1. How to make group work, work. Drs
How to make group work, work! Drs. Kim Fouad and Crystal Quillen CELT Presentation February 27, 2017

2. Learning Outcomes
Understand various ways to effectively assign group work.
Recognize the different ways group work is graded and determine the most effective grading strategies.

3. Discussion Outline Why do we assign group work?
How do we assign group work?
How should we grade group work?

4. Why do we assign group work?

5. Real World Significance
Promotes higher level thinking
Analysis, evaluation, problem solving
Provides an opportunity to respond to critical feedback
Employers are looking for people who work well in teams
In the work place – increases work productivity
Hansen, 2006; Wagar & Carroll, 2012

6. Student Perceptions of Group Work
Positive response
Aligned with teamwork effectiveness
Learning-by- doing approach
Negative response due to
Unclear goals
Conflict
Mismanagement
Unequal participation
Social loafing
Hansen, 2006

7. Aggarwal & O'Brien, 2008; Tomcho & Foels, 2012
Social Loafing
Develops due to:
Larger group size
Greater scope of the project
Longer duration of the project
Lack of individual accountability
Instructor-assigned groups
Aggarwal & O'Brien, 2008; Tomcho & Foels, 2012

8. How do we assign group work?

9. Choose roles Rotating Roles
Group facilitator – moderating all team discussions, keeping the group on task and looking after everybody’s share of work.
Recorder – not only summarizes group discussions but also prepares the group activities
Hernandez, 2002

10. Choose roles (con’t.) Rotating Roles
Timekeeper – reminds group of time constraints for tasks
Wildcard – fill-in when a group member is missing or however they are needed
Hernandez, 2002

11. How can we prepare students for group work?

12. Instructor contributions
Prepare students to learn in group projects.
Provide on-going support.
Increase positive attitudes about group projects.
Increase communication and better planning among group members.
Bailey et al., 2015; Eddy & D'Abate, 2016 

13. Prior to the team project:
Prior learning through practice or a pre- learning activity
Ensures adequate preparation 
Eddy & D'Abate, 2016; Tomcho & Foels, 2012  

14. Prior to the team project:
Create a team contract to discuss group behavior:
Being on time
Coming prepared
Listening to everyone
Sharing the load of work
Discuss what to do if a student breaches the contract.
Eddy & D'Abate, 2016 

15. During the team project:
Have students commit to contract:
Students abiding to the contract
Students breaching the contract
Students provide team evaluations (i.e., individual feedback to each member)
Eddy & D'Abate, 2016 

16. After the team project:
Have groups evaluate their group behavior.
Discuss changes they would make to improve group behavior.
Eddy & D'Abate, 2016 

17. How do we monitor group work?
Group accountability log/contracts
Online discussion forum
Meeting sign-up sheet
Google documents
Weekly reports
Weekly peer evaluations
Other examples???

18. How should we grade group work?

19. Percentage of course grade
How much does group work count towards the course grade?
50%?
20%?
Students with lower GPAs actually prefer a group project that counts 50% towards course grade. 
Hoffman and Rogelberg, 2001

20. Type of group work
Smaller projects –  not everything has to be graded (randomly choose)
Larger projects

21. Students as the graders (i.e., peer evaluations)
Students are not adequately trained to grade resulting in:
High grades for themselves
High grades for their peers
Implicit stereotypes may impact grading. 
Professors can only observe a small portion of work by group
Decrease social loafing and increase accountability
Increase fairness in grading
Confidential questionnaire most preferred in evaluations.
Real-world implications
Breneiser et al., 2012; Dingel & Wei, 2014; Wagar & Carroll; 2012

22. Grading the group Least preferred by students who:
Have more group grade experience
Worked full-time
Older students
High GPAs
Most preferred by students who:
Have less group grade experience
Worked part-time
Younger students
Low GPAs
Barfield, 2003; Hoffman and Rogelberg, 2001

23. Grading the individual
Based on individual effort regardless of the overall quality of the group project.
Decreases the impact that social loafing has on groupmates. 
Greater preference compared to group grading.
Hoffman and Rogelberg, 2001

24. Hybrid grading A combination of group outcome and individual effort.
Strongest preference by students
Successful with smaller group projects
Having input (i.e., student evaluation) into the group grade
Students did not prefer
Hoffman and Rogelberg, 2001; Taylor et al., 2014

25. Tips and Suggestions

26. Suggestions for Improving Group Work (Team Projects)
Emphasizing the importance and relevance of teams and teamwork
Teaching team development and teamwork skills
Conducting team-building exercises cohesive groups
Determining method of team formation
Assigning a reasonable workload and establishing clear goals
Hansen, 2006

27. Suggestions for Improving Group Work (Team Projects)
Requiring team members to have specific and assigned roles
Providing some class time for team meetings
Requiring team members to keep personal contributions file
Requesting interim reports and other feedback points
Using detailed peer evaluations as a part of grading team effort.
Hansen, 2006

28. Elements of the Most Satisfying Group Experience
All group members worked hard and together
Group members were cooperative
Group members worked well together
Team really came together
Everyone worked hard to complete the project
Everyone worked well together
Everyone worked productively and motivated each other
All group members contributed and were enthusiastic
Cooperation
Strong team leader or someone leading at all times
Organized leader
Team leader was very organized
Leadership
Working with real businesses makes it worthwhile
Relates to the real business world
Relevancy
Hansen, 2006

29. Elements of the Most Satisfying Group Experience
Having a well-defined problem and examples of how it had been solved before
Clearly defined goals
Clear Goals
All members knew what was expected of them
Had clearly defined roles
All members had their role and did their jobs
Specific Team Roles
Had deadlines and midpoint checks
Project guidelines and specific milestones
Checkpoints for progress
Set due dates throughout semester
Interim Reports or Checkpoints
Hansen, 2006