Howto...? Teamwork in teaching

• Greater learning success!
  Learning success can be greater than when learning alone (Täschner, Diery & CHU Research Group, 2022).
• Explanation and exchange promotes learning:
  When working in a group, there is (in the best case) an intensive exchange with the learning material, which promotes a sustainable anchoring of what has been learned (Ebbert, 2019, p.256f.). It also allows you to uncover gaps in your own knowledge, which can be discussed and closed together in the group.
• Stay motivated with required meetings/tasks (Ebbert, 2019, p.256)!
• Save time by sharing tasks (Ebbert, 2019, p.256)!
• Dealing with different perspectives means that greater knowledge can be built up together than alone (Ebbert, 2019, p.256)
• Team skills can be tested (Ebbert, 2019, p.257).

A group is defined as 3 or more people. From 6 people onwards, phenomena such as "social loafing" occur more frequently. "Social loafing" means that group members reduce their willingness to perform and show less commitment in the group than they would on their own. This happens particularly often when one's own performance can no longer be easily identified. We therefore recommend group sizes of 3 to 5 people (Ebbert, 2019, p. 257; Täschner, Diery & CHU Research Group, 2022, p.5).

Define the task to be completed and the learning objective clearly and unambiguously: Why have you chosen the group work format? What added value does it offer?

In addition to the task, the work instructions also include the format of the task to be completed (presentation, written document, layout specifications if applicable, citation style), submission format and location (email, learning platform, submission per group or person) and the deadline. Requesting a project plan, minutes of meetings and interim results can help to guide the group in small steps.

The task should be suitable for working on in a group. This includes, for example, tasks that cannot be completed alone (Gössling, 2020, p. 185). It is helpful if each group member is assigned individual responsibility (e.g. through a subtask) (Gössling, 2020, p. 188). However, it should be made clear that it does not make sense to simply send finished PowerPoint slides or Word files to each other without checking them, discussing or presenting them in meetings and coordinating them with a common thread (Wolf, 2020, p.51f)!

In order to promote joint work despite individual tasks, "interim presentations" can be announced: At random, a group member in the course is asked to explain the current interim status of the group. This requires the groups to discuss their work regularly (Gössling, 2020, p. 188).

Group - teacher communication

Clarify how you would best like to be contacted for questions (e.g. by email or forum in a FELIX course). Plan for the possibility of consultation hours.

The assessment

Be transparent about your assessment criteria and whether you are assessing the group as a whole or individual performances. Our students found it particularly fair if there was a choice between an individual performance or a group performance.

A team initially only consists of individuals (Maier et al., 2011, p. 137f), so plan time for teambuilding activities.

Some ideas for implementation in the teaching materials that do not require many materials are as follows:

• Cooperative tower building
• Bridge building

Offer group consultation sessions in which the group's project plan can be reviewed and interventions can be made if tasks are incorrectly assigned. If you ask for intermediate results (e.g. parts of a presentation, short thematic queries), you can prevent possible misconceptions that can arise in group work when new topics are acquired.

• Ebbert, B. (2019). Effektiver Lernen für Dummies (2. Auflage 2019). Wiley, Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA.
• Maier, P., Barney, A., Price, G., & Pahlkötter, U. (2011). Survival-Guide für Erstis: Von Studenten für Studenten. Pearson Studium.
• Redaktion Personalwirtschaft (07.02.2018). Ich Team, du Work?https://www.personalwirtschaft.de/news/hr-organisation/teamwork-fuehrt-zu-social-loafing-103564/ (abgerufen am 22.11.2023)
• Täschner, J, Diery, A. & CHU Research Group (2022). Allein, zu zweit oder in Gruppen – Wie lernen SchülerInnen am besten? www.clearinghouse-unterricht.de, Kurzreview 31.
• Welch, J., & Welch, S. (Jul 11, 2011). How to Build a Winning Team. https://www.newsweek.com/how-build-winning-team-68401 (abgerufen am 22.11.2023)
• Wolf, J. (2020). Erste Hilfe bei Gruppenarbeiten—Möglichkeiten der Studierenden zur erfolgreichen Gestaltung dieser Arbeitsform. WiSt - Wirtschaftswissenschaftliches Studium, 49(1), 50–53. doi.org/10.15358/0340-1650-2020-1-50