skills down pat.

[corduroybard.livejournal.com]

Speaking personally group projects can be fun if they're administered correctly. That said, no student should ever be beholden for the inability, incompetence, etc. of their group mates, especially since they have no power to choose their groups. If given such power, those with fewer friends in the class will be left holding the bag. A student must be graded on only that which they have the power to control. At the most basic level they can't compel their group mates to action, which often leaves the group stranded by one slacker. I've been in that situation many times, it's no fun. Individual grades are better as offered as part of a group schematic. Give each student a piece and grade them only for their piece. Provide for cooperation by making teamwork a part of each student's piece. In this way, if they do all they can to make the project work including trying to get their slacker group mate(s) motivated, they are still deserving of an A.

[garrettplc.livejournal.com]

As a student, I pretty much agree with you---I always hate having to let one person ruin group presentation grade.

However, as a pedagogical practice, I can see the point. You want to make sure that the students know they are (and will be in the future) sometimes responsible for motivating or compelling their peers, and that they can sometimes be judged by what someone else does. Obviously, you don't want to put their overall grade at risk in such a manner, but you do want both the diligent students and the slackers to feel like they need to improve in their coordination if the group receives a low mark as a whole.

The simple solution there is, when you're teaching this kind of practice, assign two or three group projects over the course of the marking period. Then just have them total to 5% or 10% of their overall score for that marking period. Students won't be able to lose much overall, but will still get the solid feedback the graded project provides.

And, if you want to make sure they receive more individual motivation, you can make personal grade components from the group projects worth more: say, 10% to 15% of their overall grade, based entirely on their own contributions to the project.

Unfortunately, it can be difficult to determine who did what or contributed how much, but if you have them meet during classtime or provide along-the-way assessments (like status reviews they have to turn in at certain time), at least you'll have something to judge by. And, of course, then you can change groups to make sure that you group (for example) one slacker with two motivated students, or put a group of slackers together so they have to start building some leadership and initiative.

[corduroybard.livejournal.com]

This doesn't answer a simple problem too oft encountered. A student who simply doesn't care. They may not like your class, may have formulated a minimum grade they need to make it, etc. At any rate you are punishing the students who may work because the other will not. From a pedagogical stand point, teaching to the ways of reality has its place. However as these grades are needed in order to secure a good level of continued education, their administering must be fair to each individual. Students in a group have no power to compel a group mate who says no. They can ask/plead/entreat but if that doesn't work they're boned and it's not their fault. Penalizing them in this situation teaches a lesson that their education isn't really in their hands but yours. The student doesn't see that they had the power to alter the outcome and as such can lose motivation. From a pedagogical standpoint, I can't see any advantage to such a course.

[garrettplc.livejournal.com]

It's very true that a student who feels powerless is likely to lose motivation; however, the issue then is that it's the teacher's job to ensure that they retain control.

For example, it doesn't have to be true that a single slacker can force the rest of the group to carry them or fail (or do worse, at least). The teacher can be sure to hold each student accountable for learning the group material, or for turning in separate components that they work on in a group; that way, the component grades can allow a teacher to see where a problem lies.

An effective teacher will perform these checks frequently over the course of a project; they can even have students perform peer evaluations of their group members, or record who does what work at what times. When a problem comes to light in these daily check-ups, the teacher can then speak with the student causing the issue; if they can be redirected to the task, the group has an opportunity to learn social and leadership skills. If they remain intentionally obstructive, the teacher can remove them from the group temporarily (or permanently) and provide individual counseling or similar.

An IN-effective teacher might let the situation run its course, and thus leave students powerless, but by combining group interdependence with individual evaluation (and possibly that peer evaluation I mentioned), the teacher can empower students to solve their own problems (vital to their feelings of efficacy; basically, their ability to control their own fate) and also monitor & adjust using their own authority when needed.

So, yes, you're right that it can teach exactly the wrong lesson if mishandled. And, unfortunately, a lot of teachers aren't effective teachers. As I'm doing my homework and studying for this Masters, I'm finding more and more about what the teachers I had in highschool and college did WRONG :-P However, things like this discussion are a good way to work out solutions to those problems. An effective teacher can counter them by planning ahead and adjusting in response to frequent evaluations.

