REFLECTION 5 Group Work and Collaboration

PGDELT2001 HUANG XIN

It is generally claimed that “Two heads are better than one”, which emphasized on the collaboration and cooperation in work. People usually think that group work is advantageous for accomplishing a task, especially a great project or product. The advantages of collaborating most frequently are: more effective and efficient delivery of programs, professional development, improved communication, elimination of duplication, consistency of information and increased availability of resources.

In IT field, students learn best when they are actively involved in the process. Regardless of the subject matter, students working in groups tend to learn more of what is taught and retain it longer than when the same content is presented in other instructional formats. Students who work in collaborative groups also appear more satisfied with their classes. The idea that students learn more by doing something active than by simply watching and listening has long been known to effective teachers. And cooperative learning is by its nature an active method. Beyond that, cooperation enhances learning in several ways. Weak students working individually are likely to give up when they get stuck; working cooperatively, they keep going. Strong students faced with the task of explaining and clarifying material to weaker students often find gaps in their own understanding and fill them in. Students working alone may tend to delay completing assignments or skip them altogether, but when they know that others are counting on them, they are often driven to do the work in a timely manner. Students working competitively have incentives not to help one another; working cooperatively, they are rewarded for helping.

However, bright students may be held back by their slower teammates, weaker or less assertive students can also be discounted or ignored in group sessions. Thus, resentments build when some team members fail to pull their weight. Sometimes, we are patient enough to find ways to deal with these problems, but sometimes we become discouraged and revert.