This week on the podcast an Australian politician has called on universities to scrap group assignments entirely, arguing they’re unfair and cheapen degrees – but is the real problem the concept itself, or is it poorly designed groupwork that’s giving collaboration a bad name?
Plus the government axes popular management apprenticeships, and UKVI’s draft proposals for rating international student sponsors go further than many expected.
With Mark Peace, Professor of Innovation in Education at King’s College London, Hugh Jones, independent consultant, and Debbie McVitty, Editor at Wonkhe and presented by Mark Leach, Editor-in-Chief at Wonkhe.
On the site:
Group essays? Pull the other one
Amber isn’t a buffer zone in the new international RAG system – it’s a ledge
Group work is really important! The issue is not groupwork in itself, but how the groupwork and the assessment are designed. The pedagogy should be well thought through. The individual’s contributions to the group work should be the focus. Well-run modules will have effective tutor oversight, ensuring a balanced mix of contributions. Group work isn’t, in my experience, cheaper to deliver and indeed provides mitigation against the risk of GenAI. In Engineering, it is a critical part of the learning outcomes needed for professional competence. There may be bad experiences in the sector, but one of the most successful and long-running modules in my own institution is ‘Team Engineering’. Remember, Together Everyone Achieves More – TEAM! The soft skills are more important in today’s educational landscape than ever, encouraging more interaction and promoting better mental health (rather than students being isolated and stuck on social media, for example). The debate really shows poor understanding by the politicians, challenges group work, and, indeed, extrapolation of the argument would lead to perverse assessment strategies.