During the last three years while completing my MBA I had both the opportunity and misfortune to participate in many group projects. Earlier this year while listening to my students complain about the challenges of group work...personality conflicts and work ethic dynamics, I relayed a few examples from my learning experiences. The bottom line is that no matter what age, educational or professional level of the group participants, challenges will occur. After a few meltdowns, our group soon realized that we were all educated professionals, yes with diverse personalities, however, we also had time and energy constraints so in order to complete our goal we must be organized.
As the years progressed, our comforts with each others knowledge increased and our group routine became; meet, establish a project outline and divide the work. This worked great, however putting together the final document became a long process of emails until we learned about a wiki.
A group member learned about wikis on you tube, shared this knowledge and our project flowed...without the numerous emails and cutting, pasting and reformatting each others work. We now had one document at an address accessible to all of us.
Another great way for students to create projects and become more efficient with group work! A long way from my first college years in the early 80s when the only way to complete a finished project was the Underwood Typewriter!
As the years progressed, our comforts with each others knowledge increased and our group routine became; meet, establish a project outline and divide the work. This worked great, however putting together the final document became a long process of emails until we learned about a wiki.
A group member learned about wikis on you tube, shared this knowledge and our project flowed...without the numerous emails and cutting, pasting and reformatting each others work. We now had one document at an address accessible to all of us.
Another great way for students to create projects and become more efficient with group work! A long way from my first college years in the early 80s when the only way to complete a finished project was the Underwood Typewriter!
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