The Skills Pod

Group Work

• University of Chester: Academic Skills

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Join the Academic Skills Team for The Skills Pod. In this episode, Academic Skills Advisers, Emma, Anthony, and Liz chat all things group work. We discuss the benefits of group work, the possible pitfalls and how to avoid them, and share our strategies for successful group work. 

You might also find it useful to listen to our podcast episodes on Approaching an Assignment and Presentations. 

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Emma :

Hi everybody and welcome to another episode of the Skills Pod. I'm Emma and I am one of the academic skills advisors at the University of Chester. And I'm joined by my colleagues.

Liz :

Hi yeah, my name's Liz, and I'm also one of the academic skills advisors.

Anthony :

And hi everyone, I'm Tony, and I'm one of the senior academic skills advisors part of the team too.

Emma :

And today we are going to chat. Group work.

Anthony :

Some people love it. Some most people hate it, I would say.

Emma :

Yeah.

Liz :

Agree with that.

Emma :

It's something that we're seeing quite a lot of, isn't it? That students are coming to our one-to-ones with presentations that are part of their group work or they're getting feedback on group work and they want to discuss it. So we thought it would be a good episode to do to kind of unpack and share some top tips on group work.

Anthony :

Yeah, and I think also just sharing the you know, people who aren't too keen on it just to understand why we do it. Um but also, you know, it's the same for us, isn't it? You know, we do these training and it's like do your icebreaker or do some group work. And everyone's like, oh do I have to? Um but yeah, but group work can actually be really, really beneficial. And so we'll we'll touch on some of those things as as we go through today as to why your tutors are making you do group work.

Emma :

Well, maybe that's what we can start with.

Anthony :

Maybe we should start with that. Yeah, why not? So, yeah, um, so why do we do group work? So, fundamentally, from an academic point of view, it's about working in a team, just like you would when you go out into industry or you're working in your job. Granted, there are some jobs out there where you'll be not really talking to anybody, you might be kind of quite siloed, but for most people in day-to-day interactions, you're having that shared goal, you're working with individual people, you might not come from the same background, you might have different tasks, different roles, and it's about that ability to deal with other people and their strengths and their weaknesses, and how do you find that common ground to make sure you get towards that shared goal? And and for yourselves as well, it's almost kind of like rather than doing a 4,000-word assignment, you're splitting that up between yourselves, so it's slightly less work for you. So there's often that more holistic take when it comes to group work, it's not just the outcome of the assignment, actually, it's about your ability to communicate, to get along with people who might have different views and to kind of work towards that. So that's why primarily we get you to do group work so that we can prepare you for that world of work.

Liz :

If you think about it, this podcast is group work. So, you know, it is something that we're we all do as part of our jobs, whether it's a small component that doesn't happen very often, or whether it's something that that happens on a regular basis. And as Tony said, you know, you're not always coming from the same background, you've got different job roles maybe that you're coming into doing the group work with. So you're bringing yourself and your skills, but you're having to negotiate. And communication is the word that's already been mentioned, and that's the thing we're probably going to talk about the most. It's easy to miscommunicate, it's easy to um find it a difficult thing to do because it is a difficult thing to do. So communication really is the key to group work, and that's one of the reasons it's such an important part of your degree because it's going to be an important part of your life no matter what you do.

Emma :

Yeah, and I guess it's also like, you know, again, uh applicable to all stages of life. Um it's being put, you know, you'll all you'll all have like your friends in your course who you'd rather work with or you've got those relationships with already that you, you know, are gonna be you're gonna think you're gonna be much better for group work, but actually it's being put into situations where you don't know people. But like you're being put with people who you don't who you don't know very well, who you might be aware of but don't know very well, and that can be quite intimidating and daunting. Um, and yeah, we've all felt that, haven't we? First day of work, um, you know, not knowing anybody, but then you know, it's building those kind of relationships. So it's kind of like a microcosm. Is that the right word, Nicolas?

