Students work togetehr in a team work situation is important. They need to learn how to work with others despite age, cultural and experience differences, as it is in the real world.
Being professional and focussing on the desired outcome brings the group closer and the result nearer.
Challenges is to get them pick member on their groups, I experienced to put them in the group and the middle of the production they want to move to other group becaused they realized he.she dont want to be told what to do.
Well, so I made them choose their own group on the beginning to give them freedom to whom they want to work with, also to prevent of conflict and reason for them to get out of the group they choose to.
So far it work for me. Just contant monitoring needed to assured the student is all learning togethe, ratehr than few student doing all the job and "Team work" is really not a Team effort.
Somehow they all experience to be hard to deal with multiple personality but they have no choise only to work as team to get eh job done effeciently and effectively.
You must be moving around the room and involing yourself in each group's conversaton. This will make sure that everyone stays on track.
Thanks for your comments Abundio! I like your approach; by walking around, you are showing support and interest in the team members' activities and are making it easier for them to approach you. Additionally, by getting into their team learning space, it demonstrates that you are connected and can help guide them in their communication processes.
Jay Hollowell
ED106 Facilitator
I would say student Team Work. I found many student hesitate to speak in front of the class, even voice their opinion about the subject matter.
Well, I start walking around and monitor their group task and help and guide them to all question they may have. So far its the best approach and wok for me. Most specially the student start building their self-steam and start participating avtively in their group task.
Hi John! Thanks so much for your comments: I am glad that some applications in ED106 are helpful! I too have worked with short teaching time frames and found that integrating a few brief, on-point activities right into the presentation helps to maximize skill acquisition without taking a lot of time.
As a side note, you may have received a forum repsonse from me in error regarding working with silence when no student volunteers an answer to a question. Let me apologize, I mixed up two different forum responses, perhaps it might be helpful anyway. Thanks again!!
Jay
ED106
Jay, To me the most significant challenges are the short time allotted to the group activities in our school. We work on a 3 week rotation, so the students and the faculty just barely have time to get to know one another. Despite this, we do work with learning groups on certain projects to good effect.
From a teaching method standpoint, I found the suggestions in the module to be helpful, particularly the technique of walking around the room and engaging each of the students, as well as the groups. John Eliassen
Hi Rob! These are all excellent observations and you're right about the challenges, particularly the student who may dominate the group and the student who does not make any significant contribution or carrry his or her weight in group effort.
I have found, as you referenced, that helping the group to establish clear ground rules about the roles and responsibilities of team members, plus making sure that your expectations of tasks, learning objectives and outcomes are also clearly communicated, help in the process. Sometimes a dominant personality needs to be privately and professionally reminded that other group members must have a chance to contribute and express their thoughts and opinions. Usually, a group leader will surface (if you haven't assigned one) where the rest of the group defers a great deal of direction; when this happens, I have often had to remind the leader that "shared leadership" is important - in other words, another member of the group may very well assume the leadership role, even temporarily, because of their particular experience with, or knowledge about, the topic at hand.
For those who are not contributing, often peer pressure affects a result, but the instructor may have to approach those participants privately about the level of their contributions. Many instructors, when evaluating group work, provide both an individual grade and group grade, based on a percentage, to help balance the result. Some instructors use rubrics where how a student interacts with the group and how much he or she carries responsibilities are part of the evaluation process. Personally, I have stayed away from group members themselves evaluating each other due to differences in personalities, etc.
As to your question about the student who simply does not want to work on the team, of course the workplace values and requires teamwork, yet the student who prefers to work alone may not be purposely causing a challenge, or even a personality conflict with the others, it may simply be a preferred learning/working style. Some people just prefer to work alone and, even if made to work in a group, will not be effective. If this person is pulling the group down though, then the instructor's intervention through a private conversation with that student may be necessary. Otherwise, that student might consider completing a part of the project independently, then offering it to the group for review, or perhaps reidentifying that student's role might help - for example, students who do not like to work in groups are not good contributors, but they may be excellent in other functions such as recorders of group activities, summarizers of group efforts or pulling group work together for the final product. I might suggest collaborating with that student about what he or she could best offer the group under the circumstances, but not push the student to participate. Hope this helps.
