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Reflection Paper on Group Work

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Introduction.

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How to write a Reflection on Group Work Essay

Here are the exact steps you need to follow for a reflection on group work essay.

Explain what Reflection Is
Explore the benefits of group work
Explore the challenges group
Give examples of the benefits and challenges your group faced
Discuss how your group handled your challenges
Discuss what you will do differently next time

Do you have to reflect on how your group work project went?

This is a super common essay that teachers assign. So, let’s have a look at how you can go about writing a superb reflection on your group work project that should get great grades.

The essay structure I outline below takes the funnel approach to essay writing: it starts broad and general, then zooms in on your specific group’s situation.

how to write a reflection on group work essay

Disclaimer: Make sure you check with your teacher to see if this is a good style to use for your essay. Take a draft to your teacher to get their feedback on whether it’s what they’re looking for!

This is a 6-step essay (the 7 th step is editing!). Here’s a general rule for how much depth to go into depending on your word count:

1500 word essay – one paragraph for each step, plus a paragraph each for the introduction and conclusion ;
3000 word essay – two paragraphs for each step, plus a paragraph each for the introduction and conclusion;
300 – 500 word essay – one or two sentences for each step.

Adjust this essay plan depending on your teacher’s requirements and remember to always ask your teacher, a classmate or a professional tutor to review the piece before submitting.

Here’s the steps I’ll outline for you in this advice article:

diagram showing the 6 step funnel approach to essays

Step 1. Explain what ‘Reflection’ Is

You might have heard that you need to define your terms in essays. Well, the most important term in this essay is ‘reflection’.

So, let’s have a look at what reflection is…

Reflection is the process of:

Pausing and looking back at what has just happened; then
Thinking about how you can get better next time.

Reflection is encouraged in most professions because it’s believed that reflection helps you to become better at your job – we could say ‘reflection makes you a better practitioner’.

Think about it: let’s say you did a speech in front of a crowd. Then, you looked at video footage of that speech and realised you said ‘um’ and ‘ah’ too many times. Next time, you’re going to focus on not saying ‘um’ so that you’ll do a better job next time, right?

Well, that’s reflection: thinking about what happened and how you can do better next time.

It’s really important that you do both of the above two points in your essay. You can’t just say what happened. You need to say how you will do better next time in order to get a top grade on this group work reflection essay.

Scholarly Sources to Cite for Step 1

Okay, so you have a good general idea of what reflection is. Now, what scholarly sources should you use when explaining reflection? Below, I’m going to give you two basic sources that would usually be enough for an undergraduate essay. I’ll also suggest two more sources for further reading if you really want to shine!

I recommend these two sources to cite when explaining what reflective practice is and how it occurs. They are two of the central sources on reflective practice:

Describe what happened during the group work process
Explain how you felt during the group work process
Look at the good and bad aspects of the group work process
What were some of the things that got in the way of success? What were some things that helped you succeed?
What could you have done differently to improve the situation?
Action plan. What are you going to do next time to make the group work process better?
What? Explain what happened
So What? Explain what you learned
Now What? What can I do next time to make the group work process better?

Possible Sources:

Bassot, B. (2015). The reflective practice guide: An interdisciplinary approach to critical reflection . Routledge.

Brock, A. (2014). What is reflection and reflective practice?. In The Early Years Reflective Practice Handbook (pp. 25-39). Routledge.

Gibbs, G. (1988) Learning by Doing: A guide to teaching and learning methods . Further Education Unit, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford.

Rolfe, G., Freshwater, D., Jasper, M. (2001). Critical reflection in nursing and the helping professions: a user’s guide. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Extension Sources for Top Students

Now, if you want to go deeper and really show off your knowledge, have a look at these two scholars:

John Dewey – the first major scholar to come up with the idea of reflective practice
Donald Schön – technical rationality, reflection in action vs. reflection on action

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Step 2. Explore the general benefits of group work for learning

Once you have given an explanation of what group work is (and hopefully cited Gibbs, Rolfe, Dewey or Schon), I recommend digging into the benefits of group work for your own learning.

The teacher gave you a group work task for a reason: what is that reason?

You’ll need to explain the reasons group work is beneficial for you. This will show your teacher that you understand what group work is supposed to achieve. Here’s some ideas:

Multiple Perspectives. Group work helps you to see things from other people’s perspectives. If you did the task on your own, you might not have thought of some of the ideas that your team members contributed to the project.
Contribution of Unique Skills. Each team member might have a different set of skills they can bring to the table. You can explain how groups can make the most of different team members’ strengths to make the final contribution as good as it can be. For example, one team member might be good at IT and might be able to put together a strong final presentation, while another member might be a pro at researching using google scholar so they got the task of doing the initial scholarly research.
Improved Communication Skills. Group work projects help you to work on your communication skills. Communication skills required in group work projects include speaking in turn, speaking up when you have ideas, actively listening to other team members’ contributions, and crucially making compromises for the good of the team.
Learn to Manage Workplace Conflict. Lastly, your teachers often assign you group work tasks so you can learn to manage conflict and disagreement. You’ll come across this a whole lot in the workplace, so your teachers want you to have some experience being professional while handling disagreements.

You might be able to add more ideas to this list, or you might just want to select one or two from that list to write about depending on the length requirements for the essay.

Scholarly Sources for Step 3

Make sure you provide citations for these points above. You might want to use google scholar or google books and type in ‘Benefits of group work’ to find some quality scholarly sources to cite.

Step 3. Explore the general challenges group work can cause

Step 3 is the mirror image of Step 2. For this step, explore the challenges posed by group work.

Students are usually pretty good at this step because you can usually think of some aspects of group work that made you anxious or frustrated. Here are a few common challenges that group work causes:

Time Consuming. You need to organize meetups and often can’t move onto the next component of the project until everyone has agree to move on. When working on your own you can just crack on and get it done. So, team work often takes a lot of time and requires significant pre-planning so you don’t miss your submission deadlines!
Learning Style Conflicts. Different people learn in different ways. Some of us like to get everything done at the last minute or are not very meticulous in our writing. Others of us are very organized and detailed and get anxious when things don’t go exactly how we expect. This leads to conflict and frustration in a group work setting.
Free Loaders. Usually in a group work project there’s people who do more work than others. The issue of free loaders is always going to be a challenge in group work, and you can discuss in this section how ensuring individual accountability to the group is a common group work issue.
Communication Breakdown. This is one especially for online students. It’s often the case that you email team members your ideas or to ask them to reply by a deadline and you don’t hear back from them. Regular communication is an important part of group work, yet sometimes your team members will let you down on this part.

As with Step 3, consider adding more points to this list if you need to, or selecting one or two if your essay is only a short one.

8 Pros And Cons Of Group Work At University

You’ll probably find you can cite the same scholarly sources for both steps 2 and 3 because if a source discusses the benefits of group work it’ll probably also discuss the challenges.

Step 4. Explore the specific benefits and challenges your group faced

Step 4 is where you zoom in on your group’s specific challenges. Have a think: what were the issues you really struggled with as a group?

Was one team member absent for a few of the group meetings?
Did the group have to change some deadlines due to lack of time?
Were there any specific disagreements you had to work through?
Did a group member drop out of the group part way through?
Were there any communication break downs?

Feel free to also mention some things your group did really well. Have a think about these examples:

Was one member of the group really good at organizing you all?
Did you make some good professional relationships?
Did a group member help you to see something from an entirely new perspective?
Did working in a group help you to feel like you weren’t lost and alone in the process of completing the group work component of your course?