Anthony :

Yeah, and and I think you're developing things. Particularly in my old role being an assessment officer, we used to get a lot of students, particularly at master's level, who the big reason why they push back on group work was because that there's a mark element. You know, when you're doing an assignment yourself, you have an entire control of everything that you do. And I think actually a lot of student anxiety around group work comes from not necessarily knowing is that person going to perform is part of a group. And this is why it's so important that you listen today about steps to put into place to make sure that everybody is on the same page, everybody is working to their strengths to make sure that you do collectively or get buy-in and have have a good mark at the end. Because I thought I find out a lot of students feel like it's that lack of control or that perceived lack of control. Um, but actually, there's a lot of things we can do in it in that group setting, which we'll get into today.

Emma :

So, shall we start at the top? So you've got your assessment, you've been told who your group is. What might be the first kind of thing that you can do?

Liz :

Definitely make sure you know who the other people in the group are and you actually communicate with them. Uh, lots of people I've seen recently who've got group work, have got WhatsApp going with people in their group, things like that, maybe, so they can make appointments, however, they want to share information. And obviously that straightaway opens the the floodgates of how do you communicate with people? Have you got a Facebook group, have you got a WhatsApp group? Are you have you got teams set up within your module space for the different groups to to break out and have conversations? How are you going to communicate? You've got to start off making some sort of ground rules and making some sort of um advances as to the communication method that's preferred.

Anthony :

And anything with that, it's so important to know, you know, are part of your groups commuting? Do they have work or caring commitments? You know, so if you work best at eight o'clock, but part of your group are in work, well, then you're gonna have to have that common ground, that compromise. So I think finding out where everybody is is a baseline in terms of yeah, what what's their kind of day-to-day kind of working like? Did they prefer WhatsApp? I think getting that common ground, and there might be an element of compromise, as there always is in a group setting, but yeah, um have a think about I think you're actually spot on this, it's finding out first and more who you are and kind of what your parameters are to kind of open up those channels of communication.

Liz :

I had um I was in a group work situation when I worked for a private company about 30 years ago, and one of the people in the group, she had some um personal issues that were going on that she didn't communicate with us, and it was quite a long time ago, so email was only just a thing. We there weren't many ways for us to contact each other besides phone calls, uh, and she was quite often missing from some of the meetings or would make promises that she then wasn't able to fulfil because of the time commitments that she'd got on her outside. Um, and it it made things quite difficult because it put a barrier between us. Obviously, don't disclose anything you're not comfortable with, but just giving people a heads up saying I've got other commitments, or as you said, Tony, I've got these shifts that I regularly do that can't be moved, or whatever it might be. If you're uh you come forward with that straight away, then it stops you feeling awkward or stressed, and it stops the people in the group wondering why you're not responding, maybe if they know. It's about again, it's communication, it can be really difficult.

Emma :

Yeah, but I think this the kind of earlier you you say that you might say I've got some puzzle things that I don't want to discuss, but these are these are the ways it uh affects, you know, my my availability, things like that. The sooner you kind of tell your group that, because what we don't want is that your group becomes quite fragmented, you know, i if you set those kind of um expectations very early on, then that's gonna help. Um, you know, it's no good kind of leaving it until just before the deadline when nobody's talking to each other and no one knows what they're doing. It's important to kind of share that information as as much as you feel comfortable sharing early on, um to kind of prevent any issues in terms of kind of that structure of the group further, definitely.

Anthony :

Because again, what why is this important? Because if there are part of your team who can't do things at the start because of commitments, and that's when you kind of factor into overall plan of okay, you might be busy, you might not be able to create the presentation, but you might be the one who's gonna deliver it. Um, you know, because that's when your time is is better. So you need to know all that information at the start in order to move into that plan of plan of action, really.