Thanks again for your valued comments!
Jay Hollowell
ED106 Facilitator
Good response Phillip. All your points are good and your last point about helping the student see that "the process is the education" helps to answer my question about how to handle the student who wants to work alone.
The best outcome for a learning group occurs when students learn from each other and benefit from each other's knowledge and experience.
There are two big challenges. The worst is when one person dominates the project and/or doesn't trust or approve of the other members work. The second big challenge is when a student fails to contribute his or her part on schedule.
When it's an IT project, it helps to create an outline of the project, and to plan projects that can be easily divided among the members. It also helps to have the group meet together in class and plan what each member is going to accomplish by the next class meeting.
It also helps to have an online group discussion forum where the students communicate with each other and to require them to use it to ask and answer questions and to submit group work. This helps everybody in the group stay informed and it helps the instructor observe the group dynamics.
Another big challenge that I am unsure about is when a student really struggles with group membership and requests to work alone. If the student is making the project difficult for everybody, should I allow it for the sake of the other members?
It makes every student accountable in some form if the groups function correctly. Every person in the group must have a valid responsiblity that the group depends on. The most significat challenge would be the student that wants to take charge and be the hero by producing the most or best outcome. Or it could be the student that hates to work in groups and would much prefer to work alone.
By monitoring the class when they are working in groups and intervening when either of the above situations occur. this should help reduce the challenge of these two personallity types.
You must walk around the room and be aware of each group.
The most significant outcomes are usually directly linked to the most significant challenges and that is simply not having full control over the decisions made.
I have found that students have a hard time with this in the best of situations and that is rare.
Students realize that they are a part of a team and by being a part of a team they can only influence some decisions but may not be able to change them.
This in my opinion is where the rubber meats the road. By being a part of a team they can help to see a process through however they are not the only one to consider and may not always get the outcomes they wish.
Mature individuals realize sometimes that you can influence an outcome more by sustain than by force, also mature students will come to realize and hopefully learn that in a group dynamic you need to fight the battles worth fighting and let the rest go... in the end all things will find resolve.
This is an exercise in self awareness that not all students get, but in my opinion is the best method of teaching.
Instuctors need to help students through the process by helping them to see that the process is the education.
Thanks for you comments, Raymond!
It's interesting that the two things work together. When the instructor roams around and facilitates the overall group learning process, the participants tend to further bond and work toward, as you said, the common goal.
Jay Hollowell
ED106 Facilitator
1-bonding of students and learning to work together to acheive a common end result.
2-monitering the class, roam around and pose questions to the individuals within the group, attempt to get a concensus of opinions relative the subject at hand
the biggest challenge is getting the right mix in the group. to keep them on course, ask the leader to give you feed back and watch the interaction.
Hi Brian, thanks for your observations, it's true that conflict, often from petty differences, arises quickly. Then, group members tend to take on different roles and a consensus can develop as to the group's ground rules. There may be members though that instigate conflict; peer pressure can work to keep that in check; it also requires monitoring by the instructor.
Jay
ED106
I think one of the significant outcomes to using student learning groups is each member feels they are contributing to the success of their team. An important challenge is trying to get students to put the petty differences on the back burner to achieve the learning group's goals.
A few significant outcomes to using student learning groups in the class are that it enables the students to approach a problem using multiple view points of the same solution. It also allows people to problem solve in diversity and come to some common ground when there is no correct answer.
A significant challenge to using student learning groups in the class is that it is difficult to give individual credit when other group members may or may not have contributed equally to the solution.
Transparency in assessment is always a key method to my learning strategies as well as total engagement with each group. I also like to have other groups participate in the evaluation process so they too can learn from the experience
Sometimes the most significant challenge is also the most significant outcome. I usually try to mix some very good students along with slower or more challenged students. When insecure students get into a smaller group setting, they are encouraged to be productive and forthcoming with contributions because interacting with a smaller number is much less threatening than speaking up in a large class environment. Thus they achieve success by becoming more comfortable and confident within these surroundings and small successes lead to more confidence and more involvement.
when grouping up students, sometimes the project at hand is more advanced than the learners ability, yet they must learn it. that is the biggest chalenge in my technical teaching.