Here, because you’re talking about your own perspectives, it’s usually okay to use first person language (but check with your teacher). You are also talking about your own point of view so citations might not be quite as necessary, but it’s still a good idea to add in one or two citations – perhaps to the sources you cited in Steps 2 and 3?

Step 5. Discuss how your group managed your challenges

Step 5 is where you can explore how you worked to overcome some of the challenges you mentioned in Step 4.

So, have a think:

Did your group make any changes part way through the project to address some challenges you faced?
Did you set roles or delegate tasks to help ensure the group work process went smoothly?
Did you contact your teacher at any point for advice on how to progress in the group work scenario?
Did you use technology such as Google Docs or Facebook Messenger to help you to collaborate more effectively as a team?

In this step, you should be showing how your team was proactive in reflecting on your group work progress and making changes throughout the process to ensure it ran as smoothly as possible. This act of making little changes throughout the group work process is what’s called ‘Reflection in Action’ (Schön, 2017).

Scholarly Source for Step 5

Schön, D. A. (2017). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action . Routledge.

Step 6. Conclude by exploring what you will do differently next time

Step 6 is the most important step, and the one far too many students skip. For Step 6, you need to show how you not only reflected on what happened but also are able to use that reflection for personal growth into the future.

This is the heart and soul of your piece: here, you’re tying everything together and showing why reflection is so important!

This is the ‘action plan’ step in Gibbs’ cycle (you might want to cite Gibbs in this section!).

For Step 6, make some suggestions about how (based on your reflection) you now have some takeaway tips that you’ll bring forward to improve your group work skills next time. Here’s some ideas:

Will you work harder next time to set deadlines in advance?
Will you ensure you set clearer group roles next time to ensure the process runs more smoothly?
Will you use a different type of technology (such as Google Docs) to ensure group communication goes more smoothly?
Will you make sure you ask for help from your teacher earlier on in the process when you face challenges?
Will you try harder to see things from everyone’s perspectives so there’s less conflict?

This step will be personalized based upon your own group work challenges and how you felt about the group work process. Even if you think your group worked really well together, I recommend you still come up with one or two ideas for continual improvement. Your teacher will want to see that you used reflection to strive for continual self-improvement.

Scholarly Source for Step 6

Step 7. edit.

Okay, you’ve got the nuts and bolts of the assessment put together now! Next, all you’ve got to do is write up the introduction and conclusion then edit the piece to make sure you keep growing your grades.

Here’s a few important suggestions for this last point:

You should always write your introduction and conclusion last. They will be easier to write now that you’ve completed the main ‘body’ of the essay;
Use my 5-step I.N.T.R.O method to write your introduction;
Use my 5 C’s Conclusion method to write your conclusion;
Use my 5 tips for editing an essay to edit it;
Use the ProWritingAid app to get advice on how to improve your grammar and spelling. Make sure to also use the report on sentence length. It finds sentences that are too long and gives you advice on how to shorten them – such a good strategy for improving evaluative essay quality!
Make sure you contact your teacher and ask for a one-to-one tutorial to go through the piece before submitting. This article only gives general advice, and you might need to make changes based upon the specific essay requirements that your teacher has provided.

That’s it! 7 steps to writing a quality group work reflection essay. I hope you found it useful. If you liked this post and want more clear and specific advice on writing great essays, I recommend signing up to my personal tutor mailing list.

Let’s sum up with those 7 steps one last time:

Explain what ‘Reflection’ Is
Explore the benefits of group work for learning
Explore the challenges of group work for learning
Explore the specific benefits and challenges your group faced
Discuss how your group managed your challenges
Conclude by exploring what you will do differently next time

Chris Drew (PhD)

Dr. Chris Drew is the founder of the Helpful Professor. He holds a PhD in education and has published over 20 articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education. [Image Descriptor: Photo of Chris]

Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 5 Top Tips for Succeeding at University
Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 50 Durable Goods Examples
Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 100 Consumer Goods Examples
Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 30 Globalization Pros and Cons

2 thoughts on “How to write a Reflection on Group Work Essay”

Great instructions on writing a reflection essay. I would not change anything.

Thanks so much for your feedback! I really appreciate it. – Chris.

Working in a Group Essay

Introduction, advantages of working in a group, disadvantages of working in a group, reference list.

Group work has become very common not only in learning environment but also among workers in organizations. The common believe is that working in a group is more productive than working alone. Institutions emphasize on group and team work and invest heavily in team building among their members. Formation process of a group may determine its success. Tuckman & Jensen (1977) suggests that a successful group should be formed stepwise following stages like forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning.

Firstly, working in a group fosters an environment for learning since the individuals can learn from the experiences and expertise of each other. They learn different ways of approaching issues from his colleagues (Duch, 2000). Managers working in groups get more insight in solving problems as they interact with each other.

Another advantage is synergy creation i.e. group decisions tend to create synergy that combines and improves on the knowledge of the group to make decisions of high quality than the sum of individual decisions. This synergy results when each individual brings additional knowledge and skills to the decisions.

It also ensures that tasks are completed within the fastest time because duties are shared depending on the capability of a person in accomplishing a certain task (Traker, n. d.) As people possess different skills and capabilities, group work enhances the sharing of ideas and this has the effect of ensuring that best results are attained. Decisions made are also well thought out.

Creativity is enhanced as a result of working in groups because the diversity in culture, behaviours and attitude enables the members to become more innovative in dealing with difficult tasks.

Group work leads to the acceptance of decisions made as opposed to individual decisions because group decision making reflects acceptance. Group work also reduces the chances of intrapersonal conflicts i.e. conflicts that arise within an individual mainly about what is right and what is wrong (Belbin, 1981). Deciding the right things to do in certain situations as an individual can be quite stressful.

Group work ensures that members participate well unlike in working as individuals whereby employees can decide to sabotage work. An individual may decide not to work as effectively as would be considered reasonable and attempt not to get even the targets as opposed to a group situation (Traker, n. d.).

Also, the members of a group ensure that the resources are shared well and that there is no misuse of organizational resources for personal use.

Working in a group implies longer time frame than working as individuals because groups generally need more time to make decisions than individuals because a group has to exchange information among many individuals so as to obtain a consensus.

The decisions that are made while working in a group tends to be more extreme i.e. they are a bit riskier because no single person would be willing to shoulder the consequences of the decisions.

Also individual expertise is ignored while working in group and the group members may opt for group consensus instead.

Working in a group enhances decision making in an organization as opposed to working as an individual in which case there is information deficiency. The resources of the organization are shared and this minimizes the costs.

Belbin, M., 1981. Management Teams, Why they Succeed or Fail . Heinneman: London.

Duch, B., 2000. Working in Groups . USA: University of Delaware. Web.

Traker, H.B., n. d. Social Group Work: Principles and Practice . New York: Association Press N.Y.

Tuckman, B. W. & Jensen, M. A., 1977. Stages of small-group development revisited. Group Org. Studies, vol 2. pp. 419-27.

Chicago (A-D)
Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2023, October 30). Working in a Group. https://ivypanda.com/essays/working-in-a-group/

"Working in a Group." IvyPanda , 30 Oct. 2023, ivypanda.com/essays/working-in-a-group/.

IvyPanda . (2023) 'Working in a Group'. 30 October.

IvyPanda . 2023. "Working in a Group." October 30, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/working-in-a-group/.

1. IvyPanda . "Working in a Group." October 30, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/working-in-a-group/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Working in a Group." October 30, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/working-in-a-group/.

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§ Center for Teaching and Department of Biological Sciences, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37203

This essay introduces an evidence-based teaching guide presenting research and resources related to group work. The guide provides links to key articles accompanied by summaries organized by teaching challenge and an instructor checklist. In addition to describing the guide, the article identifies areas for further research.

