I love group work. Students hate it–until they see what it CAN be. I found students to be so “allergic” to group work that I avoided it in my first years at NMC because students simply don’t want their grades negatively impacted by their peers. One of the things employers are most alarmed about is their seeming inability to find new employees who play in the sandbox well without turning it into a litter box; they want employees who work well in groups.  Group work in college can go a long way toward achieving this. Admittedly, the group work I do in class is not exactly “real world,” however, it does get them working together, comfortable with each other and actively engaged.

In the “real world” groupwork can hurt you. Fail to perform well in a group and succeed at becoming unemployed. We can help students to prepare for this higher-risk group work by engaging them in no-risk group work in our classes. Consider rearranging the tables so that they always must sit in groups. Give group reviews in which each team works together (without books or notes) to solve a content puzzle, complete an outline, take a quiz–all with no risk to their grades. While this “no-risk” group interaction is NOT what they’ll generally find in the workplace, it may well keep them from being blindsided by their sudden injection into teamwork when they’ve been accustomed to only going it alone.