This article first appeared in the Teaching Professor on November 25, 2019. © Magna Publications. All rights reserved. When students learn there will be group work in a course, they often let up a collective groan. Group work tends to leave a bad taste in students’ mouths due to their lack of understanding of group dynamics. If […]

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There is abundant evidence that having students work in groups improves educational outcomes (R. E. Slavin, 1987; Springer, Donovan, and Stanne, 1999; R. Slavin, 1996; Strobel and Van Barneveld, 2009).  The benefits include improved academic, cognitive, and social skills, as well as deeper learning.  Group work has become accepted as beneficial to the point where […]

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A year after being thrust into virtual learning, professors and students agree online learning and Zoom classes are workable, but it is just not the same as in-person learning. The benefits of online learning are well-established in research, but what is often lost are those in-class collaboration opportunities (whether carefully constructed or impromptu) where new […]

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For most of us, the fall 2020 semester required a major shift in how we do our job as faculty members. We had to come up with new ways to teach classes, conduct our research, and serve our institutions and professional organizations. Additionally, the need to create accessible and inclusive online or hybrid courses probably […]

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I would like to begin with one of the age-old dilemmas facing instructors.  We all probably concur that teamwork is a key skill needed in our professional and personal lives, and that students can learn differently by collaborating within teams.  Yet freeriding is often rife within group projects, leaving lasting scars on group members.  My […]

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With PhD in hand, I joined the academy without any real teaching training.  As I sought to establish my teaching routine and define my teaching philosophy, I found an author who provided useful guidance: James M. Lang in his first book Life on the Tenure Track: Lessons from the First Year (Lang 2005).  Lang captured […]

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Higher education has recently changed in faster and more dynamic ways than anticipated. COVID-19 is an immediate factor, but the access to information is more prevalent now than 15 years ago. Many students’ learning habits do not include long nights in the library reading through textbooks or searching through library stacks. Information is at students’ […]

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I recently revisited something I’ve always considered a great resource. It originally appeared in a 1992 issue of the Teaching Professor and was published then as a Study Group Member’s Bill of Rights. It outlined what individuals had the right to expect when they participated in study groups. Students not only have rights, they also […]

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Participating in team projects offers students the chance to develop interpersonal communication skills (Figueira & Leal, 2013), build relationships with classmates, and increase the level of collective competencies as each group member brings something different to the group. However, in the online environment where the majority of the work occurs asynchronously, students may resist having […]

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The idea for sharing this post came from a session I recently conducted at the annual teaching conference organized by my university. A pedagogical conundrum was raised by a colleague whose enthusiasm and question stayed with me and inspired me to write this post. The question posed by this colleague is relevant to all instructors who have ever used group work to assess their students: How should one deal with the issues that arise when members of a group are not picking up their share of the responsibilities during a group work project?

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