Distance Learning Support Kit: Welcome

	Group work

Phone conversation: !st girl - I love group work. I learn heaps from other students. 2nd girl - Group work sucks. I didn't come to uni to learn group work.

Employers have identified team work as a crucial skill for the 21st century workplace. At UQ you will sometimes be asked to work in groups, so that you gain vital team work experience.

Working in groups can be rewarding but also challenging, especially if you're communicating online with people you've never met.

Students often become anxious about group work, because group members have conflicting views about how the work should be done, or because some members of the group do more work than others. These are very real concerns, and they occur in the workplace as well.

If you are asked to do group work at UQ, try to use the opportunity to develop your group work skills in a (relatively) non-threatening environment. Remember that employers want graduates who know how to work in teams.

Here are some ideas to help you develop your group work skills.

Get to know your fellow group members

It's a good idea to get to know the other members of your group BEFORE you start working together. Here are some questions you could ask each other:

questions: The names of my fellow group members are ... What do they like most about group work? What do they dislike most about group work? What makes them a good team player? What makes them a bad team player? What mark are they hoping to achieve for our project? Their contact details are ...

Reproduced from Student Group Work, Institute for Interactive Media and Learning, University of Technology, Sydney
http://www.iml.uts.edu.au/learnteach/groupwork/ [accessed February 2010]

Set some ground rules

Groups work best when there is a shared understanding of how the group will operate.

Why not take some time to set some ground rules, and avoid misunderstandings further down the track? For example:

Questions: How will we communicate? How often will we post to the online discussion board? How do we deal with members who don't participate enough, participate too much, or distract the group from its task? How are we going to make decisions? What will we do if a group member's work doesn't meet everyone else's standards? What is our group trying to accomplish?

Reproduced from Student Group Work, Institute for Interactive Media and Learning, University of Technology, Sydney
http://www.iml.uts.edu.au/learnteach/groupwork/ [accessed February 2010]

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