You read in your syllabus “…and you’ll be working in groups to meet this competency…” Oh no! Group work! I’d rather eat a bug every day for the rest of my life than do group work! Why, why, why do professors insist on group activities? “Because it’s important, it’s good for you, it helps you develop skills you’ll need in your professional life,” they say, “And you won’t always be able to hand pick your group!” Is this all true? Or is this an urban legend? Why do students (of all ages) hate group work so much?

The highly esteemed Maryellen Weimer hypothesizes there are three reasons why students loathe group work. First, students “don’t always learn well in social contexts” (para. 2). Second, Weimer states faculty use faulty design in evaluating group performance, where everyone in the group gets the same grade. This practice enrages the over-producers and inappropriately rewards the under-producers. Last, Weimer introduces the idea of individual group member vulnerability. She explains that there should be a role for everyone in the group, not just the leader.

I can share a personal example of Weimer’s reason number two that occurred recently in my professional life. When a student fails a course, they can appeal the decision to the Vice Chair for Education, which for courses in my department means me. A young man appealed his failing grade by stating that he did the bulk of his group’s work on a set of cases that were due, while his non-participatory group-mates used that time to study for an upcoming exam. He only failed the course by a few points, and he was beside himself that had he done better on the exam, he too would have passed the course. All his group-mates received the same grade as he for the cases submitted, but they all did better on the exam than he, and they all passed the course. Unfortunately the cases were only worth 5% of the course grade, but the exam was worth 30%. He was asking for a few bonus points so he would also pass the course thanks to his “taking a bullet” for the team with the cases. Unfortunately I could not grant his request, and I suggested that in the future he too carefully evaluate where his efforts would be best spent. Even more unfortunately, despite doing the lion’s share of the work on the cases, he/they didn’t score very well on that either. Had he spent more time on the exam he may have actually passed the course.

As faculty members, can we use strategies to make for more successful groups? Perhaps letting learners self-select their groups. I’ve worked in groups from elementary school to the present with varying degrees of success. I’ve been in groups where I wanted to poke out both my eyeballs, and I’ve been in groups (mostly where I invited group members) that produced magical, magnificent synergistic work. Can we use a systematic method for assigning groups however to similarly achieve positive outcomes?

Byrnes & Byrnes suggest one strategy that they’ve found quite helpful (2009, para. 4). At the beginning of each class they ask each student to respond to the following question:

“Thing about your experience working in groups. Please select the one response that best suits your experience:

1. I enjoy working in groups because my group members help me understand the material and tasks and therefore I can perform better.

2. I question the value of group work for me, because I usually end up doing more than my fair share of the work.

3. I have little or no experience working in groups.

4. I have a different experience than the choices given above. Please describe.”

The authors call those who selected response number 2 “lone wolves” and put all the lone wolves in a group together. They claim the results are fairly magical because they are all high-flyers who are “equally driven and equally intelligent” (para 6).

So what’s my take on group work? If I have the latitude, I pick my own groupies. If I don’t, I try to work with the group to determine the strengths of each group member and play to those strengths. If, despite this, we still don’t have a smooth working relationship, I just do my best to be a team player and continually ask myself “Do I want to die on this hill?” Do I want to fight to the death over every single point? Is “good enough” (in my opinion) sometimes “good enough?” Do I want to sacrifice time I could spend on that paper worth 30% of my grade to get my way on a 5% weight project? Disharmony comes at a great price; taking the high road is generally the better bet!


Byrnes, J., & Byrnes, M. (2006, May 26). Dealing with students who hate working in groups. Retrieved March 14, 2015, from https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/effective-classroom-management-dealing-with-students-who-hate-working-in-groups/

Weimer, M. (2008, July 1). Why students hate groups. Retrieved March 14, 2015, from https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/eaching-and-learning-why-students-hate-groups/

 

One of our assigned readings this semester was a chapter by Bates and Sangra titled “Recent developments in technology and education” (2011, pp. 25-51). In this chapter the authors addressed the social construction of knowledge, and the use of web 2.0 tools in both the constructivist model (student control) and objectivist model (learner control). They provided a very useful diagram illustrating where various teaching strategies and tools fall within this objectivist-constructivist spectrum lie. Lectures are shown so far to the left (objectivist) it almost falls into the margin!

