Group work

[liv]

I'm on a mission to redeem group work in education. I expect this to be controversial among many of my friends. So if I'm right and lots of you have terrible memories / experiences of being made to do bad group work, I invite you to comment here and tell me what was bad about it. Do you think it's just awful, or are there problems that might be fixed? I believe strongly that while it can be dire, it can also be great, or perhaps I might phrase it as, there are things that look like group work superficially but are actually great.

Because I'm on a mission this may turn into a more formal research survey at some point, but in that case I'll pose the question in a formal context with ethics and everything. Right now I'm just trying to gather some opinions and not just rely on my own ideas. Plus I am eye-deep in paperwork and I could do with some distraction, so do rant away.

Comments

[melannen]

The thing is, that is actually an example of well-done groupwork and coordination! You discussed as a group to come up with a plan that worked for everybody, you divided the work effectively, everybody did their assigned share, it all came together. From the lofty heights of a person who has a real grown-up office job(ish) and hasn't even been fired yet, nearly all of the "team" assignments I have done for pay have worked like that. Deliberately.

It's just that if you don't ever get taught what good groupwork *is*, that feels like cheating, because it's so much easier than the dysfunctional version and you don't have to actually talk to each other much. And if you all come out of it thinking you cheated, it's still not doing a very good job at teaching groupwork.

[azurelunatic]

My experience of groupwork in an office context has had a lot more items with interconnecting dependencies being done by different people, and wrangling of those. For example, you can't print the name badges for the conference until you get the artwork from Group A, and the list of names from Group B. Group B will need the name badges in order to prepare the packets. Group C has to approve the artwork, and Group B has to chase down all the managers from other departments to get their list of attendees. And so forth.

... I hear that this role is called something like "project management", isn't it.