A technique I use in teaching Physics is to have students work in small groups on a non-trivial problem (we have sets of problems called Ranking Tasks that are ideal for this). Then - each group is supposed to send a rep. to the board to write down their solution (typically a list of letters of different scenarios ranked in order). Everyone in the group who turns in their completed sheet at the end gets a participation grade, but they know that a similar problem will show up on the quiz or test and hence individual learning is also important. The power of the group comes in the conversations around the content.

I, too, would prefer to work alone rather than in groups. Could this be part of the explanation for so many dysfunctional academic departments in higher ed.?

Despite my personal bent, I always try to incorporate at least one collaborative, group assignment for each of my classes. From what I have read and experienced, collaborative work is key to learning, and I’ve seen some very successful projects, but these invariably require a high degree of instructor design and regulation.

Grading group projects is a special challenge. I’ve heard that if an instructor uses group grades rather than evaluating individual performance in a group, then it is best to have group members evaluate their teammates. This ensures a higher degree of individual accountability and makes assessment part of the learning process. Of course, the instructor must carefully design the assessment method too.

There are other ways to look at these issues. You have incorporated a very individualistic perspective on learning. Baxter Magolda (Creating Contexts for Learning and Self-Authorship) outlines three criteria for transformative learning. She includes a constructivist perspective that in my opinion is crucial to thinking about learning. Learning entails much more than transfers of information from the text or the professor’s notes. Quoting her ideas (p. 27-28):

Three principles emerging from the longitudinal study are validating students as knowers, situating learning in students’ own experience, and defining learning as mutually construing meaning.
Validating students as knowers means acknowledging their capacity to hold a point of view, recognizing their current understandings, and supporting them explaining their current views. Validation as a knower helps students view themselves as capable of learning and knowing, heightening their engagement in learning.
Situating learning in students’ own experience means using students’ experience, lives, and current knowledge as a starting point for learning. This places learning in a context students can readily understand. Situating learning in students’ experience can draw existing experiences into the learning context or create experiences within the learning context from which students can work. It also means connecting to students’ ways of making meaning.
Defining learning as mutually constructing meaning makes both teacher and student active players in learning. It suggests that the teacher and the students put their understandings together by exploring students’ experiences and views in the context of knowledge the teachers introduces. Together they construct knowledge that takes experience and evidence into account. Through this mutual construction, misunderstandings in previous knowledge are resolved; thus validating students as knowers does not mean endorsing misunderstandings. (Italics in the original.)

The first principle is about helping students understand themselves as learners. A key to this is to put their ideas into play with those of other students. You can’t know yourself as a learner without knowing both who you are and aren’t. Putting your ideas into play with those of others forces you to encounter multiple perspectives and understandings (even just different interpretations of the meaning of a given passage from the text). As learners encounter different interpretations of the key ideas of a course, they must move epistemologically toward more complex understandings of themselves and the content of our courses. Another key idea in the process of working out understanding of self is the building of trust and community in the group of learners. Group work often fails because we do not help students build trust. The semester system and the atomization of knowledge into courses and disciplines also undermine community.

The second principle relates to creating a context for buy-in. Learners resist new ideas for which they have no context or connection. They need to build on and make connections to what they already know. It is much easier to understand new ideas for which you can make connections to ideas with which you are comfortable. Often our biggest hurdle to engaging students is an assumption that what we want them to learn bears almost no relation to what they have learned before. The most successful teachers are ones who can help their students make connections. As students share their different experiences and understandings, they deepen knowledge of themselves as learners in the context of others as learners. In engaging in interactions centered on the course content learners who have different experience have to engage in higher level thinking and processing of ideas. This may not always be fun and comfortable but it will very likely be productive learning. Again, the semester system and faculty commitments to “covering all the material” work against using class time to develop the kinds of community and trust necessary to have productive group work. It is our fault, not theirs.

Finally the third principle moves us beyond the notion that there is only one correct understanding of the content we are teaching. Students test answers document that there are multiple understandings of the materials. We can agree that some of these student answers are better or more useful than other ones. We cannot dismiss the multiplicity. What we need to do is help students develop an understanding of that multiplicity so they can use reason and experience in the discipline to put different answers into a broader perspective. Learning includes developing the capacity to sift through perspectives and pick the ones that are most useful and consistent. We want to develop problem solvers not dictation robots. Because we value the product (the report) more than the learning process, we are less likely to put the energy into making the process a productive one.

Reflecting: Students (and faculty) aren’t born knowing how to function in a group. It’s one of those skills students should learn in college, and it’s one of those skills learned best if it’s taught explicitly.

Bravo….no, it is not inherent to work as a group/team. It requires the acquisition of knowledge and skill and the application of behavior in the context of learning. Communication, negotiation, and conflict resolutions skills are bext learned through intentional curricular design. In the health sciences, these skills are essential to teaching diverse health professionals how to function as an interprofessional team for the safety of the patient and for effectiveness of care. In fact, I cannot think of a discipline that does not need these skills…..even academics have to serve on committees. It is always a challenge and requires more energy to place our personal agendas to oneside and incorporate the ideas of others as a collective thought into a product. Even those of us who love to work alone must admit…that is our interaction and exposure to others that fuels our thoughts.

One pitfall of arguing that group work “prepares students for the real world” is that the college classroom can’t really be paralleled to the real world. It’s apples and oranges. In the corporate world (I know because I’ve worked in it for more than a few years) team based projects require high quality work and participation from each member. We get paid to do a job, and that is strong motivation to perform. People who can’t or won’t perform are culled from the team one way or another. Ultimately, even in collaboration, we stand or fall based on the merits of our own work.
In college, a good chunk of the population just pays their tuition and tries to skate through as easily as possible to graduate with a piece of paper. That means that in a group, a couple of people will be motivated and a few will not be. Those that aren’t performing or learning optimally are still carried through. That doesn’t happen in the real world. People like that get fired before too long.

Also, not everyone will choose to work in a highly group-centric field.

There is a host of other problems with high stakes group work in college. Ultimately, we don’t have group tests, group GPAs, or group interviews. So it is unfair to force students into high stakes group work.

I see the value in group discussions that allow students to engage and exchange ideas. Also, low stakes group assignments if they are well designed can be valuable. But please do not force your students into high stakes group work. The best thing you can do for your students is to encourage them to stand or fall on the merits of their own work. That is the skill that will be most useful in the real world.