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics faculty are increasingly incorporating both formal and informal group work in their courses. Implementing group work can be improved by an understanding of the extensive body of educational research studies on this topic. This essay describes an online, evidence-based teaching guide published by CBE—Life Sciences Education ( LSE ). The guide provides a tour of research studies and resources related to group work (including many articles from LSE ). Instructors who are new to group work, as well as instructors who have experienced difficulties in implementing group work, may value the condensed summaries of key research findings. These summaries are organized by teaching challenges, and actionable advice is provided in a checklist for instructors. Education researchers may value the inclusion of empirical studies, key reviews, and meta-analyses of group-work studies. In addition to describing key features of the guide, this essay also identifies areas in which further empirical studies are warranted.

INTRODUCTION

Group work is one of the most widely used and deeply researched teaching approaches in the college classroom. Group work that promotes students’ collaboration to achieve shared learning goals has been shown to increase student achievement, persistence, and attitudes toward science (e.g., Springer et al ., 1999 ; Tanner et al ., 2003 ; Johnson and Johnson, 2009 ; Johnson et al ., 2014 ). It can provide opportunities for students to explain their reasoning to one another and to themselves, thereby promoting the cognitive restructuring that leads to learning (e.g., Kagan, 2014 ). It offers opportunities for formative assessment and feedback with peers to shape that learning (e.g., Johnson and Johnson, 2009 ). It also provides students with an avenue to incorporate diverse viewpoints and to develop communication and teamwork skills that are especially important in scientific collaboration and professional fields (e.g., Lamm et al. , 2012 ).

However, anyone who has worked in a group or used group work in courses has experienced challenges. These challenges, if left unchecked, can prevent effective learning and result in poor-quality products, unequal distribution of workload, and escalating conflict among team members (e.g., Feichtner and Davis, 1984 ). In this article, we describe an evidence-based teaching guide that we have created to condense, summarize, and provide actionable advice from research findings (including many articles from CBE—Life Sciences Education [ LSE ]). The guide can be found on the American Society for Cell Biology website ( https://lse.ascb.org/evidence -based-teaching-guides/group-work ), and a link will be listed on the LSE home page to direct users to a complete list of guides as this feature grows. We have included several useful features in the guide: a landing page that indicates starting points for instructors ( Figure 1 ), syntheses of observations from the literature ( Figure 2 ), summaries of and links to selected papers ( Figure 3 ), and an instructor checklist that details recommendations and points to consider. The guide is meant to aid instructors who are new to group work as well as instructors who have tried group work and experienced difficulties or want to improve their students’ experiences and outcomes. Researchers interested in exploring this area will also appreciate our efforts to identify empirical studies, informative reviews, and unanswered questions for which additional research is warranted. Some of the questions that we have considered in developing the guide are highlighted in the following sections.

An external file that holds a picture, illustration, etc.
Object name is cbe-17-fe1-g001.jpg

Screenshot representing the landing page of the guide, which provides readers with an overview of choice points.

An external file that holds a picture, illustration, etc.
Object name is cbe-17-fe1-g002.jpg

Screenshot showing an example description of overall conclusions that can be drawn about an element of group work, based on a synthesis of the literature.

An external file that holds a picture, illustration, etc.
Object name is cbe-17-fe1-g003.jpg

Screenshots representing (A) summaries and links to important papers and (B) other resources.

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF FORMING PERMANENT VERSUS TEMPORARY GROUPS?

The guide begins by separating findings, recommendations, and resources for formal, permanent groups from informal, temporary groups. During formal group work, students work in persistent groups for an extended period on a collaborative project, while in informal group work, ad hoc groups work together on an in-class problem or question for periods ranging from a few minutes to a full class session ( Johnson et al ., 2014 ). Formal group work requires more planning and coordination, but the benefits are that it can help students work together to reach important course objectives. Informal group work, on the other hand, is easy to incorporate into classes of any size and in any space. Informal group work can be an effective supplement to lecture, allowing learners to process information, and is often an essential part of, or used in conjunction with, classic active-learning techniques (e.g., Tanner et al. , 2003 ).

Three elements that are particularly important to consider in structuring formal group work are task interdependence, individual accountability, and reward interdependence ( Johnson and Johnson, 2009 ). Task interdependence refers to the degree to which group members must work together to complete the assigned task. For optimal group benefit and motivation, tasks should not be able to be completed by just one or two group members, but rather should require contributions from all group members (e.g., Gillies, 2013 ). Individual accountability, or the understanding that group members will be responsible for the work they specifically contribute, reduces social free-riding in group settings and encourages members to contribute. Reward interdependence can be accomplished through several mechanisms, including shared grades, for which individual students earn a final grade that relies on scores earned by their team members on a test or assignment, or certificates of recognition that students can earn if their average team scores on quizzes or other individual assignments exceed a pre-established criterion ( Serrano and Pons, 2007 ).

Notably, the very distinction between the types of group work points to an unanswered research question:

Are there specific types of outcomes that are better met with informal group work rather than formal group work, or vice versa?

SHOULD INSTRUCTORS FORM GROUPS OR LET STUDENTS SELF-SELECT THEIR OWN GROUPS?

When planning formal group work, the literature suggests that instructors should form small groups (typically three to five students), considering student characteristics that can contribute to effective group processes and performance (e.g., Treen et al. , 2016 ; and other references within the Group Size section of the guide). Generally, groups that are gender balanced, are ethnically diverse, and have members with different problem-solving approaches have been shown to exhibit enhanced collaboration (see references within the Group Composition section of the guide). Within these generic observations, however, there are a number of unanswered questions for which further research is needed:

What are the different impacts for ethnic majority and minority students in ethnically diverse groups? If so, what are they, and why do they occur?
Does context determine effective gender composition for groups? If so, is it a generalizable context (e.g., physics groups work best with one composition, while biology groups work best with another composition)? Alternatively, does the effectiveness of different group gender compositions depend on the measure being used (e.g., creativity of final product, effectiveness of group communication)? Are there task features or group structures that can mitigate disadvantages of particular gender mixes?
The data on academic performance as a diversity factor also do not point to a single conclusion. What features of group work lead to benefits for high-, mid-, or low-performing students? Will these features be combined to benefit mixed-ability groups? Do homogeneous or heterogeneous groups provide a greater advantage?
What are effective steps to take to support students with different disabilities while they participate in group work?

WHAT CAN INSTRUCTORS DO TO PROMOTE QUALITY GROUP EXPERIENCES?

There are a number of common problems that students and instructors experience when involved in group work. The most commonly reported problem is uneven workload (free-riding or overbearing students). However, groups also experience other types of social conflict and lack of cohesion that can result in production of “Frankenstein products” that are a conglomeration of individual student efforts without integration and synthesis of ideas. There are several practices and resources that can help ensure that groups function more effectively. Students report greater satisfaction with group work if the instructor has implemented methods to monitor and manage groups ( Chapman and Van Auken, 2001 ; and other references within Setting Group Norms ). Suggested methods include providing an opportunity for students to discuss their expectations for group work and setting group norms. For group work that spans multiple days or weeks, providing opportunities for identifying individual effort and allowing students to evaluate their peers can allow for ongoing adjustments to group dynamics. Assigning specific roles to students within groups can emphasize interdependence, and prompting students to provide elaborated explanations during discussions can help promote learning gains ( Gillies, 2013 ). Even with these recommendations, there are many unanswered questions.

Findings from research studies on peer evaluation have clearly identified several methods to identify dysfunctional groups. What are the potential solutions to address dysfunctional groups and under what conditions are these solutions effective? When is it more effective to disband a dysfunctional group rather than enforce mediation?
What is the best method to deal with persistent free-riders?

