Group Work
Increasingly, groups have taken over the workplace. So, it is useful for you to start now at UNCW learning how to work with your classmates to produce a joint product. From a teaching point of view, group work gets students to become their own teachers, the beginning of developing an important life-long skill.
If it seems to you that you've done all the work in every group project you've ever been a part of, that may well be the case. It's also irrelevant.
In the real world, it will be vital that you learn to produce group work and that you work together responsibly and professionally.
In the conduct of any group work for my classes, group members should imagine the instructor as their boss. Group meltdowns reflect on the professionalism of ALL group members. What would your boss think of your comportment and final product? That is how your grade will be determined.
Also, all group members are responsible for the entirety of the group's product. The student reaction to a group project is "let's divide the work." That usually means disjointed sections hastily pasted together and typos and syntax errors in parts. This sloppy work will be reflected in all group members' grades. Dividing the work and only coming together the night before (or, gasp, the morning of) to paste together disjointed sections deprives you of the best part of group work, the ability to think and brainstorm together and to push yourselves to a higher level in the quality of your work product.
Group work often has plusses (less writing to produce a group paper), but it also has minuses (managing different commitments, abilities, and personalities). To be successful at group work, you must make a success of both the plusses and the minuses.
Keys to working well in groups are:
Updated: November 21, 2011.