Helping Students Learn to Learn: Helping Students to Get the Most Out of Group Project Work

1. Helping Students Learn to Learn:Helping Students to Get the Most Out of Group Project Work Angela Ho, EDC Chan Chi Hung, Learning to Learn Project

2. What Difficulties are Students Faced With in Group Projects? What can the interview excerpts tell us?

3. The most difficult is group project. It is tough! In a project students are faced with: • An academic problem (cognitive / problem solving) • Organisation & management of a big task (managerial) • Organisation & management of a team (team work / leadership)

4. What learning objectives can be achieved via a group project? Two types of learning objectives • ‘Academic’ learning objectives • ‘Developmental’ learning objectives • Team work skills (working with others in the group) • Leadership abilities (taking lead in the group) • Problem solving abilities (the project is a complicated problem to be solved) • Managemnet abilitites (managing the project progress)

5. Working Your Way Through a Group Project

6. Working Your Way Through a Group Project Four Sections • Frequently asked questions • Working in a group • Working on a project • Presentation

7. Section A: Frequently Asked Questions • Someone does not do the work allocated to him! • Someone is always late in turning in his work! • Our group cannot make decision effectively! • Someone always insists on his own opinions! • We only do our part and cannot learn about what others are doing! • The project question is unfamiliar to us! • We are falling behind schedule! • The audience raises difficult questions during the presentation!

8. For each topic, a checklist provides concrete advice on good skills enages students in self-evaluation Topics Forming groups Communication skills Making group decision Handling disagreement Becoming a leader Section B:Working in a Group

9. Section C : Working in a Group (p. 19)

10. What are provided to help students work on a project? • Advice on activities for the group to carry out • Tips on how to carry out the group activities • Tools to help students manage the progress • Checkliststo engage students in self-evaluation

11. Working on a Project

12. Tools for managing the progress The handbook provides advice and tools (charts/ checklist, etc.) for • Time management • Workflow management • Manpower management • Data management • Quality management

13. Section D: Presentation Advice on • Structure of the presentation • Preparing presentation materials • Delivery

14. Engaging students in self-evaluation

15. Self-evaluation checklists(They also serve as teaching points) Evaluating the academic quality of the project • Project Quality Checklist (p.41) Evaluating the effectiveness of the group process • Group work skills (p.16) • Planning a project (p.32) • Doing a project (p. 42) • Presentation (p. 61) Evaluating the effectiveness of team work skills • Communicating with group members (p.11) • Making group decisions (p.12) • Handling disagreement (p.13) • Becoming a leader in a group (p. 14)

16. What do students say about “Working your way through a group project”? • This clarifies what it means by a project • It is useful because I need the skills to handle our project. It really can help us solve the problems. • It can help me to increase my responsibility in a group. • I find the the part on communication and leadership skills useful. • I will try to have an evaluation for each section and make sure that each members can learn from each other and the process.

17. Simple things that teachers can do • Including it in the project brief • When briefing students on the project • When supervising students • Presentation of the project • Debriefing after the project

18. Including it in the Project Brief (1) • Learning objectivesIn addition to the ‘academic’ objectives, include ‘developmental objectives • Team work skills • Leadership abilities • Problem solving skills • Management skills

19. Including it in the Project Brief (2) • Assessment Including development objectives as part of assessment, • Self-assessment on ones team work skills, using • checklists from the Guide (p. 11, 12, 13, 14), and • areflective note • Self-assessment on the group’s team work process • checklists from the Guide (p. 16, 32, 42, 61) • a reflective note

20. Including it in the Project Brief (3,4) • Prescribingprogress and quality reviews • Reviewing academic quality of the project, using • Project quality checklist (p.41) • Reviewing effectiveness of group work • Self-evaluation checklists (p.16, 32, 42) • Prescribing the Group Project Guide as an official guidebook

21. Briefing students on the project • Clarifying learning goals • Academic learning goals • Developmental learning goals • Basic briefing about what to pay attention to when • Working as a team • Managing the project • Orientation for the Group Project Guide • Encourage students to use it

22. Supervision during the project • Remind students to use the Group Project Guide • Progress and quality review • Collect their self-reflection forms • Discuss about weak areas as reviewed in the self-reflection

23. Presentation of the project • Advise students to use Section D of the Guide when preparing for their presentation • Engage students in peer assessment of their presentations using the checklist (p. 45) • After the presentation, ask students to complete self-evaluation checklist (p.61)