Emma :

And that leads nicely into kind of you know what you're in a group for. So what is the task that you've got to do? Is it a presentation? Is it a report that you've all got to contribute to? So looking at that assignment brief, we've we've got shameless plug, we've got an episode on approaching an assignment in which we talk about breaking down an assignment brief. So, you know, listen to that episode.

Anthony :

If you do the presentation, we we have that as well.

Emma :

Um, you know, what are you what are what are the what are you being asked to do? What are your learning outcomes? Start to think about what tasks, you know, breaking that down, what tasks you might need to do to achieve the end goal, which is whatever um that assignment is going to be, presentation, report, whatever. Um, and so make sure that you know what your objectives are and start to break those tasks down. And then um you can start to kind of delegate those tasks, delegate those roles.

Anthony :

And I think this is where it's important that I mean, I think naturally some people who'd like to lead will kind of come into that role who will take ownership of that delegation. Um, and that can be a challenge when there's two perceived leaders in the group or there's no uh leaders in that group, just how that mechanics have gone. But it is important, I think, someone does get to a point where like, right, okay, this is what we need to do. Let's start to kind of divvy those tax suspensions. And what I would really recommend is that groups are open and honest about what their strengths and weaknesses are. Um, you know, some people who are, so let's say it's a presentation, are naturally really confident speakers in that group, others not so much. Some people might really like research, or some people might be really creative. Understanding your group dynamics and the strengths and weaknesses are so so important. Um, because like for example, I was put in a group uh final year uh with a he was a friend of mine, uh Johnny. You know, you wouldn't mind me saying this, that you know, academically not the best, and he was there for a good time and he, you know, sure you slated poor Johnny before.

Emma :

No, Johnny another name.

Anthony :

No, I haven't slated Johnny before. Um Johnny's a good lad, he's actually like an MA fighter now, so you don't want to mess with Johnny. Um but but Johnny wasn't great. I mean at least Johnny Bravo, yeah. Um wasn't the best academic, but an amazing lad, super funny. But he used to doodle in class, and his doodles were amazing, so we were so creative. And part of our task, we had to design these posters. Um, we're going out into uh this like a local village for F hour. And so I kind of recognized that you know, Brian, you have such a great strength for creativity, you're our creative guy, you're the one who's hopefully gonna create all the materials, design them, and recognizing that rather than just going, oh well, you're not the best academically. Um oh no, you're in our group, which would be an awful thing to think. Every single person in the group has value, and you have to talk those things through and recognize them. And and for him, he was super motivated by that because that's something he had a passion in, he loved his drawing. So you have to chat to people about what are your strengths, what are your weaknesses. So if someone isn't confident in speaking, well then, and somebody else is, well, then maybe they take on more of a role in the speaking element. Uh, and it is important, I think, that you do that because that can kind of help you make sense of what people are going to do for that particular project.

Liz :

And if you aren't comfortable with starting that conversation, there are quite a lot of things like Belbin out there that are little quizzes, or you know, they ask you some questions so you can determine maybe what your natural group role would be. And it just gives you different roles to start off with to say, okay, we've got a group of four people, or we've got a group of eight people. What are the different roles potentially that we could take? And you try to split it up in a way that plays to your strengths, as Tony was saying, so that you're not feeling vulnerable. It is quite a big, a big overwhelming thing to sort of say, okay, well, I'm going to be the leader, and that have everybody in the group look at you and go, okay, well, you're just starting to be bossy or whatever it might be. There's an awful lot of team dynamics that can take things off in the wrong direction. So you want to make sure that you've got some sort of where you can discuss and negotiate things so that it does feel as though people are playing to their strengths and they're not feeling as though they're either being isolated and pushed to one side so they've not got a role, or that the role that they're given is somehow just to keep them quiet because they haven't got much to to give or whatever. It's it's really fraught, isn't it? No matter where you are on the scale, it's quite a fraught thing of what is my role, how do I feel useful, what are my strengths. And um, I've watched quite a few group presentations where nerves play a big part in the actual presentation itself, but it doesn't mean to say they're not there all the way through the process, yeah. Feeling as though, you know, what am I contributing? Is there an issue? Is there a problem? Uh, and having the the avenues to be able to discuss that.

