PBL and Group Work: Strategies for Success

Most assignments structured around problem-based learning methods hinge on successful group work strategies. In my experience, the notion of group projects is typically met with backlash similar to that mentioned in Dan Sherman's famous case study. Essentially, there is much eye-rolling, harumphing, and general distaste among students who seem to feel as though they are being forced into an uncomfortable situation that requires collaboration, interdependence, individual accountability, the avoidance of procrastination, and active ownership of their own learning experience. Teachers engaging in this pedagogical method need to recognize that these preconceptions, combined with the likelihood that the majority of the classes their students have taken thus far have centered on rote memorization and knowledge regurgitation via standardized testing, coalesce in the minds of their students and foster negative feelings of insecurity and doubt.

Fortunately, there exists a wealth of behind-the-scenes,instructional, and assessment methods that can counteract these preexisting problems and potentially transform the "painful" process of group work into a gratifying and rewarding learning experience.

Part One: Behind-The-Scenes Strategies

• Confront negative preconceptions about group work. Provide discussion prompts centered on the importance of collaboration skills both within and outside of academic settings. Encourage students to share positive and negative experiences they've had with group work and prompt them to suggest methods of avoiding adverse group interactions. Emphasize the positive aspects and rationalize your choice of making this project a group effort.
• Foster a sense of interdependence among group members by constructing a complex assignment prompt with requirements that necessitate collaboration and a collective effort towards a unified goal. The assignment should compel group members to depend on the diverse set of skills and knowledge possessed by each of their peers.
• Maintain structure and provide ample direction. Assist students with planning and staying on track by requiring written project proposals, schedules, and progress reports. Establish provisional due dates for each of these assignments. Encourage groups to come to you for advice on problems with collaboration, understanding the assignment prompt, and successfully executing requirements.
• Integrate brief, reflective, in-class writing assignments that enable students to assess the overall process and progress of their group project in terms of teamwork skills, conflict management, and time management. This will ideally bolster the initial idea that collaboration via group work is valuable.
• Construct groups in a manner that will heighten their chances of successful and rewarding interaction among group members. Ensure that the size of the group allows for realistic collaboration; remember that each of your student's has a schedule they must work around in order to attend meetings. Also, keep in mind that as group size increases, so does the occurrence of "free riders" (group members that contribute very little or nothing to the project). Create diverse groups of students from different cultural, linguistic, and social backgrounds. Keep the personalities of individual group members in mind. For example, avoid assembling a group comprised of one shy student and four talkative students.
• Be flexible and allow for timely adjustments in group membership if necessary. Anticipate problems and challenges groups may face and act as a mediator.

Part Two: Instructional Strategies

• Foster collaboration by allotting some class time time after the conception of the group for ice-breaker activities.
• Encourage group members to assign specific roles and have them delineate exactly what is expected out of each role. Also, encourage them to divvy up the workload early so that expectations of each member are absolutely clear. If the project is not complex enough to require this level of stratification, encourage them to, at the very least, elect a communication leader to keep everyone informed of meeting dates, times, and locations and aware of their individual duties.
• Emphasize the importance of making the most of meetings by meeting in a location conducive to productive, uninterrupted discussion and setting an agenda.
• Remind them to work with each other's strengths and weaknesses. Reiterate the fact that each group member brings a unique perspective, skill set, and body of knowledge to the table.
• Stress the importance of working toward a unified, cohesive final product, whether it be a presentation or a collaborative paper.
• Most PBL group work requires a final presentation. Direct students to resources on campus that can improve the quality of their presentation, like the Comm Lab at Virginia Tech.

Part Three: Various Assessment Methods

• Assess individual and group work. Consider basing the overall project grade on a combination of the quality of the final product and your understanding of individual effort. When the group is finished presenting and/or submitting their project, require each student to write a brief paragraph specifying roughly what each group member contributed and what they contributed. Instruct them to conclude with an overall reflection of what they learned about collaboration and what they will do differently in subsequent group projects.
• Assess process as well as product. Analyze their progress reports and the aforementioned in-class reflections closely. Include these assignments in the final group project grade.
• Require classmates to assess group presentations. Provide a handout or a survey in which the students functioning as the audience for the final presentation can assess the group based on presentation skills, effectiveness of visual aids, and clarity. This emphasizes the importance of audience awareness in the group presenting and promotes critical listening and observing skills in the audience members. It also provides audience members with an opportunity to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the presentation and consciously mimic or avoid certain aspects of it.

 Works Consulted

•    "Using Group Projects Effectively - Teaching Excellence & Educational Innovation - Carnegie Mellon University."N.p., n.d. Web. 
•  Dredger, Katie, and Sean Conaway. "Presentations." Writing at Virginia Tech: Written, Spoken, and Visual Composition. By Sheila Lorraine Carter-Tod. Boston, MA: Pearson, 2013. 352-53. Print.