Of course, the more frequent the evaluations, the greater the strain on the teacher's time and energy. A chapter I just read on the subject of cooperative group learning suggests that finding a workable balance between individual and group assignments within a project group can be the key to both managing time effectively, and also keeping everyone on-task and successful. Finding that balance, though, is something that requires effort and experience on the part of the teacher, as well as a knowledge of the students at hand. As a result, I like that chapter's suggestion to start students off working in pairs. This gives them the opportunity to learn group work skills (social, explaining, and leadership skills, as the book terms them), and gives the teacher some time to evaluate the temperament and habits of his class.

[corduroybard.livejournal.com]

You also should be concerned about the social dynamic that exists for students quite separate from your class. If you ask students to peer review (in essence to judge one another's performance) how will this be affected by outside social factors? No one wants to be a tattle tail or teacher's pet, or just plain unlikable. Setting aside the validity of the labels I believe we can recognize that they exist. While grades can motivate them to drop the hammer on a bad worker, the effect on the social dynamic must be considered. Depending on the stage of development it can be very important to promote a harmony among the student body and while actions that promote enlightened discussion are good, actions that may lead to grudges or ostracizing are not. Too often I believe teachers try to take a moral high road in ignoring the existence of a complex social hierarchy. Teachers actions should promote the dissolution of such separations. As much as possible teachers must avoid actions that could easily create ill will between classmates.

[garrettplc.livejournal.com]

Granted, but then, perhaps, teachers could incorporate a 'non-judgmental' form of peer review, as a way of teaching students how to give constructive criticism and positive feedback.

In which case it wouldn't serve the same purpose I'd originally suggested, but it would still use this opportunity to teach something useful. I'd go with: students conduct peer review by writing comments or suggestions for their group members. The teacher then grades each student (probably in a 'check-minus, check, or check-plus' simple scheme for whether or not they did it at all) based on the comments they GAVE, not on the comments they received, and gives the students feedback about the feedback they left...if you get my drift :-)

New Friend

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

I've been enjoying our conversation over on teaching so I added you to my Friends list and dropped by here to browse.

I'm intrigued to discover that you contributed to the Serenity game; that's one I've considered trying.

As for group projects, they can work beautifully if all the students on a team are equally motivated and capable of doing the work. Otherwise, the best student or the one most determined to get a good grade winds up doing most or all of the work for people who don't care or can't perform. That may be an accurate prediction of the real-life work environment, but it tends to generate very unhealthy work habits and negative emotions.

Re: New Friend

[garrettplc.livejournal.com]

Likewise, so I friended you back :-)

You and corduroybard do have a point there. And the reading I've been doing for my Classroom Management and Effective Discipline class spends a fair amount of time on the subject; the textbook we're using suggests that one of the likliest solutions is to have the group work together, but to assess each individual separately (at least to some extent), so that group members can provide support for each other, but aren't actually beholden to one another for their grades.

And re: Serenity, that was the first publication I was involved in---quite exciting! However, the actual game system has been revised extensively in more recent books by the same publisher, and the generic core book is almost out; just FYI. The Serenity book is great for ideas and setting material (and does work fine in terms of the game), but if you want the most current version of the rules, the Cortex Core Rulebook should have enough in it to run a Serenity themed game on its own.

Re: New Friend

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

Some other thoughts:

Ask students about their prior experience with group work. If they're good at it and enjoy it, you should have few problems. If they hate it, find out why: a likely reason is they were never taught teamwork, just thrown together and told to do it. So consider teaching how to organize and assemble a group project effectively, and monitor the progress so you can respond if they start making mistakes.

Giving individual grades is a good idea.

I'll keep an eye out for the core rulebook as well as the Serenity book.

Re: New Friend

[garrettplc.livejournal.com]

Oh, definitely; I'd never consider seriously engaging in a group-work project unless I'd taught (or at least reviewed) the necessary skills. The first half of this week's reading was on teaching social skills, explaining skills, and leadership skills, in order to establish good teamwork abilities; suggestions included a six-week lesson plan for the beginning of the year, where you cover and reinforce one major skill every week (such as active listening, peer review, etc).

Which sounds like common sense, but hey---I can definitely remember a lot of my past teachers who never bothered to try and teach us those skills! No wonder it's something the Master's program hits on so thoroughly.

Re: New Friend

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

It's good to see some people focusing on actually teaching teamwork skills.

Re: New Friend

[corduroybard.livejournal.com]

Definitely team building for the win! As much of a focus should be on building a better team as what the team is trying to accomplish. Also the point previous about individual assessment for cooperative efforts was what I'd been driving at, though I may have stated it too vaguely.