Group Part 2!

I've been reading alot about 21st Century skills and collaboration is one of these skills which should be cultivated. Our kids in K-12 LIKE to work with others on projects. So I just don't understand where we fail at the higher ed level with these collaborative efforts. As adults, we don't work in isolation in our workplace, at home and even in our leisure activities (sports for example). Just look at teamwork and collaboration in motion with the NCAA basketball playoffs. Butler who? Go Green! (Michigan State Spartans! Sparty Hardy!)

So why are students so adverse to working in a collaborative project? It seems that I have about half of the students in CIS 115 involved in their groups.


My project is pretty low-risk and fairly simple as far as group projects go. Each student will receive an individual grade for their contributions. This is how I've set it up:

• Step 1: Students must select a group and join the small group discussion on Web 2.0 applications. Each group will create a wiki page with 4 individual contributions, one from each of the group members. So, initially, the student will receive a grade for their discussion in this small group. We just completed this part of the project and it was like pulling teeth. I had to "remind" students almost every day to join their group. I let them choose their own group (through the D2L group tool) and eventually I had to put the most of them in groups because of their slow response. Maybe it was because of spring break? At the very end of the discussion, more people joined in but this was way more stressful than it should have been.


• Step 2: The student selects a Web 2.0 application which they will research and write about. Again, this is an individual grade for the student. This is where we are now.


• Step 3: When the research is completed, the student will enter the information about their app on their group's wiki page.


• Step 4: As per the technology and purpose of a wiki, each student will then add contributions to each of the other wiki pages.


• Step 5: Finally, the student will evaluate the project, their efforts and the final result.

I'm not grading the entire group's project and using that grade for everyone. Each student will receive a grade based on their efforts so this is a loosely organized group project. None of this work is very difficult, even tech-wise and about half of the students seem to have gotten the point of the project. I don't get the rest of them.