Anticipating common challenges of group work
This is a succinct list of student challenges and strategies that instructors may find useful when designing collaborative learning experiences for students. You can use the other resources in this collection to dig deeper into the proposed strategies. There are also some great practical resources for group projects on this site!
Unfortunately, groups can easily end up being less, rather than more, than the sum of their parts. Why is this?
In this section, we consider the hazards of group projects and strategies instructors can use to avoid or mitigate them. Find other strategies and examples here or contact the Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence for help.
For students, common challenges of group work include:
- Coordination costs
- Motivation costs
- Intellectual costs
For instructors, common challenges involve:
- Allocating time
- Teaching process skills
- Assessing process as well as product
- Assessing individual as well as group learning