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Unit 5 - Group work

Site: Moodle-Kursserver der Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena
Course: Digital Learning Kit - self learning course for studying with digital tools
Book: Unit 5 - Group work
Printed by: Gast
Date: Friday, 22 November 2024, 7:56 AM

Table of contents

List of contents


Tips for group work

What should I pay attention to in group work?

Group work can be challenging. In the "Learning" module, we give you tips for putting together and organizing learning groups. Some of these tips can also be applied to work for the joint creation of term papers. Take a look at the corresponding tutorial.

Here are some important aspects to consider when working in groups:

  • A successful team ideally consists of people who complement each other well in terms of their skills. As different personalities often come together in a team, communication is particularly important. Therefore, give yourselves some time to get to know each other better, come together in your working group and establish a common way of working and communicating.
  • Set clear goals, deadlines and dates! Take a look at the next unit "Organizing group work" to see which tools you can use for this.
  • Discuss with each other: How good should the result be compared to the time spent? Is there an overall grade or will your contributions be assessed individually? What exactly should be achieved by when? When exactly will you meet? Where will you meet?
  • Define clear responsibilities: Who does what by when? Distribute the tasks so that everyone is indispensable.
  • If necessary, agree in advance that unfinished work should be disclosed to lecturers.
  • Give each other feedback on your work. It is best to use the FSU Cloud to revise texts and take a look at the unit on "Commenting on texts"
  • Also, give positive feedback to motivate each other.

We wish you a lot of success with your group work!

Organizing group work

How can I structure my group work?

The Friedrich Schiller University Jena Cloud deck is a great way to organize your work in a virtual Kanban. You can find out what Kanban is in this unit in the "Study organization" module. In short, you use it to organize your to-do list in a visually appealing way and divide the group's tasks into "collection", "to do", "in progress" and "done" and move them to the appropriate column depending on their status. In the corresponding unit in the "Balancing" module, you will see how you can also use this technique on a whiteboard or with post-its on a wall to visualize your work and motivate yourself. You can see how you can use the University of Jena's Cloud deck for your group work in this tutorial. There you can also schedule tasks and assign them to your group members. 

A Gantt chart can also help you to visualize your work process. You can find a template here (author: Maximilian Wopinski, published under a CC BY license on Oersi). Simply enter the steps, dates (with year!) and responsibilities (who should complete this step?) on the left and a chart will automatically be created on the right, showing you exactly which step should be completed by when. You can of course adapt the chart to your needs and add new lines. This is what it can look like:


We wish you a productive and pleasant collaboration!

Only Office of the University Cloud

How can I work together on text documents?

In the Cloud of the University of Jena, you can easily work together on documents, revise them with "track changes" and also comment on them. Your data is protected by the University of Jena.

Here you will find a tutorial on how to work together on presentations. The procedure is the same for documents, except that you create a new document or upload one.

You can then share this document with your fellow students, just as described in the tutorial for collaborative work on presentations, and can follow changes to the document live.

Alternatively, you can also use Office 365 online.

Tutorial for the collaborative work with Zotero

How can I manage literature in a team?

In this small tutorial by Zotero, you can find out how to share literature and how to collaborate with others using Zotero.

   

 

Application

As it is one thing to get the tips and another to apply them, we have developed a reflection tool for the Digital Learning Kit that you can use regularly, preferably in exchange with fellow students.

On the Mahara platform as a tool for group work, you can find other students who are interested in similar topics and join together in groups.

On this personal learning environment you can find other students who are interested in similar topics and form groups. On Mahara there is an exchange group for the Digital Learning Kit, where you can get together and exchange information about the different modules.

You can find out what you need to consider when logging in to Mahara for the first time, how to join the group and what else you can do on Mahara in the "First steps on Mahara" guide. Log in with your URZ abbreviation and login, which is the same data you use for Friedolin.

The exchange group also provides reflection templates for documenting your work and slowly improve it through reflection. You can copy and edit these templates in your personal portfolio on Mahara. If you wish, you can share them with the other group members to exchange ideas.

Alternatively, you can answer the questions here - alone or with fellow students. Use the dialog cards below to do so!



Further resources

  • Tips for groupwork: https://www.student.unsw.edu.au/groupwork
  • Chung, B. G., Ehrhart, K. H., Shore, L. M., Randel, A. E., Dean, M. A., & Kedharnath, U. (2020). Work group inclusion : test of a scale and model / Beth G. Chung, Karen H. Ehrhart, Lynn M. Shore, Amy E. Randel, Michelle A. Dean, and Uma Kedharnath: Test of a scale and model. Group & organization management, 45(1), 75.