Making Group Work Work: Improving university group work for students and staff

The project’s aims included exploring the challenges of group work and creating practical guidelines for staff, with the goals of enhancing student experience as well as contributing to academic discourse. Findings focus on the symbiotic relationship between skills-based learning and knowledge acquisition; beneficial use of formative and summative assessment; and the importance of transparency and facilitation to empower students as partners in group-based learning and enhance their experiences. Unlike many projects we read about, this research took staff experiences and approaches to group work as its starting point, though student surveys did augment our findings. We drew on the ideas of action learning to guide participants through a cycle of planning, doing and reflecting on their own experiences, though some did not participate in every phase. Participants – in total 14, across social and physical sciences – also shaped analysis of emerging findings through interactive Reference Group sessions. Staff found the reflective interviews unexpectedly beneficial for their thinking and practice. The project has led to collaboration on the Knowledge Exchange programme led by the School of Earth and Environment’s Teaching Enhancement Scheme co-ordinator in order to begin to create space for generative reflective exchange, in addition to the practical resources produced by the project.