5 References
4.2 Collaboration in base groups
The results presented in this section are based on reflections on the work in base groups written individually by students. 6 of the 25 groups report that at least one group member is missing or passive and student reflections are missing from one or more members of 16 groups. In the following, all quotes from the reflections have been translated from Swedish.
The students were given the following examples of issues to reflect on The roles of different group members
The level of participation, if all group members contribute equally to the work
If all group members are allowed to contribute equally, if they are listened to in discussions What they could do to improve the group's work
Previous experiences
All students entering the course have expectations about what working in a group is going to be like, based on their previous experiences. Most of the preconceptions that were reported in the reflections were negative, e.g., students expected to have group members that would not contribute to the work or that would not listen. Some students were positively surprised just by the fact that the groups were more homogenous than their previous groups, simply because all group members have similar interests which is why they chose the same study program. Some examples are
''I experience that the whole group works all the time and everyone tries to do their best.
When we work, we talk a lot and it feels like we are all alike.''
''I must say that this is one of the best groups I have ever been in.'' Other students report that their groups do function as they had expected.
''I will not try to hide the fact that everyone does not participate to the same extent, but that is unavoidable.''
Participation
In some groups, the level of participation and contribution differs between group members.
18 students from 12 different groups have suggested that one of the things they can do to improve the group's work is to encourage other group members to be more active in the collaboration. One reason seems to be the dynamics between different personalities, some talk more while others prefer to listen and some are shy. A student describes that the reason that a fellow student is quiet is not lack of interest or knowledge by
''But I think he is shy because when I ask him what he thinks about things he usually has something clever or important to say.''
5 students have suggested that they need to step back to allow others to come forward in discussions and another 8 students write that they need to listen more to others. 9 students have suggested that they need to come forward and be more active in discussions. When looking at the reflections group-wise, there is a large correspondence between how group members perceive their own participation in discussions and how other group members perceive it.
An example is one group where 4 out of 6 members have submitted reflections. Two of them report not taking the place that they should in discussions, one report trying to listen to everyone but that some of the others do not talk much, and one report getting carried away and talking too much. A quiet student in this group reveals wishing to participate more, but at the same time a fear of upsetting the balance in the group by
''I should dare to speak up when there is something that I don't agree with, rather than sit quietly and let the others make all the decisions. … It works great at the moment and it feels like you do not want to ruin the good cooperation we have now by letting selfish thoughts get in the way.''
Another student, whose previous experience of working in groups is not to be able to take place in discussions, describes this experience by
''… everybody is helping out and asking about each other's opinions. … It feels like this experience is going to help me to step forward and contribute more in future groups and projects.''
Other reasons for students not participating fully in the groups' work that are visible in this material are
Lack of interest in the assignments
Lack of interest in doing more than is needed to pass the course Lack of interest in developing the group
Problems with communication Group norm
Some groups report that they are very happy with the engagement of other members of their groups. Two different students in the same group report
''The discussions in the group have been rewarding and everyone have been participating all the time''
and
''We are all as ambitious, and being among ambitious people makes me even more ambitious.''
These statements show that in this group, the group norm works as an encouragement for students to get the most out of the course. This is also the case in another group where two members state that
''Despite the short time that the group have been active, the collaboration has been unbelievably good.''
and
''In all, I think that our group works well. Everybody is anxious to make the work proceed and nobody minds doing assignments as soon as we get them. … It is my impression that everybody wants to perform well, which makes everybody participate. I also fell that when you have questions, no one hesitates to answer them, as a matter of fact everyone wants to answer.''
In a third group, one student states that
''Looking at our group, I feel that we care a lot about each other. We respect the groups' decisions, which makes it easier to work together.''
Another member of the group has the following suggestion for improving the group's work:
''I can try to motivate the group to make a better job, because right now we only aim at a passing result.''
Our interpretation is that this is a group that works well but where the group norm is to aim at passing the course rather than at learning as much as possible. It is our conclusion that the group norm is very important for encouraging students to go beyond the minimum and that we need to explore ways of working with the norm in groups where this doesn't happen spontaneously.