WHAT TASKS ARE IDEAL FOR PROMOTING EFFECTIVE GROUP WORK?

We describe a number of formalized group-work pedagogies with defined criteria and tasks that instructors can consider. These include problem-based learning, team-based learning, process-oriented guided inquiry learning, case-based learning, and peer-led team learning, all of which have descriptions and biology-relevant papers linked within the Formalized Pedagogies section of the guide. Instructors considering these approaches should consider forming a team of instructors, administrators, and/or staff to address the attendant time and resource needs. For any group task, it is important to consider why group work is being used in a particular situation and how it meets the instructor’s learning goals for students. To help promote student buy-in and student learning, these goals should be shared with students, along with an explanation of how the group work aligns with these goals.

Effective group tasks should challenge groups to solve highly complex or ill-structured problems that require the collaboration of the group to solve (e.g., Scager et al. , 2016 ; and other references within the Task Features section). In addition, tasks that engage student interest, such as by using contemporary issues relevant to students’ lives and generating products for an audience outside the classroom, can increase students’ motivation (e.g., Schmidt et al. , 2011 ). With this general recommendation in mind, however, there are a number of unanswered questions:

Typically, a task’s relevance to students’ lives increases task value and thus student motivation. What are the best ways to structure relevant tasks in the biology classroom? Do these features differ by major or level of student?
Does a students-as-producers approach, wherein students generate new knowledge for an external audience, impact motivation for all students or only some? Does the relative size of the product/student contribution matter (e.g., one figure on a poster vs. entire infographic for congressional representative)?
How do different group tasks or task instructions affect cognitive development of knowledge structures and their use? What tasks support development of declarative knowledge (what), procedural knowledge (how), and conceptual knowledge (when/why)?
Students lie at various places along the novice–expert continuum. How do we match scaffolding to student needs?

WHEN NOT TO USE GROUP WORK

We finish this summary to our guide by cautioning that group work is not a panacea for learning. A great deal of research has defined the type of tasks for which group work is more effective than individual learning. Groups of students show greater gains than individual students for tasks that are complex and ill-defined with multiple possible correct answers ( Kirschner et al. , 2011 ), but for simpler tasks that require recall, definitions, or looking up information, students exhibit greater gains when they work on their own. Thus, maximizing the benefits of group work requires that instructors attend to the learning goals they want their students to attain and, if applicable, the group-work structures that they put in place to help the students reach those goals.

Acknowledgments

We thank William Pierce and Thea Clarke for their efforts in producing the Evidence-Based Teaching Guides website and the American Society for Cell Biology for hosting the site.

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education, community-building and change

What is group work?

What is group work? While many practitioners may describe what they do as ‘group work’, they often have only a limited appreciation of what group work is and what it entails. In this piece we introduce groups and group work, define some key aspects, and suggest areas for exploration. In particular we focus on the process of working with groups.

Contents : introduction • what is a group? • working with • working with groups – a definition • three foci • exploring the theory and practice of group work • conclusion • further reading and references • how to cite this article

For some group work is just another way of talking about teamwork. In this context, working in groups is often presented as a good way of dividing work and increasing productivity. It can also be argued that it allows for the utilization of the different skills, knowledge and experiences that people have. As a result, in schools and colleges it is often approached as a skill to be learnt – the ability to work in group-based environments. Within schools and colleges, working in groups can also be adopted as a mean of carrying forward curriculum concerns and varying the classroom experience – a useful addition to the teacher or instructor’s repertoire.

In this article our focus is different. We explore the process of working with groups both so that they may undertake particular tasks and become environments where people can share in a common life, form beneficial relationships and help each other. Entering groups or forming them, and then working with them so that members are able be around each other, take responsibility and work together on shared tasks, involves some very sophisticated abilities on the part of practitioners. These abilities are often not recognized for what they are – for when group work is done well it can seem natural. Skilled group workers, like skilled counsellors, have to be able to draw upon an extensive repertoire of understandings, experiences and skills and be able to think on their feet. They have to respond both quickly and sensitively to what is emerging in the exchanges and relationships in the groups they are working with.

Our starting point for this is a brief exploration of the nature of groups. We then turn to the process of working with. We also try to define group work – and discuss some of foci that workers need to attend to. We finish with an overview of the development of group work as a focus for theory-making and exploration.

What is a group?

In a separate article we discuss the nature of groups and their significance for human societies (see What is a group? ). Here I just want to highlight five main points.

First, while there are some very different ways of defining groups – often depending upon which aspect of them that commentators and researchers want to focus upon – it is worthwhile looking to a definition that takes things back to basics. Here, as a starting point, we are using Donelson R. Forsyth’s definition of a group as ‘ two or more individuals who are connected to one another by social relationships ’ [emphasis in original] (2006: 2-3). This definition has the merit of bringing together three elements: the number of individuals involved, connection, and relationship.

Second, groups are a fundamental part of human experience. They allow people to develop more complex and larger-scale activities; are significant sites of socialization and education; and provide settings where relationships can form and grow, and where people can find help and support.

Humans are small group beings. We always have been and we always will be. The ubiquitousness of groups and the inevitability of being in them makes groups one of the most important factors in our lives. As the effectiveness of our groups goes, so goes the quality of our lives. (Johnson and Johnson 2003: 579)

However, there is a downside to all this. The socialization they offer, for example, might be highly constraining and oppressive for some of their members. Given all of this it is easy to see why the intervention of skilled leaders and facilitators is sometimes necessary.

Third, the social relationships involved in groups entail interdependence. As Kurt Lewin wrote, ‘it is not similarity or dissimilarity of individuals that constitutes a group, but interdependence of fate’ (op. cit.: 165). In other words, groups come about in a psychological sense because people realize they are ‘in the same boat’ (Brown 1988: 28). However, even more significant than this for group process, Lewin argued, is some interdependence in the goals of group members. To get something done it is often necessary to cooperate with others.

Fourth, when considering the activities of informal educators and other workers and animateurs operating in local communities it is helpful to consider whether the groups they engage with are planned or emergent. Planned groups are specifically formed for some purpose – either by their members, or by some external individual, group or organization. Emergent groups come into being relatively spontaneously where people find themselves together in the same place, or where the same collection of people gradually come to know each other through conversation and interaction over a period of time. (Cartwright and Zander 1968). Much of the recent literature of group work is concerned with groups formed by the worker or agency. Relatively little has been written over the last decade or so about working with emergent groups or groups formed by their members. As a result some significant dimensions of experience have been left rather unexplored.

Last, considerable insights can be gained into the process and functioning of groups via the literature of group dynamics and of small groups. Of particular help are explorations of group structure (including the group size and the roles people play), group norms and culture, group goals, and the relative cohesiveness of groups (all discussed in What is a group? ). That said, the skills needed for engaging in and with group life – and the attitudes, orientations and ideas associated with them – are learnt, predominantly, through experiencing group life. This provides a powerful rationale for educative interventions.

Working with

Educators and animateurs often have to ‘be around’ for a time in many settings before we are approached or accepted:

It may seem obvious, but for others to meet us as helpers, we have to be available. People must know who we are and where we are to be found. They also need to know what we may be able to offer. They also must feel able to approach us (or be open to our initiating contact). (Smith and Smith 2008: 17)

Whether we are working with groups that we have formed, or are seeking to enter groups, to function as workers we need to be recognized as workers. In other words, the people in the situation need to give us space to engage with them around some experience, issue or task. Both workers and participants need to acknowledge that something called ‘work’ is going on.

