Welcome to SMIRK Unit
1 - Group work

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SMIRK - Groupwork by Trans:it, modified by Marion Kelt, Glasgow Caledonian University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at http://www.transitwestyorkshire.ac.uk/transit/students/6-group-work/. .

Group work

social networkAt GCU we expect you to work with other students in small groups. Group work can be an interesting and enjoyable experience. However, to make it positive, you need to think about the process in advance.You will be expected to work with other students on collaborative projects that will be assessed and will contribute to your overall course marks. Different types of group activity will require different skills. LearnHigher give the following examples:

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SMIRK - Groupwork by Trans:it, modified by Marion Kelt, Glasgow Caledonian University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at http://www.transitwestyorkshire.ac.uk/transit/students/6-group-work/

Ground rules

seated group of peopleMost students have had experience of being a member of a group before they come to university, including family, employment and social groups.
Every group of people will begin to form its own ground rules and ways of working together. The roles of people in these groups can be formal and made explicit - complete with titles, like ‘team leader’; or the roles that people play may be informal and accepted as ‘natural’. For example, the role of an older family member may be implicitly acknowledged and accepted by others without question – because that’s the way it is!

So group work at university will bring with it a mixture of the unfamiliar with the familiar; familiar, in that it is yet another social situation to be negotiated and navigated. But unfamiliar too, in that the 'rules of the game' are unknown, and that the student's previous education experience may not have included much opportunity to work closely with a group of culturally diverse strangers - for assessment purposes.

Group work presents an opportunity to:

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SMIRK - Groupwork by Trans:it, modified by Marion Kelt, Glasgow Caledonian University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at http://www.transitwestyorkshire.ac.uk/transit/students/6-group-work/

Challenges

woman workerHowever, group work - particularly when assessment is involved - also presents a challenge. It can be a very new experience for many students, so they may not know what is expected of them and so do not gain from the group, or contribute to it, as much as they could.

Exercise:
Imagine you have joined a group of relative strangers to work on a collaborative project that will be judged and assessed by others. There are ten of you. From the start things go badly wrong - and get worse! Group members fail to get on with each other and fail to work together successfully on the project. So, what would cause this to happen?

Try and separate out the reasons into two types:

  1. Process related reasons (the procedures for running the group don’t work). An example: There are no ‘ground rules’ agreed, on, for example, when, where and how often the group will meet
  2. People related reasons (there are problems among the group members themselves). An example: One or two people try to dominate the others

Think of as many reasons as you can.

Key points

  • Assessed group work contributes to your overall course marks.
  • It is a good way of meeting other people from different social and cultural backgrounds.
  • It can be a challenging experience, but it helps to know in advance what problems might occur so you can be ready to deal with them.

Many problems in groups stem from the individual members themselves. Specific problems, particularly talking too much – or not at all - often arise from anxiety and misunderstanding.  But we all have strengths to contribute to the success of any group – and weaknesses that we need to be aware of. 

It may help to consider the personality types of the group members. A useful guide to the Myers-Briggs personality test is available in Unit 2 of the TransIT site. You can use it for self assessment and reflection.

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Creative Commons Licence
SMIRK - Groupwork by Trans:it, modified by Marion Kelt, Glasgow Caledonian University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at http://www.transitwestyorkshire.ac.uk/transit/students/6-group-work/

 

Presentations

An important part of group work is giving a group presentation of project findings.  Your group is likely to be given a task to carry out research, and then to give a presentation of your findings. 

This might be a presentation to fellow students, or to a small group of assessors, usually tutors.  As the presentation is assigned a mark by tutors, it goes towards the overall marks of individual students – an individual is part of a group; and the group marks affect the individual.

Although you are part of a group, you will have an individual role to play in the presentation, and you would normally negotiate this role with other group members in advance.

So this section is about what makes an effective presentation. This knowledge can help you in other spheres of life - making a speech at a wedding, or other occasion, so read on…

Good anstard Bad Presentationsthumbs down

Think about presentations you have seen or heard in the past. What were the elements of both good and poor presentations? Think about this, perhaps discuss it with a group.  

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SMIRK - Groupwork by Trans:it, modified by Marion Kelt, Glasgow Caledonian University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at http://www.transitwestyorkshire.ac.uk/transit/students/6-group-work/

The information you
present

For assessment purposes, a group presentation will involve all the group, with someone introducing and concluding the presentation, and individual members each presenting a part of it. You can present information in a variety of ways, but the most popular and effective tend to be by using:presenter

Whichever medium for presentation you use:

The Communicating Information module has more detailed hints and tips on presentations and how to manage your nerves.

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SMIRK - Groupwork by Trans:it, modified by Marion Kelt, Glasgow Caledonian University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at http://www.transitwestyorkshire.ac.uk/transit/students/6-group-work/

Managing conflict

peaceWe have already considered what conflicts can arise in a group. We will now look at ways of identifying and managing group conflicts.

To make this as realistic as possible, you need to look at a video made by the Universities of Bradford, Brunel and Leeds for the LearnHigher HE network. The film shows a group of students who have never worked together before as a group who are asked to prepare a presentation based on the following question:

“What are the barriers to effective learning, and how can they be overcome?”

The assessment for the presentation is based on how well they can give a presentation that addresses this question. Individual group members are also asked for a self-assessment of how well they thought they contributed to the outcome, as well as their assessment on the contributions made by other team members.

Before you watch the film:

Each episode is in stages:

When you have watched the film, it can be helpful to review some of the key points from it, by answering the following questions:

What examples do you remember of?

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SMIRK - Groupwork by Trans:it, modified by Marion Kelt, Glasgow Caledonian University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at http://www.transitwestyorkshire.ac.uk/transit/students/6-group-work/

And finally ...

Here are some pointers from the EBE Learning Development Centre which neatly sum up the issues involved in groupwork.

Now, just do it! But remember:

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Creative Commons Licence
SMIRK - Groupwork by Trans:it, modified by Marion Kelt, Glasgow Caledonian University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at http://www.transitwestyorkshire.ac.uk/transit/students/6-group-work/