{"id":22908,"date":"2015-09-02t09:21:06","date_gmt":"2015-09-02t14:21:06","guid":{"rendered":"\/\/www.imrbdigital.com\/?p=22908"},"modified":"2015-10-02t14:11:49","modified_gmt":"2015-10-02t19:11:49","slug":"what-makes-group-work-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/\/www.imrbdigital.com\/2015\/09\/what-makes-group-work-work\/","title":{"rendered":"what makes group work work<\/i>?"},"content":{"rendered":"

by cynthia brame, cft assistant director<\/p>\n

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\nwe\u2019ve all been there: victims of unproductive and frustrating group work. perhaps an instructor poses a question, tells us to turn to our neighbor and discuss it, and we all sit silently\u2026because the answer\u2019s obvious and there\u2019s nothing to discuss. or perhaps we have an end-of-semester project to develop, and two of the four group members don\u2019t show up for meetings, fail to do their prep, and generally don\u2019t pull their weight.<\/p>\n

hopefully, we\u2019ve also been on the other side of the equation, where group work has allowed us to learn deeply and to produce work that is better than we could produce individually. for example, the students in david mathes\u2019 biology class are learning more about plasmid design while working together than they could hope to do alone:<\/p>\n