Emma :

I think also it's potentially about not, you know, if you do feel awkward framing it as strengths and weaknesses, maybe it's just having that open conversate open conversation of these are the things that I like to do, and these are the things that I I don't really like to do. Um, you know, I like to research, I like to do the referencing. To them sad, I quite enjoy referencing. Um you know, I don't I'm not I don't really like drawing, I don't really like you know, think things like that. So, you know, it that can be a good way to kind of maybe as a good part starting point um to kind of start to think about what people enjoy doing and what might be the so therefore might be their strength. Um but I think it's a great point about the different quizzes that are available.

Anthony :

I I think it's important as well that you know have a bit of if you're not too confident in something or you have that perceived weakness, maybe you think like leadership isn't really for you, but maybe try it or say that to the group. Like, um I'm not usually, but I like to try because it is all about learning. And I think those who are confident in certain things, you should really support those people. So if you are a really confident peak speaker and someone says, Well, I'm not too confident, you know, try and bring them up, give them that confidence. You know, it shouldn't just be let's all play to our strengths. There should be an element of learning from each other and bringing everyone up in all of the skills. That's what I love about group work when it works well. That's what group work should do.

Emma :

I guess it's a safe space, isn't it, to try these things where you've got other people to support you, you know, you might not be so conf, as you're saying, it's not not so confident in the skill. And that might be, you know, terrifying to have to do it. You know, if you had a presentation to do on your own and you're not a confident public speaker. However, if within a group setting, you know, that's a great place. It's like, it's like whenever you this is not academic, but whenever you speak to like girl bands or you know, bands that were once together, I think of like lift little makes and things like that, where they would say, The first time I performed on my own, I was terrified because they've had that support of other groups. So it I guess it's that kind of tangent that I took.

Liz :

It does make sense though, because when you're presenting something as a group, you've got people around you that can support you and pick things up, but when you're there on your own, you are feeling more vulnerable. So another aspect of group work is to get you to develop confidence, maybe in presentation skills uh and give you that support. So you're not there on your own. Uh-huh.

Anthony :

Because I think with with group group work, the task is one thing, but actually the main success of group work is actually those inter-team dynamics. How do you deal with conflict? How do you deal with different people's views? And how do you how how do you have that support? So it that I think that's where everyone's anxiety comes from, isn't it? When you put in a group, particularly when you don't know those individuals, how are they gonna react? How are they gonna do things? And it's about spending the time at the starting and all that out. Yeah.

Emma :

So what about so we're kind of spoken about the different dynamics, thing uh, you know, what play ways in which you might consider strengths and weaknesses. What about kind of the task that you've been given? So, what kind of, you know, you've got your task, what's gonna kind of help a group navigate that task, maybe keep on track with that task?

Liz :

Well, I don't know. Sometimes people have things like gant charts that they've set up as part of the discussion for um the timeline. So it's it's trying to break down the big project into the different things that individuals are going to bring to it so that they've got time to practice before the actual presentation or they've got time to put the report together and edit it and look across at different people's work. So there's quite a few different ways you can break it down. And we talk about chunking in in so many podcasts, don't we? And chunking individual tasks, and that's what the group work's going to be as well. It's going to be chunking your task, but not losing sight of the bigger picture that it fits within. And just like you have an introduction and a main body with lots of different paragraphs that lead from one to another in a typical essay, just like that in group work, your work isn't in isolation, it fits together with other people's work, and you might need to be have finished one component before the next person can pick that up and do something in the next stage. So it is about backwards and forwards communication, working out maybe what it is you need to go further, how much time you're going to need to be able to put something together so you tell the next person in the line where they're up to.

