Project Investigator(s): Xiaowen Xu, Instructor, Department of Asian Studies; Bosung Kim, Learning Designer, CTLT
Project Description
One common complaint about group projects is that students feel that their group members are not contributing equally, and such feelings may have negative impacts. Thus, the success of the group projects is dependent on a fair division of labour among the group members. How to help students to find a suitable method to split group work, how to guide the group to follow the method effectively, and how to evaluate each member’s contribution put up a challenge to the students and the instructor. This project aims to explore how students divide tasks to complete a group essay writing assignment and to develop “best practice” recommendations that help students divide tasks among group members more effectively within upper year Chinese Literature courses.
Research Questions
1. How do students divide tasks (collaborative, cooperative or mixed)? What are the reasons for their choice?
2. What are the pros and cons of those methods (collaborative, co-operative and mixed)in terms of division of labors when students are writing a group paper?
3. If groups change their choice of methods in the middle of their project, why is this decision made?
4. How does the group reach agreement over controversial division of labour, and what can the instructor do to facilitate the group work?
Impact on teaching and learning at UBC
1. The project helps students achieve the learning objectives in the course; 2. The project can be promoted into other CHIN 450+ courses in Asian Studies where a research paper is commonly used as an assessment of students’ knowledge and academic communication skills; 3. The project can also provide other large enrollment courses at UBC with an optional assessment. 4. The project can suggest instructional strategies that guide students to divide tasks more fairly and effectively when working on a group project.