Tips for Students for Doing Effective Group Work

Working in groups is an unavoidable situation for a student today. They might not get along with other students, be an introvert or may just don’t like depending on others. Nonetheless, they cannot escape others and they have to work as part of a group as well. It is basically an exercise to prepare the students for their professional careers. Group activities are organized for helping them cooperate, communicate and collaborate with others and demonstrate varied skills. The key to work successfully within groups is through clear and specific communication. This is applicable to both short term and even long term projects.

In order to accomplish the goal, it is best if the make small introductions about themselves to allow the other group members to know something about them. This is especially necessary in the case where a student is an introvert, quiet and shy. Other classmates will not have much knowledge about their fellow member and they may be left out or ignored. The next step is to assign roles according to the abilities of every student. The introduction and previous classroom interactions will be used to assess the skills of every member. Duties can then be assigned accordingly for accomplishing the project.

Communication is a very important component of every group activity. Whenever a project has to be done, it is best to brainstorm and allow every member to give ideas. This allows students to be creative and explore different avenues they wouldn’t have considered when working individually. Everyone should be encouraged to voice their opinion and the best option should be selected. This will give shy kids an opportunity to participate as well and share their insight with the rest of the class.

Conflicts are part of every group activity, but a proper approach should be chosen to resolve them. Decision making and problem solving skills are improved in this manner and also critical thinking skills. Students will be able to negotiate, communicate and create and thus improve their performance and outcome. The workload should also be divided equally for ensuring that a single student doesn’t bear the load. This can actually make work fun as students don’t have to work a lot and can save their time. Also, as work is assigned based on skill and preference, they will find pleasure doing projects and experiments.

Hence, these tips will be very useful in achieving the goal of group activities.