Emma :

Yeah. And I guess the the great thing about today's world is that, you know, when I was an Undergrad things weren't as connected as they are now. So you can have your OneDrive and you can have documents that you're all working on at the same time. So you can all see each other's progress, or you can comment, you know, provide constructive comments on people's progress, or if you've got an issue, you can you can work through that on a document. Whereas, you know, in my day, we didn't have that. So it's much more connected, isn't it? Which is great.

Anthony :

And just combining breaking it down, I say listen to that approaching the assignment one because it doesn't matter if it's a presentation or a report or even something else, it still has that working backwards from the deadline. You know, then you have that time for pre-freading editing before you keep it in. Um, you have the the rating or the creation of said thing, but before you do that, you need to have your reading and research informing that. And before you do anything, you have to have that plan. So um, you know, we would recommend wouldn't be around about 10% of your time, three or so days, like planning an assignment. It's the same principle, regardless of what task you've got in a group work. And then once you know that, and as Liz said, you know, breaking down that time, if you do have to go away and read something, how long is that going to take you collectively? And again, you're in a group. Can you be savvy with that? We need to read 10 articles. Do you divvy that up? You know, and start to think of right, okay, if we've got 20 days, and based on all our previous commitments that we've now hopefully all discussed and ironed out, what can we feasibly get done in that time and when? And having those deadlines and sticking to them uh is is key.

Liz :

Yeah, the sticking to them can be difficult because we live in the real world, not the ideal world, and things do go wrong, people get sick, whatever it might be. So having a bit of a buffer zone in there or as I call it, wiggle room. Wiggle room.

Emma :

Yeah, allow allow your allow yourself that time to you know to wiggle. Yeah, to wiggle. Yeah. And I guess it it's keeping like meeting throughout, making sure that, you know, as I said, you've got all these documents that you can you can comment on in multiple people can comment on at the same time, but it's not a replacement for those conversations. So make sure that you're meeting regularly, checking in on each other's progress, um you know, supporting each other, troubleshooting, that's such a great thing about group work, isn't it? Because often when you're like writing an assignment on your own, you it can be quite difficult to kind of ha unpack those kind of, you know, if if you're if you feel that you you're stuck or something like that. But with a group situation, you've got people to kind of soundboard, is that the right raise soundboard? Use a soundboard to kind of you know move the project along.

Anthony :

And if you are somebody who's been given a task, you know, yes, that should go primary pri I can't say that word, primary task. Um but if you see something or you have a good idea or you, you know, help everybody say it is a team. Like I we cannot stress this enough that this is not four or five individuals doing something that just so happened to come together at the end. It should all be connected and you know, and it's a in our day-to-day lives as a team, you know, we have our responsibilities, but we still or Chibin, we help out, we have our different faculties, but we're teaching different ones based on availability, it's about that collective end goal uh as a team.

Emma :

It's also about holding each other accountable, isn't it? And making you feel things get done. Um yeah.

unknown:

Yeah.

Liz :

Yeah, trying to work around obstacles and trying to, you know, if there's a an issue with the research and the person who's being assigned the research is like, look, this is a lot. I'm not getting through it as quickly as I can. Splitting things up with other individuals and like like you say, using things like the OneDrive, so you can collectively put your ideas together, it's going to save time, but it's being able to say this isn't going as well as I thought, or can I have a bit of a hand here, or this is this is a bigger task than it seemed to be initially, and we need a few people on it just to rearrange as we go along.

Emma :

Yeah, and I I think as well, like when you're having those regular meetings, make sure that you're keeping a record of the meetings and you've got action points so that you know you what what what you're gonna do before the next meeting, you know, if someone needs help, who's gonna help? You know, make sure that you are kind of problem solving as you go along.

