Essential Skills for Group Work
In some courses your instructor may assign you to complete an assignment with other students as a group project. You may already have done group projects in face to face courses you have participated in. Working online presents some particular challenges since you will be communicating with the other members of your team mostly in text.
Obviously, you will need to plan and organize the tasks that have been assigned to you and meet the deadlines for doing your part of the project, but there are some other things you need to consider.
- Be accountable: If you have agreed to take on a task and complete it by a specific date, respect that the other members of your team are counting on you.
- Offer and request feedback: It is expected that you will ask questions to clarify what you will be doing and help other members of your team. Be respectful of the viewpoints of others and ask questions when you are uncertain.
- Explain your ideas: You may find that you need to be a little more persuasive when collaborating in writing than if you were face-to-face. Again, be respectful of the opinions of the other members of your team, and make an effort to explain your point of view.
- Give it time: group projects usually take more time to complete than assignments you work on alone. There is more planning and negotiating required. So, plan to spend some time communicating with your team members in addition to completing your part of the assignment.
“GroupWork” (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) by euroscoutinfo
When working in groups, it is common for issues to come up. The activity below gives you an opportunity to problem solve some common issues that arise in group work. This is relevant to being in college as well as the workplace.
