Prologue: I have never been a fan of group projects. (I was very shy when I was younger and group projects were just Painful). I absolutely see their merit now that I am an adult and a teacher, but the shy kid in me still groans whenever I see a group project on the syllabus or even during a staff meeting when we are told to "form a group".
Scenario: Therefore, it is no surprise that my scenario would be about an online group project. :-) There were four of five of us working on a project, but one was really uninvolved in the first couple weeks of the course, almost no participation in discussions. We were supposed to meet online and even setting up a meeting time was hard because the response time to emails was.... Anyway, the rest of us finally went ahead with the project and basically told this other guy what his responsiblities were for the project. He eventually came through and did his part, but it was really stressful for the rest of us. I think we were an otherwise good group -- not all Type A's, but a nice mix of personalities -- we just wanted to get our project done.
TakeAway: Check in with groups early on (and maybe a second time) to see how things are going. I will know if one of my students is not participating and I hope I will remember how stressful it was to have such a person in my group. What could I do as a facilitator? I could reach out to the underparticipating student. I could reassure the rest of the group that I was aware and assure them that they just needed do the best they could and that they should continue to include the student in all communications.
Deb / Blue Mounds, WI
Comment One:
Deb, Like your Take Away suggestions. ~ M @ LI, NY
Follow up post: What were your take-aways from your bad group experience [referenced in a separate discussion strand]? ~ Deb / Blue Mounds
I should have been more forth coming with the facilitator as to what the situation was but I lacked the confidence to do so.
Take -aways
When assignments requrie pairs or groups, the facilitator needs to have a more online presence to support those who may be silently eperiencing difficulty.
I also believe that facilitators need to have more run throughs with students before they require them to do a Live Conference with the software-Go To Meeting, Webex, Google, etc. are all different in some ways and finding a practice partner is not easy. ~ M @ LI, NY
Follow up post: Ja, I totally agree with the run through thought. I am interning in Collaborative Communities and there is a synchronous meeting in module 7. Facilitators of the various modules are announced at the beginning of module 3. I like that this gives everyone quite a bit of time to plan and work out potential problems. ~ Deb / Blue Mounds, WI
Comment Two:
I’ve been in similar groups. A private e-mail to teh awol member was helpful in our situation, as the person was indeed out of town and unable to participate for a few days more. We gave the person their assignment adn carried on without him. He was satisfied and so were we. ~ PM