Skip to content

Strategies

 

Strategies

The following strategies can enhance the effectiveness of group work:

  • Include group work skills in the learning outcomes for the task, the course, and the program
  • Teach group process skills using the Group Work tutorial for students in RMIT’s Learning Lab Group Work
  • Assess skills related to both the group work process and the product, and include these skills in assessment criteria.

Issues related to group work

Learning and teaching issues:

  • Learning outcomes often do not include skills acquired through group work, so students do not see reasons for it
  • Group process skills are generally not taught, yet students do not always have the necessary skills to run a functional group
  • Skills learned through the group process are often not assessed, so are not given value.

Student issues:

  • The process of working with others is often frustrating
  • Marking is seen as unfair - some people do no work
  • Students often do not come to meetings
  • Group work seems to lack relevance
  • Meetings are seen to be a waste of time.

Productivity issues:

Process


  • Members not contributing to the work
  • Non-attendance
  • Lack of organisation and communication.

Product


  • Lack of coherence
  • No consistent approach (structure, format, language)
  • No established point of view.

The strategies outlined above, and in the following sections, are designed to address these issues.