>About group work. Motive is the key here as well. I have no objections
>if others want to organize classes as group work; I actually do it myself
>sometimes for small things. My personal experience is that I cannot
>organize groups in a way that provides a clear, meaningful motive for
>fair participation by everyone. I have to say that Tim's invocation of
>workplace "teams" bothers me a bit, and particularly the whole language
>of "accountability", which I regard as capitalist work-discipline pure
>and simple.
I'm afraid you've lost me here. If the groupwork is to be successful, the
members must shift from being accountable solely to the teacher to being
accountable to the other members of the group and ultimately to themselves.
I don't see how this relates in any way to "capitalist work-discipline";
indeed, if any economic metaphors apply, I think it might more closely
resemble a socialist collective.
I think the source of much of our disagreement arises from the models that
we bring to mind when we think about collaborative learning. When I think
about collaborative learning, I think of students (usually in professional
schools) working in problem-based curricula. This is different, I think, in
many ways from the team programming projects that you described. One
important difference is that the students are engaged in this curriculum
for an extended period of time. When working in these teams, it is very
clear to the whole group when one member is not contributing a fair share
to the group's work. The method addresses this by periodically calling on
the group to reflect on the process and on individual performance.
Providing honest feedback to one's peers is not easy for anyone, but in the
culture that surrounds this kind of learning, students are encouraged to be
as candid as possible with each other.
---Tim