Liz :

Yeah. And the other thing that that's gonna really be beneficial for is if it is say a presentation. Um I've watched quite a few presentations where students have been siloed with their bit and they've not known the whole of the presentation and how it's gonna flow. And then when something goes wrong, so for example, um some one of the people in the presentation and they'd got all of their notes on cue cards, and one of the people dropped their cue cards on the floor when it came to them to do the presentation. The cue cards weren't numbered, they would they'd got, I don't know, 12 or 13 cue cards and they'd not got the order because they'd all fallen on the floor. Nobody else knew their bit of the presentation well enough. So they were standing there trying to help this person to pick them up and work out the order, but because they didn't know the other person's material, they couldn't help with the order. So you are doing the whole thing as a group work project, so knowing the whole project and knowing how it flows and maybe what you're going to present and getting that whole overview is really going to save you stress and anxiety on the day.

Anthony :

And and I know this is not the focus of the overall podcast today, but just to touch on that later, when you do watch a group presentation, when people aren't even nodding along as a group to what people are saying or chipping in, and it does just feel like four individuals, and yeah, there's just nothing worse than a group that have not practiced together. Um yeah. Um and let that be a lesson having cue cards. Number your cue cards, number your cue cards you're gonna use them.

Emma :

And I think um as well, like if you are anxious about public speaking, maybe having those mini presentations in the meeting, like you know, each of you talks about what you've done, doing that presenting to your group can kind of help start to boost your confidence. Because also it's showing, you know, that often kind of the key thing with nerves is you know, public speaking is terrifying. But also if you've got a space where you can practice public speaking with your group members, which obviously, you know, if if they're not people that you know well on your course, that's gonna still be terrifying. But over time, as you're kind of having these meetings, practicing, things like that, you're gonna hopefully it's gonna help you feel a little bit more confident for when it does come to delivering that presentation, if you are delivering a presentation.

Anthony :

Shall we uh talk about the thing that actually not many people do talk about is what happens all the time, the challenges of group work and and conflict that may arise and how we do it. I know from from my experience, often students have the anxiety around what do I do when someone isn't pulling their perceived weight? Um there's issues of when you have conflict between groups that could be say those two leaders who are kind of vying for for the top position, or there's that clash of personalities, it might be. Um, and sometimes just when you fundamentally you're one of those people who disagree with the direction of the group, but everybody else seems to agree that's where it goes. So should we try and pick some of those apart? Because I know that is a big concern for a lot of a lot of students, um, which is that what happens if you feel like someone isn't pulling their weight or hasn't really kind of shown up. So um I've seen it before. I say you went to assessment officer, we used to get some students saying, Hey, look, this student's not doing this and that. I say I've had it in my groups before where you kind of feel like could you do being more? And as I got through, quite often it is just that lack of communication. What challenges are they facing that they can't achieve the the goals that you'd set out as a group? And you know, and I think if you approach that rather in an antagonistic way, more of a supportive, like what can we do to help you with that? And maybe it's because they've got a task that that is their fundamental weakness, that you haven't took the time to find out what their strengths are, or maybe, like you mentioned before, that is you know, that colleague you had who had those other things going on, it wasn't communicated. So your first thought is, Oh, they're just not pulling away because they can't be bothered, but actually, there's other things going on. So I think it's really important that you have that openness. And I think if you are somebody who you know potentially has come here and you're like, Oh, that they'll carry me, you know, students aren't deaf, like they're gonna call you out on it. Um, so just for the sake of those other people, you might not be too concerned about your work, but now it's bigger than you. This is this is a group, so yeah, step up, but it is important that you have that openness and that communication between team members and try and do everything you can to bring them up to to the level that you anticipate. But I think it is important at the start is having that expectations. What what are the expectations of the group? Um, because if you don't have that at the start, there is no element of, well, I thought I was working at the right level, you didn't tell me at the start. So yeah, difficult conversation to have.

