Facilitating Effective Group Projects in Geoscience Courses
Leaders
Sasha Seroy, University of Washington-Seattle Campus
Dana Thomas, The University of Texas at Austin
This workshop will explore effective ways to facilitate group projects to promote the development of workforce skills for students. We will provide an overview of the benefits of group projects for geoscience students, introduce example group project models from the leaders' experiences and discuss how to incorporate group projects into a course plan or learning experience. We will discuss tools and strategies that can be provided to students for structuring and assessing their own project progress and outcomes, as well as models for assessing group projects for grading purposes. Through this, we will focus on how to integrate skill development within the course structure, including project planning, management, communication and leadership. Participants will come away with tools to use in their existing group project teaching or outline new implementations for their own courses. This workshop is directly applicable for those who teach smaller classes at the undergraduate and graduate level, though K-12 teachers and informal educators and professionals are most welcome.
Goals
By the end of this workshop, participants will:
- Discuss the benefits and challenges of course-based group projects
- Explore tools and strategies for effectively structuring, facilitating, and assessing group projects
- Map student skill development to group projects and create a plan to integrate workshop tools into participants' own courses
Program
1:30 Welcome, icebreaker and introductions
1:45 Brief overview of the workshop goals and defining group projects
1:50 Small-group discussions and gallery tour of benefits and challenges of group projects for students and instructors
2:10 Whole-group discussion of the benefits and challenges of group projects for students and instructors
2:30 Break
2:40 Tools for facilitating group projects and student skill development, jigsaw activity
- Setting up groups
- Packet 1_ Setting up groups.docx (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 11kB Jul9 24)
- Outlining structure and setting expectations
- Packet 2_ Structure and Expectations.docx (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 18kB Jul9 24)
- Establishing timelines and scaffolded milestones to guide student progress
- Packet 3_ Timelines and milestones.docx (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 601kB Jul9 24)
- Assessment
- Packet 4_ Assessing Group Projects.docx (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 505kB Jul9 24)
- Helping students manage conflict
- Packet 5_ Managing Conflict.docx (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 9kB Jul9 24)
3:05 Jigsaw activity share out and whole group discussion
3:20 Participants work on action plans with resources provided by the workshop
- Participant Worksheet: Participant Worksheet.docx (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 10kB Jul16 24)
3:50 Wrap-up and workshop evaluation
4:00 Adjourn
Resources
Workshop Google Slide Deck; EER 2024 Effective Group Projects_Slides.pdf (Acrobat (PDF) 2.4MB Jul17 24)
Shared resource Google Doc from workshop participants (editable)
Effective Teams Dynamic Initiative (Georgia Tech): https://etd.gatech.edu/
G.W. Shafer, K. Viskupic, A.E. Egger; Critical workforce skills for bachelor-level geoscientists: An analysis of geoscience job advertisements. Geosphere 2023;; 19 (2): 628–644. doi: https://doi.org/10.1130/GES02581.1
G.W. Shafer, K. Viskupic, A.E. Egger; Analysis of Skills Sought by Employers of Bachelors-Level Geoscientists. GSA Today, v. 32, https://doi.org/10.1130/GSATG510GW.1
Supporting Neurodivergent Students Through Group Work (Warwick International Higher Education Academy): https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/academy/activities/learningcircles/neurodiversity/toolkit/learningteachingneuro/neurodiversitytoolkitpresentationgroup/
Support the Whole Student (InTeGrate): https://serc.carleton.edu/integrate/programs/diversity/whole_student.html