I must admit some teachers are so boring when they lecture, you fear you may fall into an irreversible coma. Yet our traditional higher education system is largely built on the back of the lecture format! Indisputably, we aim to train the pharmacy students at my university as constructivist thinkers, not just to pour facts into their empty little heads as the objectivist-lecture approach would intimate.

I recently read with great interest an opinion article by Penson titled “Lecturing: A lost art” (2012, pp. 72-76). I had to snicker over his reference to a quote from Mark Twain: “College is a place where a professor’s lecture notes go straight to the students’ lecture notes, without passing through the brains of either” (p. 72). Penson acknowledges that lecturing has gotten an exceptionally bad reputation in education circles in recent years. He quotes from a recent article authored by DiPiro who argued that lecturing has no place in pharmacy education (2009). DiPiro stated that lectures are passive teaching and don’t lead to knowledge retention, they don’t account for differences in learning styles, they are often are outdated or are quickly such, and lectures don’t develop learning critical thinking skills. Penson countered, however, saying lecture CAN be used to develop constructivist thinkers!

What Penson is referring to is the incorporation of active learning into the lecture format. This is the style that I personally use. No wonder so many of our students stay home to listen to lectures that were recorded in class when all the professor does is read the slides! I’d stay home too, and I’d crank it up to double speed! Penson argues that a lecture CAN be highly interactive with the students. This could include think-pair-share activities in the middle of lecture, calling on students to explain/reframe content just discussed, having students answer an open-ended or multiple choice question on content presented in the past 5-10 minutes. Learners start to brown out after about 7-10 minutes of lecture and need an opportunity to process the information, or the teacher really does risk “in one ear and out the other.” As a clinician, I pull on my years of experience taking care of patients. “I had this patient who…” is frequently heard in my lectures. I routinely teach 160 students at one time in my “lectures” and I include them by cold-calling on them. It’s true I don’t know most of their names, so I go with “You in the purple shirt – what do you think about this?” (I’ve noticed fewer bright colors in my classroom over the years!).

So as I sit here in a distance education program learning ABOUT distance education, is there room for the lecture format? Yes, I would say with great enthusiasm! In OMDE 601 we have watched several lectures presented by faculty from Germany, England and other countries! The coursemanager then uses this lecture and asks learners to participate in a variety of active learning exercises. This could include reflection in your ePortfolio, participating in a discussion forum, or engaging in an online asynchronous discussion with experts in the field concerning the lecture content.

In closing, I agree that lectures can be strongly objectivist (and boring I might add) but I also agree with Penson that lectures augmented by workshops, problem-based learning activities, case-based discussions, and in-class active learning techniques can be constructivist as well. I am a very practical teacher giving concrete examples to my students. I demand they apply information immediately and repeatedly throughout our journey together. I remain committed to educating the best pharmacist practitioners I can, using all the tools at my disposal.

 

Bates, T., & Sangra, A. (2011). Recent developments in technology and education. In Managing technology in higher education: Strategies for transforming teaching and learning (p. 25-51). San Francisco, California: Jossey-Bass.

DiPiro, J. (2009). Why Do We Still Lecture? American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, 73, 137-137.

Penson, P. (2012). Lecturing: A lost art. Currents in Pharmacy Teaching and Learning, 4, 72-76. doi: 10.1016/j.cptl.2011.10.010

I'm excited to be launching my very first blogsite! This is a requirement for OMDE 603/9041 - "Technology in Distance Education and E-learning!"

I also look forward to receiving comments from the course manager and my "critical friend" - just don't be TOO critical! 

Check back soon! 
Lynn