Assessment
An important learning outcome for this course is that students should be able to
communicate within their subject. To encourage discussions within the groups, we have experimented with assessment forms that include explaining and discussing course contents. This is visible in the reflections as discussions is regarded as an important group activity, e.g., one students expresses that the group works well by
''We have had good discussions that have quickly lead to good solutions.'' Another student shows this by reporting that
''At the seminar, I knew most of the answers, but I tried to let the other group members discuss the topics.''
This student chooses to allow the other group members time to familiarize themselves with the topic and to reach solutions at a pace that allows them to gain a thorough understanding, even though, volunteering the correct answers, could have shortened the seminar.
Passive group members
Missing or passive group members is a source of frustration for remaining students, especially for those who are trying to improve group results by encourage other group members to participate. A way for teachers to reduce the frustration is to be clear about how far students are supposed to go in trying to support others, and when they have done enough. One group has reduced frustration caused by students not showing up for group meetings by ''selecting meeting times between lectures or in the afternoon when no one was too tired to come and study with the group''.
IT-supported collaboration
Many of the benefits of studying collaboratively in teams have been investigated in settings where the teams do actually meet physically. The reality today is that there are many options that allow collaboration over the Internet. In the reflections from our course, 11 of the 25 groups mentioned that they use SMS-groups, 8 groups use Facebook groups, 5 groups use Google Drive and 2 groups use Skype. Even more groups mentioned using such tools as a suggestion for improving their work.
Some of our students report that, using social media for communication makes it easier for everyone to participate in discussions.
''All group members get heard through our Facebook group.''
One group is particularly interesting in this context. According to the reflections, the group has never met face to face to work together, most of the work is done in Google Docs.
Several group members seem to struggle with finding their own and other members' roles in the group. One group member expresses that
''Because Google Docs is so impersonal, I do not think there is anyone who feels that it is not ok to express their opinions, we listen, (read,) reflect and provide feedback no matter who is expressing themselves.''
The student continues by
''The disadvantage of Google Docs is that you can not quite get the feel of who one's group members are in real life. I have of course met all these people and talked with them about some different things, but it's not quite the same as working together so I probably can't really make out their roles in the group.''
Another member of this group reports having trouble with connecting to the other group members, and not having the feeling of being taken seriously. This student expresses that ''If it had not been for Google Docs then the job would have been even more difficult! Thanks to Google Docs, all users can work concurrently and see what others are writing and ask if there is something that is unclear.''
Our students find both advantages and disadvantages with collaboration over the Internet.
Further investigations on the effects of this kind of collaboration, compared to collaboration face to face, on learning are needed.
Figure 1: Course activities that helped learning Effect on learning
In the course evaluation, students were asked to mark the course activities that had helped them understand the course contents. The result is shown in Figure 1. Studying in base groups are ranked below the in-class activities, lectures, seminars and labs, but higher than the other out of class activity, reading course literature.
On the question of how valuable, from 1-5, the base group has been for learning, the
average rating was 3.89. 74% of the participating students rated it 3 or higher. Furthermore, 26% of the students met their groups both socially and for studying and 16% perceived that the base groups had helped their studies for the math course taken in parallel with the introductory course.
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Lectures Seminars Base groups Labs Course litterature
We have found that the base groups can be of help for learning, but that there is a big difference in how well the different groups function. It is also obvious that more challenging assignments would have helped keeping the groups together as some students lost interest in the course because of the low course level.
In well functioning groups, with the desired group norms, students do not only perform well within the course, but they take advantage of the group in other courses as well. We believe that teachers have an important task in working on developing group norms that encourage students to perform more than the minimum requirements and that it is important that they support students in dealing with various kinds frustrating issues that arise. How these issues can be approached is an interesting question for further investigations.
Many students also have shown that they can distance themselves from the group and see what is needed to improve the group's performance. This is an important step towards developing professional group and project working skills. Some of the assessment methods used in this work has also been successful in encouraging students to work on
communication skills. Studying and developing more assessment methods and their influence on learning is also an interesting direction for future work. Finally, investigating how learning in groups that meet physically differs from learning in groups that communicate remotely is also an interesting extension of this work.