How to survive in a group assignment
Group projects can be a rewarding and fun learning experience, but it can be a nightmare for many students. One of the many few reasons group assignments exist is to challenge a student's ability to think about their ideas and explain them to others. Group work requires both interpersonal and management skills such as learning to build good relationships with your groupmates and learning how to identify goals and delegate tasks equally. To create effective group work, you should work together to manage a process. Following these steps will help you and your group to work together effectively.
Assign roles accordingly
Be sure to attend the first few classes during the start of uni as you’ll be asked to pick your group members. Split the work according to individual strengths and set clear objectives of the work to each group member equally. While you’re assigning tasks, this would be a great time to set boundaries such as setting a deadline or when to submit the assignment.
Keep in contact with your group members
In the early stages of forming your group, pick a regular mode of communication and stick with it. Group assignments are usually due long after they are formed, which is why it’s important to always keep in touch with your fellow group members. Whether it’s in class or online, start a discussion and check in with each other from time to time to see if anyone needs help.
Consult your teacher
The easiest way to ensure your group stays on track with the scope is to consult your teacher in class. Not only is communication important within your group, but it’s good to share your ideas with your lecturers or tutors. For example, you can run them through your group’s ideas to see if it aligns with your assignment objectives. You’ll be relieved once you have your topic and content approved by your teacher to avoid any future mistakes.
Review the work
Some assignment tasks are poorly defined. It’s important to review your assignment as a group so your final product makes sense. This is when you put your interpersonal and management skills to the test. How are your groupmates effectively working together? Are you working collaboratively? Try using a real-time collaboration tool like Google Docs so that multiple users can edit a document at the same time. This way, groupmates can review and keep track of the different tasks being done individually.
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