Effective Design and Management for Group Projects in Online Courses

Welcome to Ed Tech Du Jour.

Today I'm speaking with
James Bryan Smith

about how group work relates to
student-to-student engagement,

and the overall success of course design.

So, why do so many people
dislike group work?

I know that when I was a participant
in that, I had a lot of anxiety,

and I always feared that I'd get
that one person in my group

who'd be the loser, or who
wouldn't participate.

And then I was also worried
about getting a group grade,

and not being recognized for
my individual contributions.

So, today we want to think about why
students should learn in groups,

and how that benefits them,

and how they can collaborate
towards group achievements.

And we know that group work is

an essential skill to develop
for the workforce,

because in the real world,
you collaborate on projects,

and students tend to feel
invested in a class environment,

when they know the
purpose of the group work,

and they believe in the purpose.

And James, how do you coach students
to success in your group projects?

Well, I've found in my
experience that an essential place

to begin with is looking at learning
styles and personality types.

Now, there's a variety of resources you
can go to that address personality types,

such as the color-code
personality type;

but a tried-and-true one is the
Myers Briggs for Jung typology.

And these are general orientations
that might guide us to know

what roles we'd be most successful
in working collaboratively.

So a general orientation, as we all
know, is extraversion or introversion.

And that is, essentially, am I
externally oriented, socially speaking;

or do I prefer to work on
my own study independently.

Now, how do we learn
or obtain information?

This is either "sensing" or "intuition."

And sensing is all about the five senses,
and we acquire information that way.

Whereas intuition is more concerned
with abstract possibilities,

and connecting seemingly
unrelated pieces of information.

But more importantly for group work
is, how do we make decisions?

Do we do it scientifically and rationally?

This would be the thinking orientation;

or, is it more about independently
understanding people,

and the feelings associated?

Additionally, what is our
communication orientation?

Now, most often in group work
and collaborative assignments,

you're going to find yourself using two
different kinds of communication styles:

both transactional and
transformational.

Transactional is content-oriented.

What is the information?

What are the concepts that
we're trying to convey here?

And likewise, transformational

is more concerned with the people and
processes involved in the projects.

So, after addressing some of
these personality types,

I like to break the project
down into phases.

And actually, Melissa, didn't Faculty
Focus publish an article on this?

[Melissa]: Yes, it was good timing,
since we were planning this discussion.

Dr. Hong wrote an article about students
riding coattails during group work,

and five steps to avoid that problem.

And the first thing she describes is to
design the project with the students

to work in phases, and require that
students check in at various points.

instead of just assigning it;
hoping everyone's on track.

Also, allowing the students the freedom
to choose topics that interest them.

So maybe we've talked
about this before;

not prescribing 100% what
each step of the project is,

but allowing them some
freedom with choices.

Third, ask the students to submit a reflection

on his or her portion of the group work;

maybe the process and the product.

Allowing students to get to know
each other and establish group norms.

And really, for them to understand
what the big picture is;

clearly identify the roles; design
effective group work activities;

and then, help them understand
why it's meaningful,

and create action plans for success.

And focusing on
achievement-based outcomes.

What is the product or
the service proposal,

as opposed to just focusing
on the presentation?

And we've talked about this before;

it's helpful for students to understand
it's not all about the presentation.

It's about the work and the process
and what you're developing;

and the teamwork is the goal
instead of the presentation.

And James, in your courses, how do you
prepare students to work well together?

Well, going off of what I
mentioned earlier about the

personality types and figuring out
what are the best group rules

for each individual
participating collaboratively;

I typically start out with a small lecture,

or a small
getting-to-know-each-other section.

And in this phase, what we would do
is we would look at the five stages

of team development, as first
introduced by Tuckman,

and later amended by Mary Ann
Jensen back in the '70s.

So, the first stage when forming
a group is just that: it's forming.

And this is about our orientation:
orientation to the tasks at hand,

and orientation to the personalities
making up the group itself.

The next stage that we would
move into is storming.

And this is typically characterized
by conflict competition.

Overall discomfort;
getting to know one another;

figuring out how best we can work
with each other among a group.

This leads naturally into the
third stage, which is norming.

And this is where we cohere as a
group—or fail to cohere as a group.

So it's about establishing these rules;
establishing norms within the group;

understanding how
we're going to function;

the processes by which
we're going to execute

whatever our collaborative tasks are.

And then, stage four is just that:
it's the execution stage.

This is where we perform the group work;
where we have our meetings;

where we've moved past brainstorming
and we have actionable agendas,

and we begin working towards whatever
the end result or outcome desired is.

Now, the last stage, again, introduced by
Mary Ann Jensen in '77 is a journey.

A lot of times, depending on the
duration of the group work,

or the project that we're working on, this
can very frequently be a difficult stage,

because we have to separate as a group.

This is when analysis of our
performance would step in;

this would be assuming our
typical day-to-day activities

working independently of each other.

And as you can see by the slide here,
there are certain characteristics

that inform each of these five phases
or stages of working within a group.

And I like to orient students into
group work by kind of going over this

and letting them work through
these stages together.

I was gonna say, it's a great
skill to acquire for the workforce,

and we keep taking it back
to, how is this relevant?

Because in a work environment,
no matter where you work,

there are people that your
personality's different.

Some people you like better than others.

You have to figure out,
how can you not only get along,

but how you can be productive
in that environment together?

Absolutely.
Um, and I'm curious, Melissa,

how do you organize, track, and
altogether grade and assess

your students' group work
and collaborative assignments?

Well, as you can
see from these slides,

there are many forms of technology

that can show you the footprints of
student involvement and organization.

So, Padlet is a good one; Lino; and
I think of those as like sticky notes.

So the group gets together;
and this isn't a presentation;

this is just their brainstorming.

I can see if you're a student
who's just saying, "Great idea,"

or if you're really contributing
something to the discussion.

Also, Google Docs. We know that most
people are very familiar with that.

And that is a really transparent
way to organize information,

and to look for student involvement.

And then I use the LMS
to randomize groups.

I think it's really important
to incorporate technology,

but not to let that be the focus.

A lot of students get lost in, "Well, I don't
know how to do a Prezi or a PowerPoint."

And then again, they're losing focus
on the product or the process.

And also, I encourage people
not to grade as a group.

Instead, assess individual contributions.

And I think you can do this easily
when you have a rubric.

Or maybe... just like he might do an
introduction video for your course,

to do a video to help students really
know what you're looking for,

and what the learning outcomes are.

And sometimes when
they hear you say it,

they're not as nervous as reading it
in black and white and figuring out,

"Oh, what did they mean by that?"

So, you can see that most LMS says you
can embed and record a presentation.

So, again, it's not really about
if you're using Canvas

or Moodle Designer to learn Blackboard.

And one example where I've seen:

A professor that I worked with, Dr. Chris
Amos, at University of West Florida.

He was very successful in using
Collaborate and Illuminate

for his students to present
their group projects.

And it was a curriculum course.
And he had each group.

They were randomized in Blackboard,
and then they were assigned groups;

and they had to define their own roles.

So they define their roles, and then
they chunked the information.

They decided how they would present
and put together the PowerPoint;

and they archived it in Illuminate.

And then each group went in,

and they reviewed and assessed the
other groups and gave feedback;

and they were also able to reflect on
their own process and product.

The great thing with that example, is that
when each student left the course,

they had PowerPoints on each
concept from each chapter

that they could actually
use going forward.

So, as you can see,
there are a lot of examples.

There's research; there's resources
and tools that can help you

design and deliver effective
online group projects.

And we hope that some of
these tips were helpful today.

[musical outro]