The ‘work’ in ‘group work’ is a form of ‘working with’. We are directing our energies in a particular way. This is based in an understanding that people are not machines or objects that can be worked on like motor cars (Jeffs and Smith 2005: 70). We are spending time in the company of others. They have allowed us into their lives – and there is a social, emotional and moral relationship between us. As such, ‘working with’ is a special form of ‘being with’.

To engage with another’s thoughts and feelings, and to attend to our own, we have to be in a certain frame of mind. We have to be open to what is being said, to listen for meaning. To work with others is, in essence, to engage in a conversation with them. We should not seek to act on the other person but join with them in a search for understanding and possibility. (Smith and Smith 2008: 20)

Not surprisingly all this, when combined with the sorts of questions and issues that we have to engage with, the process of working with another can often be ‘a confusing, complex and demanding experience, both mentally and emotionally’ (Crosby 2001: 60).

In the conversations of informal and community educators the notion of ’working with’ is often reserved for describing more formal encounters where there is an explicit effort to help people attend to feelings, reflect on experiences, think about things, and make plans (Smith 1994: 95). It can involve putting aside a special time and agreeing a place to talk things through. Often, though, it entails creating a moment for reflection and exploration then and there (Smith and Smith 2008:20).

As Kerry Young (2006) has argued, ‘Working with’ can also be seen as an exercise in moral philosophy. Often people seeking to answer in some way deep questions about themselves and the situations they face. At root these look to how people should live their lives: ‘what is the right way to act in this situation or that; of what does happiness consist for me and for others; how should I to relate to others; what sort of society should I be working for?’ (Smith and Smith 2008: 20). This inevitably entails us as workers to be asking the same questions of ourselves. There needs to be, as Gisela Konopka (1963) has argued, certain values running through the way we engage with others. In relation to social group work, she looked three ‘humanistic’ concerns. That:

individuals are of inherent worth.
people are mutually responsible for each other; and
people have the fundamental right to to experience mental health brought about by social and political conditions that support their fulfilment. (see Glassman and Kates 1990: 14).

Working with groups – a definition for starters

What does it mean, then, to say that we work with groups, or that we are group workers? A problem that immediately faces us is that most commentators and writers come at this question from the tradition or arena of practice in which they are located. However, if we bring together the discussion so far we can say that at base working with groups involves engaging with, and seeking to enhance, interactions and relationships within a gathering of two or more other people.

Some will be focusing on issues and problems, and individual functioning. It is not surprising, for example, that Gisela Konopka (1963) writing from within social work would have this sort of focus – although she does look across different areas where these might arise:

Social group work is a method of social work which helps individuals to enhance their social functioning through purposeful group experiences, and to cope more effectively with their personal, group or community problems.

However, as Allan Brown (1992: 8) and others have pointed out, many group workers look beyond helping the individual with a problem. Group work can emphasize ‘action and influence as well as reaction and adaption’ ( op. cit. ). Thus, Allan Brown argues:

… group work provides a context in which individuals help each other ; it is a method of helping groups as well as helping individuals; and it can enable individuals and groups to influence and change personal, group, organizational and community problems. (Brown 1992: 8. Emphasis in the original)

This particular way of conceptualizing group work is helpful in that it looks to strengthen the group as what Lawrence Shulman (1979: 109; 1999) described as a ‘mutual aid system’. The worker seeks to help people to help each other. Crucially, it is concerned with the ways in which both individuals and groups can build more fulfilling lives for themselves and for communities of which they are a part. It also looks to wider change.

From this exploration I want to highlight three foci for group workers. They need to ‘think group, attend to purpose, and stay in touch with themselves.

Thinking group

For the worker working with a group entails ‘thinking group’ (McDermott 2002: 80-91). ‘Thinking group’ means focusing on the group as a whole – ‘considering everything that happens in terms of the group context (also the wider context in which it is embedded –social, political, organizational) because this is where meaning is manifest’ ( op. cit. :81-2). She continues:

In advocating for the group worker to keep in mind that, while groups are comprised of individuals, at the same time their coming together may enable the expression of powerful forces reinforcing as sense of commonality and solidarity. These are the building blocks for the development of trust. Trust and its counterpart – reciprocity amongst members, may establish the bonds which serve to enable members to achieve their individual and common goals. The task of the worker is to nurture such developments. ( op. cit. : 82)

For Fiona McDermott the capacity to ‘think group’ is the single most important contribution that group workers can bring to their practice. They need to avoid working with individuals in the setting of the group, but rather see individual growth and development as something that emerges out of group interaction and group life.

Attending to purpose

As well as attending to the group as a process of harnessing the collective strengths of group members, workers also need to look to purpose. Urania Glassman and Len Kates (1990: 105-18), for example, have argued that group workers should attempt to effect two complementary objectives. The first is the development of mutual aid systems; the second is to help the group to attend to, and achieve, their purpose (what they describe as the actualization of purpose). In other words, workers need to keep their eyes on the individual and collective goals that the group may or does want to work towards. They also need to intervene in the group where appropriate to help people to clarify and achieve these.

When considering purpose it is also important to bear in mind the nature of the group engaged with – and the context within which we are working with them. An influential model for thinking about this in social work came from Papell and Rothman (1966). They distinguished between three models:

remedial – where the aim on the part of the work/agency is individual social adaption.
reciprocal – where the aim is to strengthen mutual aid and to mediate between individuals and society.
social goals – where the concern is to further social justice often through collective, social action.

Subsequently, there has been various variations and developments of this model e.g. Shulman (1999) – but this original model still remains helpful as a way of alerting us to thinking about purpose – especially from the perspective of the agency employing group workers.

Attending to ourselves

As Parker Palmer has argued in the context of education any attempt at reform or development will fail if we do not cherish and challenge the human heart that is the source of good practice (Palmer 1998: 3). For Palmer, good practice is rather more than technique, it flows from the identity and integrity of the worker’ (Palmer 2000: 11). This means that they both know themselves, and that they are seeking to live life as well as they can. Good group workers are, thus, connected, able to be in touch with themselves, with those they work with and their ‘subjects’ – and act in ways that further flourishing and wholeness.

In a passage which provides one of the most succinct and direct rationales for a concern with attending to, and knowing, our selves Parker Palmer draws out the implications of his argument.

Teaching, like any truly human activity, emerges from one’s inwardness, for better or worse. As I teach, I project the condition of my soul onto my students, my subject, and our way of being together…. When I do not know myself, I cannot know who my students are. I will see them through a glass darkly, in the shadows of my unexamined life – and when I cannot see them clearly, I cannot teach them well. When I do not know myself, I cannot know my subject – not at the deepest levels of embodied, personal meaning. I will know it only abstractly, from a distance, a congeries of concepts as far removed from the world as I am from personal truth. (Parker Palmer 1998: 2)

If we do not know who we are then we cannot know those we work with, nor the areas we explore.

Exploring the theory and practice of group work

The emergence of the group as a focus for intervention and work within social work and informal education in Britain and north America was a slow process and initially largely wrapped up with the response of Christians, particularly evangelical Christians, to the social conditions they encountered in the late eighteenth and throughout the nineteenth century. Examples from Britain include Hannah More and Robert Raikes and Sunday schooling ; John Pound and Quentin Hogg and ragged schooling ; George Williams and the YMCA ; Arthur Sweatman and Maude Stanley in boys’ and girls’ club work. Their motives were often a complex mix of concern for others, the desire to bring people to Bible truths and values, and worries about the threat to order that the masses posed.

