If you had some student characteristics at your disposal, you could create ideal groups to get the most out of group work and avoid problems. With the new Group Formation Tool of FeedbackFruits in Canvas, you can ask students questions and then have this tool create groups automatically based on the answers. But what questions are best to ask to form ideal groups?
All students are different: they have very busy lives, they have different goals, and they bring different knowledge and skills. As a result, students have different preferences about when and how they want to work on a group assignment. Sometimes they prefer to work with like-minded people because it seems easier. As a teacher, on the other hand, you may want to mix students from different backgrounds to blend different perspectives in the approach and development of assignments, thus increasing the challenge for students.
Question 1: when and where do you work on the assignment?
Because of their busy lives, it is wise to ask students on what day of the week they prefer to work together on the assignment. What time is most convenient for them? This will help form groups that have time to work together on the assignment and thus learn from each other.
Another question you can ask: when do you prefer to start working on the assignment? Right from the beginning, or do you prefer to do most of the work toward the end of the course? By asking this, you can avoid unnecessary stress and that students who like to start right away don't end up doing all the work on their own.
Finally, the location to work together is also important. Some students live close to each other and can easily meet somewhere. Others live much farther away. Some prefer to meet face-to-face somewhere, while others like to collaborate online. Asking these kinds of logistical questions and dividing groups accordingly promotes the collaboration process. You form ideal groups by classifying students based on corresponding answers.
Question 2: where does your interest lie?
Students are most motivated when they can choose what they learn. In assignments, there is often a degree of freedom in choosing the topic. Make sure students with similar interests are in the same group so they can pursue their own learning goals and enjoy working on the assignment.
Question 3: what talents do you bring to the table?
All students have varying degrees of prior knowledge at the start of a course. Some already know a great deal about the subject; others already have advanced collaboration skills. Everyone has qualities and previous experiences that the other group members can learn from.
In interdisciplinary courses, you can ask about the student's field of study. The ideal groups here are formed by students coming from different programmes or tracks. This is because they learn the most from each other's areas of expertise and can thus take the assignment to the next level together. Keep in mind, however, that differences can also cause friction. Good guidance in developing collaboration skills is therefore very important.
Establishing prior knowledge is not that simple, unfortunately. It's possible to ask some substantive questions about a subject, but that doesn't give a lot of insight. It's probably better to ask about a previous grade on a similar subject, or have the student estimate their own level of prior knowledge. You can do this, for example, by making a list of qualities and asking the student where their strengths and weaknesses lie.
Question 4: what role do you want to take on during the collaboration?
Some students take the initiative during collaboration, while others prefer to wait and see. Some know exactly what they want, while others hesitate. Students may also take (or be assigned) responsibility for different roles, such as leader, note taker, supervisor and time keeping, as well as substantive roles like data-analyst or idea creator. What do students most recognize themselves in? And what behaviours do they plan to exhibit during this group assignment? Perhaps they would like to practice with a different role? In other words, what goals and aspirations do students have? The ideal groups are mixed. This gives students the opportunity to work on broadening their repertoire of roles.
Food for thought – what not to do
A major frustration among students is the different level of ambition they may have during group assignments. One student goes for a high grade, the other is satisfied with a six out of ten (for example because of other current priorities). When these students are grouped together, they are more likely to have disagreements, and the student who wants to score a high mark will end up doing most of the work. Research shows that this results in frustration when doing group work. If you want to avoid these issues, you could ask students in advance what ambition they have in regard to an assignment (e.g., grade or expected effort) and then place students with the same answer in a group with each other.
However, this classification principle is ethically irresponsible. After all, as a teacher, you can then tell in advance whether students consider themselves more ambitious than others, which will affect your judgment, not to mention whether students would answer honestly.
A similar ethical consideration is whether you would want to classify students by gender or religion. Such data is very sensitive for privacy reasons and should not be requested and used by you as a teacher.
Want to know more about supporting group work?
Want to support group assignments even better? VU has developed a Self-help kit Group Work with ready to use materials for you and your students. Or read our didactic tip on preventing free-riding behaviour.
In general, of course, it is important that as a department you have a clear plan for how you will work through the curriculum to develop and assess collaboration skills. Agree on how groups will be assembled, supervised and assessed in different courses. Also, collaboration should preferably be mentioned in the learning objectives and explicitly guided and assessed. The VU CTL can help you with the ‘Visible Learning Lines’ approach to review and improve your curriculum on this. Contact VU CTL if you’d like to know more.