This article first appeared in the Teaching Professor on July 17, 2017. © Magna Publications. All rights reserved. Like many professors, I use group projects in my classes. When my students work together on a project, I’m hoping they’ll be able to accomplish complex instructional tasks and support each other’s learning on the project and in the […]

The post Taking Collaboration Seriously appeared first on Teach Strats | Higher Ed Teaching & Learning.

I teach a business writing course, and I used to dread assigning group projects. While I valued the lessons teamwork provided, those takeaways were often overshadowed by complaints over differing personalities and grading criteria. Then March 2020 hit. After a languishing year on Zoom, and once everyone was able to return safely to the classroom […]

The post From Team Charters to Reflections: Six Steps for a Successful Group Project appeared first on Teach Strats | Higher Ed Teaching & Learning.

Checking on whether my students in a recent class were understanding some thorny content, I did a quick survey and was heartened to receive engaged feedback from class participants. For this particular session, the participants included nine students, two babies, and a rambunctious puppy. Permitting such an array of “unofficial” members to join the class […]

The post Teaching with Care: Why Community is at the Heart of Successful Pedagogy appeared first on Teach Strats | Higher Ed Teaching & Learning.

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 […]

The post Another Way to Form Groups for the Active Learning Class appeared first on Teach Strats | Higher Ed Teaching & Learning.

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 […]

The post Part One of Practical Mid-Career Teaching Reflections: Early Week Classroom Activities appeared first on Teach Strats | Higher Ed Teaching & Learning.

The approach to course reading described here is not the result of some altruistic action to save students money on textbooks. Nor was it a brilliant “Aha!” moment regarding the neuroscience of learning. It was the result of an attempt to find a good old-fashioned textbook that would give students all they needed to know […]

The post What! No Textbook? appeared first on Teach Strats | Higher Ed Teaching & Learning.

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 […]

The post Rights and Responsibilities for Group Members appeared first on Teach Strats | Higher Ed Teaching & Learning.

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?

The post Students Riding on Coattails during Group Work? Five Simple Ideas to Try appeared first on Teach Strats | Higher Ed Teaching & Learning.

What’s the best way to put students into groups? It’s the first task that confronts teachers who want students to work together. And the best reply is one of those “it depends” answers. Here are the questions on which it depends.

Should teachers let students form the groups? Students often prefer this approach. They tend to pick people they know, classmates who are friends, those in the same major, and those who share the same race. It’s more comfortable working with people who are known and similar. When groups are composed of friends, they sometimes struggle with the transition to a more professional relationship. They’re used to socializing, but now there are tasks to complete and that means functioning in different roles. If the group work is a project that requires extended collaboration and will benefit from a variety of opinions and perspectives, letting students form the groups may not be the best approach. On the other hand, for short, ad-hoc group work and for students who may be shy and not used to working with peers, knowing others in the group makes the experience less intimidating.

The post A More Strategic Approach to Arranging Students into Groups appeared first on Teach Strats | Higher Ed Teaching & Learning.

Recently, in my first-year seminar class, I had an opportunity to re-think my use of group projects. I had set up the task perfectly, or so I thought. I’d anticipated all the typical group project challenges, designed solutions to those challenges, and convinced myself that the final group assignment would be smooth sailing. Except it wasn’t.

The post Why Some Students Struggle with Group Work appeared first on Teach Strats | Higher Ed Teaching & Learning.