Alongside this a considerable amount of mutual aid activity developed during the nineteenth century especially around chapels, meeting houses, working men’s clubs and in the field of adult education (see, for example, Smith 1988 on the making of popular youth work; Horton Smith 2000; Rose 2002). There was also a growing appreciation of group process and sophistication in approach within adult education. However, it was with developments in psychology and sociology (with the emergence of ‘small group theory’ and studies of group dynamics, for example) that the scene for a more thorough building of theory about working with groups – particularly in north America. Alongside this, the influence of progressive education as a philosophy – particularly through the work of John Dewey and William Kilpatrick – began to be felt by many practitioners (see Reid 1981a ).

In the USA, courses on group work started to appear in the early 1920s – and the first sustained treatments of group work began to appear. In particular, the work of Grace Coyle (1930; 1937) drawing upon her experience of settlement work, the YWCA and adult education was influential – but many others around the field such as Eduard Lindeman (1924), Margaretta Williamson (1929) and Mary Parker Follett (1918; 1924) were exploring different aspects of working with groups. There began to be a discourse around the work that transcended professional and sector boundaries.

First, it was discovered that workers in a variety of agencies had a great deal in common and that the major component of that common experience lay in their experience with groups. Out of this recognition came the widespread use of the term social group work and the development of interest groups focusing on work with groups in a number of cities. The second discovery was that what was common to all the groups was that, in addition to the activities in which the group engaged, groups involved a network of relationships between the members and the worker, between the group as a whole and the agency and neighborhood in which the members lived. This combination of relationships was called the group process. This second realization produced a search for deeper insights into these relationships, an attempt to describe them and to understand their dynamics. (Reid 1981a:123)

Group work began to be seen as a dimension of social work in north America (perhaps best symbolized by it being accepted as a section at the 1935 National Conference of Social Work). It’s potential as a therapeutic process was also starting to be recognized (Boyd 1935). As might be expected there was considerable debate around what group work was – and where it belonged (see, for example, Lieberman 1938). Although group work methodology was developed within recreation and informal education agencies it was increasingly being used in social work-oriented agencies within other institutions such as children’s institutions, hospitals, and churches (Reid 1981b: 145-6). Influential commentators such as Gertrude Wilson (1941) argued that group work was a core method of social work and not a field, movement, or agency. At the same time theorizing about group work was benefiting from significant advances in the understanding of group dynamics (most especially through the work of Kurt Lewin) and small work groups (Elton Mayo’s research at the Hawthorne Plant of the Western Electric Company being the best known).

By the start of World War II, group work in north America ‘was beginning to change its emphasis from social action and preparation of group members for social responsibility to problems of individual adjustment’ (Reid 1981b: 154). This gathered pace during the 1940s and was reflected in the publication of key practice texts – notably Grace L. Coyle’s (1948) Group Work with American Youth: A Guide to the Practice of Leadership , and Gertrude Wilson and Gladys Ryland’s (1949) Social group work practice; the creative use of the social process . There were those, such as Alan Klein (1953) who continued to explore the connection between group work and democracy – but much of the running was now being made by those working within social work and therapy. Gisela Konopka’s explorations of therapeutic group work with children (1949), group work in institutions (1954) and of social group work as a helping process (1963) were amongst the most important here. Some more generic texts around social group work such Phillips (1957) also appeared.

In Britain, there was some awareness of these developments – but there was very little explicit exploration of group work theory and practice until the early 1950s. A number of the key figures involved in stimulating debate and exploration came from youth work – notably Peter Kuenstler at the University of Bristol. Kuenstler encouraged Grace Coyle to come to Britain to spend time with workers – and edited the first major text on social group work in Britain (Kuenstler 1955). Josephine Klein was another pivotal researcher and writer. Her books The Study of Groups (1956) and Working with Groups (1961) were major additions to the literature – and brought groups and group work firmly into the discourse of social work. This was helped by the attention given by the Younghusband Report (Ministry of Health 1959) to social group work.

Group work as form of social work is directed towards giving people a constructive experience of membership in a group, so that they may develop further as individuals and be better able to contribute to the life of the community.

There was also important work happening within community development – with studies of community groups (Spencer 1964) and small social groups (Phillips 1965). George Goetschius ’ (1969) long term exploration of work with community and estate groups was also important. Further significant work followed – notably Joan Matthews (1966) explorations of working with youth groups, Leslie Button’s (1974) examination of developmental group work, and Bernard Davies’ (1975) path-breaking interactionalist perspective with regard to the use of groups in social work practice.

At the same time there had been an explosion in exploration and publishing in the United States. Aside from the obvious problem of scale, there are issues around categorizing material, quality (many texts are are repeats of a basic how-to-do-it formula), and purpose. To make life easier I have adapted a framework used by Kenneth E. Reid in his helpful study of the use of groups in social work (1981) and added in a more therapeutically strand. I am not very comfortable with the categories – but they do provide a way of mapping material:

Case-focused group work . This approach can be described as ‘preventative and rehabilitative’, ‘remedial’ or ‘organizational’ – and is focused on the individual. The group provides a means by which an individual’s problems can be assessed and addressed. It is most clearly connected with social work and casework and case management. The emphasis is upon ‘ameliorating or preventing the adverse conditions that negatively influence individuals and result in deviant behaviour’ (Reid 1981: 191). Classic examples of this literature come from Gisela Konopka (1949, 1954, 1963) and Paul Glasser et al. (1974).

Interaction-focused group work . Here the group is understood as ‘a system of mutual aid wherein the worker and the members are engaged on the common enterprise of carrying out the group’s goals’ (Reid 1981: 191). Within this category fall humanistic approaches such as those of Glassman and Kates (1990), the social group work of Grace Coyle and the work of William Schwartz as his associates such as Lawrence Shulman (1979, 1999).

Group therapy, T-groups and encounter groups. There was a continuing growth in discussions that looked to the group as a key element in the therapeutic process – and that drew heavily upon central traditions of practice within psychotherapy e.g. psychoanalytic, Gestalt, cognitive-behavioural etc. Allied to this was material around family therapy (through which I have hardly bared to tread). ‘Classic’ work appeared from Wilfred Bion (1961) and some standard works from writers such as Irvin D. Yalom (1970). Another tradition of practice that could be said to fall in this strand is that of Training groups (T-groups). Here following on from Lewin’s interest in using small groups as training laboratories for teaching people interpersonal skills, Bradford’s work at the National Training Laboratory at Bethel, Maine; and the later development of sensitivity-training or encounter groups (e.g. Lieberman 1973, Rogers 1970) are examples of the use of groups for interpersonal learning.

Social goals group work . Here the focus is on dealing with ‘those problems that are related to the social order and the social value orientation in small groups’ (Reid 1981: 202). This long established set of traditions of practice is closely linked to community organization/community work. See, for example Mullender and Ward (1991) and Twelvetrees (1982, 1991, 2001, 2008).

In recent years there has been a significant development in the discussion of therapeutic traditions of group work, and some limited attention to group work within mainstream schooling. Unfortunately, much of the work within the social work arena has resulted in rather pedestrian ‘how-to-do-it’ texts – but there have been some good introductory texts examples over the last decade or so (e.g. Benson 2000; Brown 1993; Doel 1999). Similarly, the quality of texts offered teachers and educators has been variable but one of the better examples is Jaques and Salmon (2006). Sadly, working with emergent groups, and with community groups has not had the attention it merits.

In this piece we have seen something of the development of thinking about group work – and explored some significant dimensions of practice. In many respects it raises as many questions as it answers. For those concerned with informal education, social pedagogy and social action there is a considerable need to explore ways of working with groups that:

is educationally informed.
has a vision of the people as social beings.
is committed to democracy and social justice.
looks to the groups that arise as part of everyday living.

While there are fascinating examples of practice in this area, there is a huge gap in the literature.

Group Work That Really Works

A group essay writing activity pushes every student to contribute—and it can lead to real growth in writing ability.