Liz :

And it could be sometimes that the conversation, so I've got a 20-year-old son, and if I ask him a direct question, I quite often get yes or no or as a response. So it's trying to elicit uh and open a conversation with them without making the other person feel vulnerable because you're saying it why haven't you done this? Is there an issue with this or whatever? If you're saying, um, I don't know, your role was to do some research. Um I've I did manage to find something that was useful. I'm gonna share it with you. Is that is that okay? Or you know, have you had any thoughts or something like that? So you're just trying to lead it into a natural discussion rather than it being a very short question of why haven't you done this, or is there a problem or an issue? Trying to say how can we solve it? Like you said, Tony, it's it's that turning it around a little bit so that it gives an opening for people not to feel as though they're being challenged, or maybe they're feeling vulnerable because they've not been able to do something and they close down the minute you say why haven't you done it? It's again it's difficult, it's a difficult thing to do, and we're all still learning because each individual's a different individual, so it might be a completely um common situation that you've done several times before, but if it's a different group with different individuals, then you are kind of starting over. You can't expect it'll go the same way as it did last time just because it's the same scenario.

Anthony :

What about conflicts between team members? How do we how do we tackle this? Do you think? It's not often conflict arises in a group. I think I say a lot of students have this anxiety of what if there's a there's conflict in the group, what if we don't agree? It's actually really, really rare that that happens. That you know, but there is in the world, you know, as you said, Liz, we live in the real world, there are some times where personalities just do clash, that you just don't fundamentally get on well with somebody. And that's gonna probably happen, you know, ever somewhere later on in your life, and you have to still have that okay, I don't like you, you don't like me, but for the sake of this, you know, let's just put those differences aside. And if you are really honest, you will recognize there are lots of strengths from that person. You might not like how they go about things, but there are strengths, and you do sometimes have to just be that mature and just go, okay, you know, am I gonna be friends with you after this? Am I gonna, you know, send you a Christmas card? No, but for the sake of this couple of weeks to get this presentation done, you know, let's just shelve it, you know, let's just have that. And again, having that, why is there conflict? And again, often it's that lack of communication. Communication governs everything, you know. If if you don't like the way they've gone about something, ask them why do you go about that way? And is there something that I can offer different, you know? Um being that openness to give something up of yourself for across the group can often bring down those power dynamics and stuff. Um, but I would say that you know, it's a I would say it's number one concern from students is what do I do if someone's not doing something they should in the group and there's conflict. It's actually pretty rare. Um, but it is important that you do try and and obviously, you know, if it gets to a point, you know, you talk to your tutor, that's what they're there for, you know. Um and go through that. But I think communication is is key.

Liz :

But it is a major issue in terms of it being in people's heads, even if it doesn't actually become an issue, you know, well I don't know about this person, I don't like this person, or this person always seems to know the answer, and I don't ever feel as though I do, or whatever it might be that's going through your head Yeah, communication and having some sort of having group discussions about it, you might still have somebody in the group who's a bit reluctant to talk because they're not they don't feel comfortable. Um so if that's the case, you know, see if there's another way you can communicate, putting ideas down in some sort of um what's it called, like Mindmeister or some sort of shared thing, or do a poll or something like that in Teams just to try and get a feel for maybe the people who aren't as vocal in the meetings.

Emma :

There's also um things like Padlet, isn't there? That's quite a way to kind of get anonymous go back or share ideas anonymously. So that yeah, there's kind of there's a lot of ways to kind of get your ideas across and hopefully you'll get more confident in kind of actually you know, in in meetings or whatever, actually verbalizing those ideas or cleaning like you can say them without without having to be anonymous, maybe.

