Group work…often dreaded by teachers and sometimes by students too! When I first started teaching in 2017, I was reluctant to use group work activities. They were tricky and time-consuming to set up and I quite often didn’t get the outcomes I was looking for. I had very little experience with educational technology as it didn’t form part of my PGCE at a time when Microsoft Teams had only just been launched and the Covid-19 pandemic hadn’t happened yet.

Since that time though, I’ve picked up some tips and tricks that have helped me to facilitate successful group projects both inside and outside the classroom. Now working in higher education, post-pandemic and in a world where technology enhanced learning is much more centre stage, I’m more comfortable with facilitating successful collaborations. Group work isn’t something I dread anymore! As a result, I thought I would share some tips and tricks as well as suggestions of activities/tools that are available at Lancaster University that could be utilised when asking students to work together.

Create Connections

Connecting with strangers is hard! Students are forced into a learning environment together and often expected to collaborate and discuss things with each other when they have only just met. This situation is a daunting one for many, even for staff! We have all been asked to “turn to the person next to you” to complete some activity…I don’t know about you, but sometimes this makes me wish I hadn’t attended the session and it can get awkward fast. Creating a comfortable and connected learning community is important to help facilitate successful group work. The community building often needs to happen in advance of the activity or project too so that students have time to form connections and get comfortable in the moment.

One tip is to encourage a digital “water cooler”; a place where students can chat freely. Many staff already encourage students to create their own groups, for example via WhatsApp. However, as staff we can also create spaces, for example a forum in Moodle that you don’t access and leave for students to communicate with each other or a Microsoft Teams space for students. There are many tools and ways to create a communication space for students, I’ve only mentioned a few but it will certainly help create those connections that will support students when they are asked to work together. OneHE has a page full of ideas for “warm up activities” to help students engage in low-stakes conversations which will help facilitate the start of those connections that will eventually support collaborative work.

Roles and Responsibilities

Getting everyone to participate in group work is a difficult task for every educator or facilitator. One recommended, tried and tested method is to establish roles and responsibilities within the group. The roles themselves can be varied and may be specific to the project or task that you set your students. For example, you might have a team leader, a note-taker, an external stakeholder manager, a proof-reader, a meeting chair…the possibilities are endless! AdvanceHE has some excellent guidance with top tips and resources on how to set up groupwork. They too suggest giving students roles and asking them to reflect on the diversity of skills in the group to ensure effective collaboration.

As an institution who uses Moodle, we have the ‘Board’ activity available to use. This activity can be set up in group mode so that each group can collaborate. One use case for group activity is to set it up as project management board with columns such as “to-do”, “in progress”, “done” and “blocked”. That way students can manage their workload together and keep track of their progress. Below is an example of a Moodle ‘Board’ activity set up in this way:

A similar thing can be created using Microsoft Planner within a Microsoft Teams space. For training and support in creating either of these resources, get in touch.

Group Output and Assessment

There are lots of different tools that students can use to create high quality outputs. For instance, if students are creating presentations, they might use Microsoft PowerPoint or Canva. For website pages, they might use WordPress and for shared documents, they might use OneNote. I couldn’t name all the available tools and activities here!

However, there are two activities in Moodle which are underutilised here at Lancaster University which may be of interest to anyone planning to do some group work with their students.

The OU Wiki Activity

A “wiki” is a web-based system that lets users edit a set of linked pages (think Wikipedia). In Moodle, you would normally use a wiki when you want your students to create content either individually or as part of a group. Students can create a landing page filled with information on a particular topic and then can create a set of linked pages on a subtopic. Students could use this activity to reflect/discuss their reading materials for a particular week or they could use it to create an informative set of pages on a topic for a particular audience.

The Wiki Activity also has the option for “annotations”, where students can annotate each other’s work and leave comments. This encourages peers to give feedback and to create something together rather than each person of the group working individually and only coming together at the end of the project. Get in touch for more information or a demonstration of this activity. Moodle also provide information on this activity.

Peer Evaluation

The Peer Evaluation activity is a way for peers to grade each other’s contributions or performance on a particular task. Students can submit a document/file and then the peer grading consists of a choice of grade scales on criteria set by the teacher/facilitator. There is the option for students to give feedback comments as well. The criteria students mark against can have different weightings and Moodle can then calculate a final score/grade for each student.

This activity can be useful if you are using the scores as part of an assessment. However, the activity can also just be used to inform you, how well (or badly!) groups worked together. This information could then impact how you deliver the activity next time. The peer grading can be anonymous, so students don’t see what each other put if that is appropriate.  Educators can also override grades if required. For more information on this activity,  you can have a look at Moodle’s own guidance or get in touch for a demo.

With the right support and guidance from Learning Technologists and the many other supportive teams that are here at Lancaster University such as CEDA, the Digital Skills Team (ISS) and the Digital Learning Team (ISS), group work no longer needs to be dreaded!