Collaboration helps to develop many of the key “soft skills” that students require for their future success. As Lynne N. Kennette and Wes Hanzuk note in this Faculty Focus article, these skills can be developed by students engaging in group work and other forms of collaboration.
Acknowledging that students often resist collaborative activities, the authors recommend instructors “interweave small collaborative activities into every class, a group assignment later in the semester will seem much less daunting to students”.
They highlight four types of group work activities to engage students:
- create something new
- investigate a question and report their findings back to the class
- critique previous work or real world products
- incorporate multiplayer games
Using group work can be “beneficial to all to all academic levels and in any program” – find out what works for you and your students, considering that group work should also be “somewhat tailored to students’ expectations of what they will be doing in the workplace”.
Four Types of Group Work Activities to Engage Students by Lynne N Kennette and Wes Hanzuk. Faculty Focus, May 1, 2017.