A group of students working on an essay in the library together

Group work is a mode of learning I’ve struggled with for much of my teaching career. The concept of students working together to learn is valuable for many reasons, but creating a group activity where all students are engaged in the collective work can be challenging. Recently, I tried a group essay writing activity that not only involved every student in the task but also created conditions for rich student discussion that resulted in some real growth in their writing skills.

A Group Essay How-To

1. On the day before the group essay, each student first writes an essay on their own. I’ve moved more and more over the years toward having the students write their first draft of most of the writing we do in class. This eliminates many of the distractions that can intrude on student writing and ensures that I’m there to support them. If students need additional time to finish their paper after class, I’ll usually accommodate them.

2. I read the essays myself , writing some quick feedback on a separate sheet of paper—usually just a rubric score, one thing the student did well, and one thing they could do to improve their essay. I use the individual scores and feedback for conferencing with students later that week, when we’ll discuss their reflections on their writing and ways to improve. I also assess the essays as a group for areas that seem to call for more instruction for the whole class.

3. I teach a mini-lesson on one or two of those areas of need I’ve identified for the class as a whole (e.g., thesis statements, finding and integrating evidence, transitions, etc.).

4. And then, the group essay. After handing back the individual essays—with no marks on them—and organizing students into groups of four or five, I give them instructions for group work.

First, students take turns sharing their thesis statements with the group. They discuss the relative merits of each and come to consensus on a group thesis statement. They write this in large letters on one regular sheet of paper that I’ve given them.

Next, students decide on supporting points for the thesis. They need to have a number of supporting points equal to the number of the people in the group because each student is responsible for individually writing a body paragraph for one of the supporting points, using evidence and commentary to connect their supporting point back to the thesis. They each write their own body paragraph on another sheet of paper.

Once students have finished writing their supporting body paragraphs, they come back together as a group and puzzle the essay together, adding transitions to connect the body paragraphs and writing a concluding paragraph on a final sheet of paper.

Although this composing step worked well on paper, I’m looking forward to having the students try it out on shared Google docs, as that would make the editing process easier—particularly when the students come together to combine their paragraphs into a cohesive whole.

5. Finally, the groups get up in front of the class and read their essay aloud. After each group reads, we take a few minutes to discuss the strengths of the essay and ask any questions we might have about it.

Why Group Essays Work

The success of this activity stems from the shared responsibility of writing the essay. As I walked around the room while the groups were working, the focus and richness of the discussions showed me just how much impact this activity would have when it came to developing students’ understanding of the elements of an effective essay. Almost every single student was engaged, and those who became distracted were quickly brought back to focus by a group that was relying on their contribution.

Having the students read their essay aloud in front of the class provided some valuable results. The entire class benefited not only from hearing what students had done with the thesis and support but also from the feedback given by me and their classmates. And I was provided with a great formative assessment opportunity and took notes for further mini-lessons my classes might need. In the very next essay we wrote in class, I noticed significant growth in the skills students had worked on in their groups.

One more not-so-small detail: Students loved the group essays. The complaints I sometimes hear about group work—that one person ended up doing all the work, that one or more people weren’t contributing, that it was hard to figure out who was supposed to do what—were rare. All students were essential, the roles and tasks were clearly defined, and the time constraint of needing to get all the writing and discussion done in one class period added an urgency to the task, so that very little time was wasted. (It is possible to break the group activity into two class periods if necessary.)

Students agreed that this was an activity that actually helped them understand how to improve their writing, and they asked if they could do it again for their next essay.

I’m looking forward to trying some variations on the group essay—perhaps having students write the essay together before trying on their own, or having them create mini-lessons for the writing needs they see in the classroom.

The Writing Center • University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Group Writing

What this handout is about.

Whether in the academic world or the business world, all of us are likely to participate in some form of group writing—an undergraduate group project for a class, a collaborative research paper or grant proposal, or a report produced by a business team. Writing in a group can have many benefits: multiple brains are better than one, both for generating ideas and for getting a job done. However, working in a group can sometimes be stressful because there are various opinions and writing styles to incorporate into one final product that pleases everyone. This handout will offer an overview of the collaborative process, strategies for writing successfully together, and tips for avoiding common pitfalls. It will also include links to some other handouts that may be especially helpful as your group moves through the writing process.

Disclaimer and disclosure

As this is a group writing handout, several Writing Center coaches worked together to create it. No coaches were harmed in this process; however, we did experience both the pros and the cons of the collaborative process. We have personally tested the various methods for sharing files and scheduling meetings that are described here. However, these are only our suggestions; we do not advocate any particular service or site.

The spectrum of collaboration in group writing

All writing can be considered collaborative in a sense, though we often don’t think of it that way. It would be truly surprising to find an author whose writing, even if it was completed independently, had not been influenced at some point by discussions with friends or colleagues. The range of possible collaboration varies from a group of co-authors who go through each portion of the writing process together, writing as a group with one voice, to a group with a primary author who does the majority of the work and then receives comments or edits from the co-authors.

Group projects for classes should usually fall towards the middle to left side of this diagram, with group members contributing roughly equally. However, in collaborations on research projects, the level of involvement of the various group members may vary widely. The key to success in either case is to be clear about group member responsibilities and expectations and to give credit (authorship) to members who contribute an appropriate amount. It may be useful to credit each group member for their various contributions.

Overview of steps of the collaborative process

Here we outline the steps of the collaborative process. You can use these questions to focus your thinking at each stage.

Share ideas and brainstorm together.
Formulate a draft thesis or argument .
Think about your assignment and the final product. What should it look like? What is its purpose? Who is the intended audience ?
Decide together who will write which parts of the paper/project.
What will the final product look like?
Arrange meetings: How often will the group or subsets of the group meet? When and where will the group meet? If the group doesn’t meet in person, how will information be shared?
Scheduling: What is the deadline for the final product? What are the deadlines for drafts?
How will the group find appropriate sources (books, journal articles, newspaper articles, visual media, trustworthy websites, interviews)? If the group will be creating data by conducting research, how will that process work?
Who will read and process the information found? This task again may be done by all members or divided up amongst members so that each person becomes the expert in one area and then teaches the rest of the group.
Think critically about the sources and their contributions to your topic. Which evidence should you include or exclude? Do you need more sources?
Analyze the data. How will you interpret your findings? What is the best way to present any relevant information to your readers-should you include pictures, graphs, tables, and charts, or just written text?
Note that brainstorming the main points of your paper as a group is helpful, even if separate parts of the writing are assigned to individuals. You’ll want to be sure that everyone agrees on the central ideas.
Where does your individual writing fit into the whole document?
Writing together may not be feasible for longer assignments or papers with coauthors at different universities, and it can be time-consuming. However, writing together does ensure that the finished document has one cohesive voice.
Talk about how the writing session should go BEFORE you get started. What goals do you have? How will you approach the writing task at hand?
Many people find it helpful to get all of the ideas down on paper in a rough form before discussing exact phrasing.
Remember that everyone has a different writing style! The most important thing is that your sentences be clear to readers.
If your group has drafted parts of the document separately, merge your ideas together into a single document first, then focus on meshing the styles. The first concern is to create a coherent product with a logical flow of ideas. Then the stylistic differences of the individual portions must be smoothed over.
Revise the ideas and structure of the paper before worrying about smaller, sentence-level errors (like problems with punctuation, grammar, or word choice). Is the argument clear? Is the evidence presented in a logical order? Do the transitions connect the ideas effectively?
Proofreading: Check for typos, spelling errors, punctuation problems, formatting issues, and grammatical mistakes. Reading the paper aloud is a very helpful strategy at this point.

