Group work

Advice and resources to help staff and students engage in meaningful group work.

Team skills are one of the top graduate attributes sought by employers—yet very few university courses contain group assignments. Future careers will involve working with others, so it is important to practise these skills at university.

While group assignments are often viewed as being hard work, our research found that, if a few key problems with group work were tackled effectively, students enjoyed group assignments, found them effective ways to learn, and tended to advocate for more.

All students who were contacted as part of this project, even those who disliked group work, said that they would not want to leave university without having taken part in at least one group assignment.

Lecturers reported similar results—when done well it allows for deeper learning, is fair to all, keeps workloads manageable and makes teaching more fun.

Katy Wilson, a 2011/12 summer scholar, was tasked with researching how to incorporate effective group work into Faculty of Commerce courses. Listen to her talk about her findings here.

Staff

The staff resources provide guidance, tools, and tips from other staff, along with feedback from students about group assignments and how they can be managed well. It presents tools to be used before, at the beginning of, and during the course. Staff are encouraged to browse these resources and to show them to their tutors.

Students

The student resources provide tools which students may find useful to ensure that their group assignments run smoothly. These tools will help students learn skills that are transferable to external situations such as the workplace.