Edited by Kate Blackham, Wednesday, 23 Oct 2024, 15:37
Every year it's a new problem.
My first year, I used exactly the same forum posts as my mentor (whose students appeared to self-select perfectly without effort on his part) and I had students randomly signing up to groups as a fifth member of a four-person group.
Last year I had at least one student spending the whole of group-work week waiting for a group because they were leftover - they were ready to start in week 2 but I had no one else who said they were ready. Poor student couldn't even do the individual parts alone. It got to the point where I actually suggested they do the individual activity instead. They wanted to wait. But my goodness was it stressful for me and probably for them too.
This year. I don't know. I decided to do the other way of putting students into groups and assign them myself right from the start. Students asked how to handle the fact that two of their team weren't working as fast as them and well, my reply was overly verbose. I over-explained. They of course clearly skimread what I said and misunderstood and ended up doing the complete opposite of what I advised - which was to STOP they'd done enough it was great.
I know students often hate groupwork, but as far as I can tell every single tutor hates it too. It's not so bad in a face-to-face university where students are showing up every day and you can say - right this is group work time. Here at the OU where we have a much, much lower retention rate so you can't assume that every student you start out with is going to stay. You also can't assume that just because a student has not logged on for a week that they have given up. Trying to balance all that while doing a group project in week 3, one week before a TMA deadline, is a nightmare.
I don't know what on earth to do next year.
Is it me?
Maybe it is. Evidence shows that autistic-autistic groups work well and neurotypical-neurotypical groups work well. Maybe I'm too autistic for this job. Maybe I'm too autistic to communicate clearly to the majority of the class.
I hate group projects, 4th Edn.
Every year it's a new problem.
My first year, I used exactly the same forum posts as my mentor (whose students appeared to self-select perfectly without effort on his part) and I had students randomly signing up to groups as a fifth member of a four-person group.
Last year I had at least one student spending the whole of group-work week waiting for a group because they were leftover - they were ready to start in week 2 but I had no one else who said they were ready. Poor student couldn't even do the individual parts alone. It got to the point where I actually suggested they do the individual activity instead. They wanted to wait. But my goodness was it stressful for me and probably for them too.
This year. I don't know. I decided to do the other way of putting students into groups and assign them myself right from the start. Students asked how to handle the fact that two of their team weren't working as fast as them and well, my reply was overly verbose. I over-explained. They of course clearly skimread what I said and misunderstood and ended up doing the complete opposite of what I advised - which was to STOP they'd done enough it was great.
I know students often hate groupwork, but as far as I can tell every single tutor hates it too. It's not so bad in a face-to-face university where students are showing up every day and you can say - right this is group work time. Here at the OU where we have a much, much lower retention rate so you can't assume that every student you start out with is going to stay. You also can't assume that just because a student has not logged on for a week that they have given up. Trying to balance all that while doing a group project in week 3, one week before a TMA deadline, is a nightmare.
I don't know what on earth to do next year.
Is it me?
Maybe it is. Evidence shows that autistic-autistic groups work well and neurotypical-neurotypical groups work well. Maybe I'm too autistic for this job. Maybe I'm too autistic to communicate clearly to the majority of the class.