Helpful collaborative writing strategies

Attitude counts for a lot.

Group work can be challenging at times, but a little enthusiasm can go a long way to helping the momentum of the group. Keep in mind that working in a group provides a unique opportunity to see how other people write; as you learn about their writing processes and strategies, you can reflect on your own. Working in a group inherently involves some level of negotiation, which will also facilitate your ability to skillfully work with others in the future.

Remember that respect goes along way! Group members will bring different skill sets and various amounts and types of background knowledge to the table. Show your fellow writers respect by listening carefully, talking to share your ideas, showing up on time for meetings, sending out drafts on schedule, providing positive feedback, and taking responsibility for an appropriate share of the work.

Start early and allow plenty of time for revising

Getting started early is important in individual projects; however, it is absolutely essential in group work. Because of the multiple people involved in researching and writing the paper, there are aspects of group projects that take additional time, such as deciding and agreeing upon a topic. Group projects should be approached in a structured way because there is simply less scheduling flexibility than when you are working alone. The final product should reflect a unified, cohesive voice and argument, and the only way of accomplishing this is by producing multiple drafts and revising them multiple times.

Plan a strategy for scheduling

One of the difficult aspects of collaborative writing is finding times when everyone can meet. Much of the group’s work may be completed individually, but face-to-face meetings are useful for ensuring that everyone is on the same page. Doodle.com , whenisgood.net , and needtomeet.com are free websites that can make scheduling easier. Using these sites, an organizer suggests multiple dates and times for a meeting, and then each group member can indicate whether they are able to meet at the specified times.

It is very important to set deadlines for drafts; people are busy, and not everyone will have time to read and respond at the last minute. It may help to assign a group facilitator who can send out reminders of the deadlines. If the writing is for a co-authored research paper, the lead author can take responsibility for reminding others that comments on a given draft are due by a specific date.

Submitting drafts at least one day ahead of the meeting allows other authors the opportunity to read over them before the meeting and arrive ready for a productive discussion.

Find a convenient and effective way to share files

There are many different ways to share drafts, research materials, and other files. Here we describe a few of the potential options we have explored and found to be functional. We do not advocate any one option, and we realize there are other equally useful options—this list is just a possible starting point for you:

Email attachments. People often share files by email; however, especially when there are many group members or there is a flurry of writing activity, this can lead to a deluge of emails in everyone’s inboxes and significant confusion about which file version is current.
Google documents . Files can be shared between group members and are instantaneously updated, even if two members are working at once. Changes made by one member will automatically appear on the document seen by all members. However, to use this option, every group member must have a Gmail account (which is free), and there are often formatting issues when converting Google documents back to Microsoft Word.
Dropbox . Dropbox.com is free to join. It allows you to share up to 2GB of files, which can then be synched and accessible from multiple computers. The downside of this approach is that everyone has to join, and someone must install the software on at least one personal computer. Dropbox can then be accessed from any computer online by logging onto the website.
Common server space. If all group members have access to a shared server space, this is often an ideal solution. Members of a lab group or a lab course with available server space typically have these resources. Just be sure to make a folder for your project and clearly label your files.

Note that even when you are sharing or storing files for group writing projects in a common location, it is still essential to periodically make back-up copies and store them on your own computer! It is never fun to lose your (or your group’s) hard work.

Try separating the tasks of revising and editing/proofreading

It may be helpful to assign giving feedback on specific items to particular group members. First, group members should provide general feedback and comments on content. Only after revising and solidifying the main ideas and structure of the paper should you move on to editing and proofreading. After all, there is no point in spending your time making a certain sentence as beautiful and correct as possible when that sentence may later be cut out. When completing your final revisions, it may be helpful to assign various concerns (for example, grammar, organization, flow, transitions, and format) to individual group members to focus this process. This is an excellent time to let group members play to their strengths; if you know that you are good at transitions, offer to take care of that editing task.

Your group project is an opportunity to become experts on your topic. Go to the library (in actuality or online), collect relevant books, articles, and data sources, and consult a reference librarian if you have any issues. Talk to your professor or TA early in the process to ensure that the group is on the right track. Find experts in the field to interview if it is appropriate. If you have data to analyze, meet with a statistician. If you are having issues with the writing, use the online handouts at the Writing Center or come in for a face-to-face meeting: a coach can meet with you as a group or one-on-one.

Immediately dividing the writing into pieces

While this may initially seem to be the best way to approach a group writing process, it can also generate more work later on, when the parts written separately must be put together into a unified document. The different pieces must first be edited to generate a logical flow of ideas, without repetition. Once the pieces have been stuck together, the entire paper must be edited to eliminate differences in style and any inconsistencies between the individual authors’ various chunks. Thus, while it may take more time up-front to write together, in the end a closer collaboration can save you from the difficulties of combining pieces of writing and may create a stronger, more cohesive document.

Procrastination

Although this is solid advice for any project, it is even more essential to start working on group projects in a timely manner. In group writing, there are more people to help with the work-but there are also multiple schedules to juggle and more opinions to seek.

Being a solo group member

Not everyone enjoys working in groups. You may truly desire to go solo on this project, and you may even be capable of doing a great job on your own. However, if this is a group assignment, then the prompt is asking for everyone to participate. If you are feeling the need to take over everything, try discussing expectations with your fellow group members as well as the teaching assistant or professor. However, always address your concerns with group members first. Try to approach the group project as a learning experiment: you are learning not only about the project material but also about how to motivate others and work together.

Waiting for other group members to do all of the work

If this is a project for a class, you are leaving your grade in the control of others. Leaving the work to everyone else is not fair to your group mates. And in the end, if you do not contribute, then you are taking credit for work that you did not do; this is a form of academic dishonesty. To ensure that you can do your share, try to volunteer early for a portion of the work that you are interested in or feel you can manage.

Leaving all the end work to one person

It may be tempting to leave all merging, editing, and/or presentation work to one person. Be careful. There are several reasons why this may be ill-advised. 1) The editor/presenter may not completely understand every idea, sentence, or word that another author wrote, leading to ambiguity or even mistakes in the end paper or presentation. 2) Editing is tough, time-consuming work. The editor often finds himself or herself doing more work than was expected as they try to decipher and merge the original contributions under the time pressure of an approaching deadline. If you decide to follow this path and have one person combine the separate writings of many people, be sure to leave plenty of time for a final review by all of the writers. Ask the editor to send out the final draft of the completed work to each of the authors and let every contributor review and respond to the final product. Ideally, there should also be a test run of any live presentations that the group or a representative may make.

Entirely negative critiques

When giving feedback or commenting on the work of other group members, focusing only on “problems” can be overwhelming and put your colleagues on the defensive. Try to highlight the positive parts of the project in addition to pointing out things that need work. Remember that this is constructive feedback, so don’t forget to add concrete, specific suggestions on how to proceed. It can also be helpful to remind yourself that many of your comments are your own opinions or reactions, not absolute, unquestionable truths, and then phrase what you say accordingly. It is much easier and more helpful to hear “I had trouble understanding this paragraph because I couldn’t see how it tied back to our main argument” than to hear “this paragraph is unclear and irrelevant.”

Writing in a group can be challenging, but it is also a wonderful opportunity to learn about your topic, the writing process, and the best strategies for collaboration. We hope that our tips will help you and your group members have a great experience.

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Cross, Geoffrey. 1994. Collaboration and Conflict: A Contextual Exploration of Group Writing and Positive Emphasis . Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.

Ede, Lisa S., and Andrea Lunsford. 1990. Singular Texts/Plural Authors: Perspectives on Collaborative Writing . Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.

Speck, Bruce W. 2002. Facilitating Students’ Collaborative Writing . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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