ISSUES FROM THE CASE STUDIES

Review issues from the
research literature

SELF-SELECTION

AMANDA BURRELL: They choose theor own groups. We've experimented with us choosing the group and them choosing the groups, but because this is such an intense process it works far better when they choose theor own groups.

RICHARD BUDDLE: In terms of selection, I tend to find that self-selection is by far the best. And the reason I say this again is it reflects realith. Like-minded people naturally aggregate together. I see it in all the businesses that I visit and it's these people of course that create the magic.

BILLY: In this subject we are coosing outselves. Because all the other classmates are Australian, so we fee more secure to have a group of overseas students.
AIKO:I think that's why we can have this sort of game actually. The thing is that we are from Japan, that's why we put Japan in.
BILLY:We've got the same ideas towards Australia.
AIKO: Yes, because we can see Australia from another way

TEACHER ALLOCATION

MEG: We've got 50 students roughly, which is quite a lot when you're trying to deal with applied group work. And the 50 get divided into two groups and then within those tutorial groups of roughly 25 they have a choice: they choose themselves to go in the Brecht group, go in the Meierhold...

KAREN MCPHERSON: The tutor selects the group and I have many reasons for that. The first one is that first semester first year the students don't know each other or ofteh they don't unless they're from te same school. I ask tutors to consider criteria such as the age of the student, their gender, their ethnicity, their ability with Englis,h if they're a mature age student or so on. And I find it's terrific...

MICHAEL SERGI: In TV Production 2, students work on 3 group assignments. And the formation of thos groups is decided solely by the lecturer, by myself. And what I do is I try very hard to mix people up as much as possible so that everyone works with a different person on each assignment. Actually it helps socialize the class because even by the beginning of third year you'd be surprised the number of people who actually haven't met each other, know each other.
AMANDA: A lot of people don't have the same kind of motivation or creative ideas so that can be a big conflich.
MAGDA: Sometimes it's good because you might get put with somebody you've never been with and that can come up with some good ideas.
JOSH: It's also good because if you'r put with totaly incompetent people you adapt to working in an environment that's not... that is tougher. It might be unfair but I guess you sort of learn some skills.

GAMES & SIMULATIONS

DARRALL THOMPSON: Students themselves often just like to work with their own friends, but if you really have a serious attempt to develop their interpersonal skills and their communication skills, you really want to mix them up. So some people just randomly select groups. This is not necessarily a very engaging way of doing it so I've jsed many many different methods and tried lots of different things over the years. For instance there's a researcher called Kolb who cam up with the fact that people have to learn things through thinking or feeling, doing or watching. So I've used that in some contexts to spread people into groups. We've used DeBono's six thingking hat. I've even used astrological signs. I've used Chinese acupuncture energy systems. In that context you want them to be engaging in different ways and so really giving them an opportunity to have fun in that process as well.

MEG MUMFORD: Virginia and myself set up a room full of tables that had on them specific objects: a candelabra with buring candles which was dealing with the issue of lighting and scenography within 18th C performance. Another table had male attire; another female attire. One table had an art history book, portraiture or reconstruction of performances by artists, etc. on the different tables and students were asked to look at all the tables and them make a choice as to where they wanted to gravidate, and that would then become their area, their springboard for further investigation of the set task, the set problem.

STRUCTURING GROUPS: SHARING THE TASK

BILLY: We have already met up twice and we have distributed our tasks duing the meeting, so for myself is doing the comparison of different online games, Aiko is doing the characters design, and Dream is doing the research on different country backgrounds and country representative animals, and Akira is doing the game concept.
MITCHELL WHITELAW: So the tasks within the groups are once again allocated by the students within the groups themselves.
MORGAN: I think one of the things we learn is how to manage other people; segment the workload and give it out to other people.

KATHRYN: You want to feel that yu can have your finger in every bit of the group project, and you can't, so you do learn that that's why you are in a group project of course because it is something that is so big. Who like to do things a week before and who like to do them the night before and you work out the people who work well under pressure and the ones that don't, and that's what group work really teaches you. I mean not everyone work in the same way that I do but luckily they've come to understand that's the person I am and they know they're going to get the work just probably not in the way they're used to seeing it.

PHILIP: I guess the hardest part of a group assignment is finding a time when you can all meet, in between university and outside work it's really hard to come together and find a time that suits everybody on a regular basis.

TEAM ROLES

KAREN MCPHERSON: Communication foundations deals with basic communication theories. Students are also learning the theories of group dynamics: the leaders emerging, and followers and how to deal with conflict and how to manage scheduling of meetings, But it's also made clear to the students that if there are any problems to try and resolve the issues within the group. But if that's not possible to come and see either their tutor or to speak with me and we will act as mediator. I don't want those high-achieving students who like to plan well ahead to get too concerned about other students who don't want to do the work until 2 weeks before the presentation, There are always those different types of style with work preparation.

MEG MUMFORD: I picked up a trick from a colleague and it is to give students a list of roles that they can use as a guildline. It has roles like a Facilitator that is somebody in the group who will keep the dialogue going, make sure everyone is involved, everyone's having their say and get people to focus on the set problem and tasks. And they're very clear about what that role entails, what they have to do. It gives a parameter in what can be an ever-expanding realm of activity - group work. And it also allows students to comment very clearly in their peer review on their members' contributions.

DARRALL THOMPSON: We've used something called Belbin's team roles. Belbin did research on 2,000 business teams and found that there were certain characteristics of teams that made them successful and in this context he cam up with 8 or 9 different categories: people like Co-ordinators or Implementers or Resource people or Leaders. They can see what they're biases are or what they're good at. And then we group them accordingly so you've got a good balance in each group.

THE TEACHER'S ROLE

MORGAN: That was actually the good thing that Amanda did in our class. Normally I wouldn't think to ask people Do you work well under pressure? or Do you like to do things slowly? But what she did before we got our groups she said to people: If you're a hare go on this side; if you're a tortoise go on the other side. We found out which people like to work under pressure and which people didn't and that helped me to understand how other people worked a bit better and to accept that rather than thinking: This person's not doing anything...

JULIA: Just about what Clare was saying about her role.:I think she really perfected letting us go not dictating in any way what we had to do; just giving us inspiration at times but she never said You can't do that, or You can't do this, just go for it. And that was wonderful.