Abstract:
I propose to develop and distribute curricular materials on, provide in-service training about, and act as a consultant to any faculty member throughout the university on the development, use of and integration of a particular type of student group project activity based on teams. While a wide array of student group activities permeate curriculum throughout SU at the undergraduate, graduate and professional levels there are three aspect of this particular pedagogic device that make it innovative. First, the project must be sponsored by a real agent or organization for a real purpose. Typically this requirement implies that the project has specific deliverables and deadlines that are worked out in advance between the course instructor and the sponsor. Secondly the scope and nature of the work must be sufficiently complex so that no one small subgroup of students can complete the work by itself. This requirement enforces the need for cooperative activity, planning and management by the student team. Finally the student team begins the project with no-predefined leadership or authority structure such as an appointed chairperson, coordinator or liaison.
The Nature and Importance of Group Work Using Teams
There are three important arguments associated with the use of group projects or teams for student learning. One argues that learning is enhanced through interpersonal and group activities. The second point argues that more and more real world work occurs in groups and through the use of teams, thus altering what constitutes the set of necessary skills for an educated person. The final argument is that most of the world’s most difficult problems begin at the point of person-to-person contact, such as issues of tolerance and diversity that can be dealt with only through interpersonal and group activity.
Traditional higher education focused on individual activity. Each student was expected to confront material on their own and master it, so that much of the activity of teaching was mass presentation of material through lecture. Even with the advent of new technologies, this traditional focus tended to be one-way communication, teacher to student. While, this model continues to dominate much of out current approach to education, especially at the undergraduate university level, evidence on how students learn strongly suggests this one-way communication process works well in only a small minority of cases. For example the Learning Pyramid concept developed at the National Training Lab in Bethel, Maine, notes that lecturing leads to a mere 5% retention on average and reading only boosts this to 10% on average. The best results in transferring skills and knowledge come from the use of hands-on exercises (or learning by doing) with a 50% retention of material and student peer teaching which leads to a 75% retention rate, on average. It is well known that student group projects can aid in learning by taking advantage of learning by doing and peer instruction as noted above. Again using the Learning Pyramid concept, as you move away form lecture and reading to hands-on activities and peer teaching, individual activities are replace with group assignments and the use of student teams.
Defining the Team Project Experience
The specific type of team project or group activity I wish to center my Meredith project around, for lack of a better title (and it needs a better title), I will call the “Real Leaderless Sponsored Student Team Project”. There are three necessary conditions for the creation of this type of project. First, the project must be a real project, which means that the project has sufficient complexity and size so that no one or two individual team members could successfully complete it on their own. Often this can be accomplished by projects that require a variety of technical and non-technical components such as typically found in business, engineering, communications, education and other fields with real world applications. This enforces the need for cooperative action, planning and management of the group members. Second, there should be no externally provided authority structure or leadership system imposed by the faculty member or others on the group. This is the concept of the leaderless group. This reinforces the need for management but also forces the group to early-on confront some basic social and managerial issues surrounding decision-making, the nature of authority, and management of conflict. Finally, each project must have a sponsor who has the expectation that the project will produce a real deliverable on time for some real-world purpose. While the existence of a sponsor with a real-world problem reinforces all of the above features of the project, more than this, it provides a powerful motivational force for students. As any good teacher knows, participation and motivation by the student is a necessary and sometimes also sufficient condition for learning to occur.
Prior Experiences with Group Project in Curriculum
Over the past 20 years I have used this type of project and several variations that sometimes exclude the use of an external sponsor in most classes I have taught. In my course on computer applications for public administration, one of my signature courses, I have used this technique with great success. Typically I have organized and managed between 3 and 5 such projects to support 25 to 30 students in a semester, with sponsors ranging from small not-for-profit organizations to larger state and federal government agencies. Student feedback consistently notes that the project supports the standard learning of technical skills such as systems design, analysis and database modeling along with teaching core management skills, techniques and knowledge on project management, group dynamics and conflict resolution.
This pedagogic approach has also become our department’s capstone learning experience, where all students participate in our Public Management Workshop course at the end of our program in June. Here a much broader array of topics and sponsors have been used, including private firms and tribal governments. I have been involved in delivering this course from the beginning and typically manage between 3 to 5 project teams each year. I would estimate that I have negotiated and/or advised over 60 such projects. Each year I am asked to give a special lecture, sometime at the beginning of the workshop course and sometimes earlier in the year, on project management and small group dynamics to support the broader departmental effort.
Applicability of Group Project Across Undergraduate, Graduate and Professional Program
I believe that the use of the “Real Leaderless Sponsored Student Team Project” (this really needs a better name) is applicable at all levels of university education across all colleges. While the most obvious applications are in programs that directly link to real work professional activities like, business, engineering, law, communications, education, architecture and human development, it can also apply to classes in the college of arts and sciences, and the college of visual and performing arts. (In some sense a public concert run by a student group, but faculty organized, is a form of this type of group project.) Studying group dynamics and social processes in psychology and sociology as well as anthropological studies of social groups and archeology are potential application areas in social science. Field studies in biology are another area where this type of student project could be applied. As with student learning, the best predictor of success in applying this approach in a wide array of settings will depend heavily on motivation, in this case motivation by individual faculty members.
Project Activities
Therefore the planned project activities focus on motivating faculty, as well as helping them to develop this innovation for their particular educational context by reducing transactions cost. This will be done through four general activities and formal deliverables..