The text I read was ‘Team working and Peer Assessment: The assessment process as an aid to effective learning in creative group project work’, Richard G Sober. Which can be found at – http://www.adm.heacademy.ac.uk/resources/case-studies/team-working-and-peer-assessment-the-assessment-process-as-an-aid-to-effective-learning-in-creative-group-project-work/.

I found this a very interesting article and it got me thinking. Having studied a whole 7 years (Fnd, BA, BDes, MA) in higher education, I feel I have had the most experience in group situations as a student. My previous  student-self groaned internally at the idea of group work – the awkwardness, frustration, over politeness as not wanting to seem overbearing or bossy, with the inner you feeling other people aren’t pulling their weight or are working at a slower pace or even worse – the fear that you might be the one that gets left behind on the wave of knowledge and experience and therefore become shy and stay quiet as not to embarrass yourself.

The article by Sober is about ‘Team-working’-  a group project he runs with 45 2nd year Architecture and Interior Design students. It has given me hope towards group work. I already knew there can be significant benefits of group work of sharing workloads, experience, ideas, etc – but this article address a few of the concerns I would have of group work and puts steps in place to minimise negative outcomes, such as having roles for each student to take part in, minimising some students being too passive or not pulling their weight and adds more of a team emphasis. The peer and self-assessment also seems to give students a deeper understanding of learning outcomes and marking criteria which is a benefit. It is a model I would like to use if I was in the position in the future to write a project brief.

In my current role as a workshop Technician we have less/if any involvement in the dynamics of the students’ working behaviour, such as setting group project briefs. Last year we had a 1st year technical induction to the workshops project  with BA Architecture which was initiated, run and assessed by the Technical staff. The students were put into random groups of about 10 to make individual architecture models of London – ‘My Metropolis’. The groups were created in order to ease and manage the technical inductions for safety and practical reasons.

However, the students automatically used this group situation as a benefit. They might not have been with their friends, but over the two weeks  you could see friendships and working relationships form, despite only being a month or so into the course . They worked well ; encouraged each other and were answering questions if technical staff weren’t available. It added a healthy amount of competition and if their group became intolerable they could get breathing space by working in another part of the workshop – they weren’t tied to the group the whole time.

Our workshops supplying over 8 primary courses, equaling over 1000 students, the space is very dynamic with a flux of students coming and going. Therefore, I could not say that group work is essential in my discipline as a lot of the time students are working on their own individual work. But a variety of groups do come in; from self-formed friend groups wanting to do a project together, more rigid groups set by briefs, experienced groups like courses and the natural formation of a group all working in the same space. Although not essential, I believe  working in groups can provide students with valuable experience and give a more realistic idea of external working practices.