Anthony :

And I think it's important to mention we talked about there, like people not pulling the weight. But one thing people don't often talk about is that one student who takes control of everything, the opposite opposite end of that of a student. You know, there's nothing worse than one person comes into a group and goes, right, this is what we're gonna do. Um, this is how you're gonna do it. And actually, I'm just gonna you've not done this, I'm just gonna do it. And they take all of all the control. You know, if you're gonna do that in the workplace, you're not gonna be a particularly good manager because you're not a leader, you'd be a manager in that point and a bad one at that. Um, so if you are one of those students who feel really confident in all elements of that, and you know, you want to go into that leadership position, you have to be a different one. You can't just come in and say, This is what we're gonna do. You have to get buy-in from that team because instantly, I know if I was in a group and someone said, Right, this is what we're doing, no, no communication, this is what we're doing, this is what you're gonna do. Instantly I'd be like, Well, I'm not part of this team, I don't feel a shared goal, uh, I don't feel valued. So just be aware if you are listening, you're one of those students who's concerned about someone's just gonna take it all on. Quite often that then compounds those students to actually not do that much because you've just gone, I'm just gonna do everything, which isn't, you know, you might just do an essay, it's not group work. So just be cautious of that.

Liz :

Yeah, definitely.

Emma :

The key takeaway is communication is the core of great work. It's making sure that you're communicating with each other, that you're being open, um, that you're being honest, and that you're holding each other accountable for that shared goal. Because you're at the end of the day, you all want to get a good mark. Um and you also want all want to have a good experience as well. So in a lot of ways, you you get you get what you what you give in terms of group work, don't you? Like if you're kind of there and you're you know open to that experience, then it's gonna be a much more positive experience. So it's for a lot of people it's stepping out of your comfort zone. Um but as you go through your degree, as you go through life, you are gonna it it's good, it's good practice for you know, as you said at the start, situations in industry, yeah, thing things like that.

Anthony :

And I said most people when they get to the end of that group work, they're actually like all those fears at the start were not real. And oh, I didn't think I'd like this person. And actually, now we're really good friends, you know. Um I I think there's a lot hell of a lot more positives come out of group work, despite often the negativity I think that students present at at the start of group work. Um when you actually come through it, and once you do that once and it's worked really, really well, which because I say for 99 times out of a hundred it will, then the next time you have group work, you see it more of opportunity for growth rather than oh, this is all gonna be terrible, you know, negative negativity breeds negativity. But I think it's been a nice group work project to be on if you both yeah.

Emma :

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Skills Pod. Hopefully, um we've shared some useful tips with you in approaching your group projects. I'm Emma. I'm Liz.

Anthony :

And I'm Tony.

unknown:

Bye.

Anthony :

Bye everyone.

Emma :

Hi there. If you're a University of Chester student, here are the ways you can access support from your academic skills team.

Anthony :

On our Moodle pages, we've got lots of interactive resources for you to use. On our literacy's Moodle page, you'll find help with a range of skills from academic rating to revision. On our Maths and Statistics Moodle pages, you'll find help with different statistical tests, calculations, and formulas.

Emma :

You can also use our feedforward email assistance service. You can send 750 words, which is around three paragraphs, of your work, to ask at tester.ase.uk and we'll respond within three working days with generic and developmental advice on aspects such as paragraph structure, criticality and referencing.

Anthony :

You can also book a one-to-one with the Academic Skills Advisor via our Moodle pages. These appointments typically last 30 minutes and are available online and in person. You'll see the campuses are up by looking at our working scheduler. You can send across an extract of your work for us to look at in preparation for the one-to-one, or you can book a one-to-one to discuss a generic skill such as referencing or critical thinking.

Emma :

If you and a group of your course mates are struggling with the same academic skill, you can book an Ask Together session by emailing ask at chester.ac.uk with details of your availability, how many people are in your group, what skills you want to cover, and where you'd like the session to take place.

Anthony :

You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook using the handle ACATSkillsUOC, where we post practical tips on a range of academic skills, and it's also a great way to see what the team are up to.

Emma :

And of course, You've got the skills pod. If you have a topic that you'd like us to cover or you'd like to be involved with our podcast, please email ask at chester.ac.uk.

Anthony :

Ask.

Emma :

Supporting your success.