• Build awareness about diversity; for example: design a seminar activity where students discuss a reading on managing diversity in group work.
• Consider if any class members (e.g international students) would be disadvantaged by tasks involving local knowledge or networks.
• Determine each student's skills and knowledge capacity and how these meet the group assessment requirements.
• Keep groups small, ideally three to six members work most effectively.
• Familiarise yourself with student interests, skills and background if groups are allocated by staff.
• If groups are self-selected by students, allow time for class members to get to know each other first.
• Dedicate seminar time for team meetings (in-class or online, e.g. Blackboard Collaborate or Skype).
• Ask students to provide individual resumes or inventory of skills to their group to facilitate allocation of tasks and roles.
• Ensure all students have access to and knowledge of how to use online communication tools for group activities (e.g. meetings and sharing documents), such as: wikis, blogs, and discussion forums.
• In particular, ensure availability of digital tools that facilitate remote and/or asynchronous group meetings.
• Point out areas of the group project that are likely to require more time.
• Encourage student engagement by making the assessment task interesting and of practical real-life relevance.

Refer your students to Deakin's excellent study support resource for Group work. This offers clear guidelines and tips for making the teamwork journey an enjoyable and productive learning experience. The 'Collaborating online' tab provides instructions on how to access and use Skype, One Drive and Office 365.

Students require an understanding of group formation and continuing guidance on how to deal with the challenge of working with diverse group members on their projects. Consider these suggestions:

• Explain to students why group work is the most effective method in this instance to achieve the learning outcomes.
• Provide examples of what can go wrong and ask students what they could do to minimise these issues.
• Ask students to develop group ground rules and guidelines for communicating, meeting, goal setting, timelines, allocating tasks and responsibilities.
• Consider integrating individual and team assessments to encourage students to be more accountable for their contribution.
• Devote some class-time to teaching teamwork skills and conflict resolution strategies; for example role-play activities; provide checklists (PDF 74KB) and guidelines.
• Encourage individual and/or team reflection on process, goal setting and achievements attained; this could be incorporated into the assessment task as part of the assessment rubric.
• Encourage development of formal meeting protocols by requesting that students submit periodical team meeting minutes; this allows you to keep tabs on student progress.

Refer your students to Deakin's excellent study support resource for Group work. This offers clear guidelines and tips for making the teamwork journey an enjoyable and productive learning experience.

Benefits

When organised and managed effectively by providing support and structure from the outset, group work can be an enjoyable and productive learning experience for all by:

• breaking complex tasks into parts and steps
• planning and managing timelines and deadlines
• delegating roles and responsibilities
• allowing students to interact with those outside their own social networks
• developing negotiation and communication skills
• exchanging ideas and sharing diverse perspectives
• challenging assumptions
• promoting a collaborative and supportive learning environment
• building work-places skills sought by future employers.

Disadvantages

Being aware of the following limitations will help you as a teacher design group work projects and what weighting you should give to these if they are part of summative assessments:

• Learning may be confined to the individual task or element allocated to the team member, therefore students may not acquire overall knowledge of the set topic.
• Students are often resistant to group assessment.
• Allocating an overall team mark may compromise individuals' final grade for the unit.
• Group work often fosters less certainty and predictability.
• Students lacking adequate guidance and knowledge about teamwork skills may feel overwhelmed.
• Student contributions to the group task may vary in quality and effort.
• Stronger or more vocal students tend to dictate and take control of the group task.
• Conflict and tensions may compromise team coherence and achieving set goals.

Deakin teaching staff offer some insights about student diversity and the benefits of group work.

The following case study shows a creative way to approach team-based learning in diverse student groups.

Deakin University, Group Work.

University of NSW, Ideas for effective group work.

Southern Cross University, Teamwork guide.

Carnegie Mellon University, Using group projects effectively.