Student views on individual and group work Essay

Student views on individual and group work - Essay Example The study is based on international educational experiences of learners studying abroad; their opinions on the individual work and group work especially in the cultural diverse learning institutions also discussed. A comparison approach is used to define the different impacts of individual or group work in different settings internationally. Students from different backgrounds from the UK and abroad give their opinions on the importance of group and individual work. The students interviewed come from various countries namely: Poland, Kenya, Australia, China, and France. Previous research Students noted frustration with joy riders in group work especially in open-ended evaluation piece (Shumow, 2001, p. 35). Despite this, small group work in problem based learning was rated the best in promoting learning. The negative attitude towards group work among students developed from those learners who did not participate sufficiently to their collaborative groups (Skinner, 2010.). According t o this study, another issue raised involved students who did not seem attuned to the educational value of listening to what other group members had to contribute during sharing and discussion. The students were or pretended to be unaware that group members or their findings could be used as resources. This research also revealed that students were anxious about the sit-in classroom examinations; it appeared as if they needed more direct guidance. The recommendations given in this study included integrating the problem based learning throughout the semester to better the results of the students. This could be achieved through letting students solve problems as homework and individual assignments. Another way to achieve this is through using four problems as a unifying platform for each quarter of the course. Class discussions, tutor presentations and media shown in class could then be attached in the problem. A third possible way is to alternate group work with individual work during the course. And a last way is to let each group work on a different problem; the groups then present their answers in class while the class assesses the group’s work (Shumow, 2001, p. 36). The problem of joy riders could be solved through collecting notes and checking them in each class session to ensure that all students are participating in group work(Joughin, 2009).Nevertheless, this problem is bothersome and really challenging to handle since more resources are used in supervision. Moreover, joy riding suggests that the students could be unreliable workers in the potential market. According to Townsend, Long, & Trainor, 2011, group supervision and peer learning in social work field can be beneficial in other contexts such as professional, social, cultural, economic and political frameworks locally and internationally. Townsend, Long, & Trainor, 2011 studied teaching, learning and supervisory relationships that support group work and group assessment especially in field w ork. They had a lot of relevance in the Australian contexts. Group learning is vulnerable to group dynamics whereby different personalities and individual needs may affect the learning experience (Arfield, 2013). Furthermore, more dominant individuals in the group may inhibit on the ability of passive individuals to meet their own personal goals. Group work in learning requires the group members to be accountable and to minimise the group size (Light, Cox, & Calkins, 2009).