teaching excellence in the social sciences conference 2015
TRANSCRIPT
Situational analysis of group work
Pamela [email protected] @ischoolpam
Dr Barbara [email protected] @senbmrs
Level 3 module offered in the Information School Students work in groups doing a piece of real-life
business research for local companies/charities (60% of assessment)
Students write 2 reflections, one about their Information Literacy development; one about their experiences of working in a group (40% of assessment)
2 years of data collection (n=25 student reflections)
Business Intelligence UG module
Key management & professional skill
Extensive research in the literature - benefits for individuals, teams and organisations
Benefits include – deeper learning, effective teamwork, greater self-awareness, and understanding of situations, empowerment, improved motivation, problem solving, prioritising, decision making
And much more……
Value of reflective writing
An elaboration of grounded theory – inductive data analysis developing categories and properties from the data
Situational analysis focuses on the different human actors and non human actants present in the discourse
We ask: Who and what are in this situation? Who and what matters in this situation? What elements “make a difference” in this situation?
We make an attempt to articulate the “sites of silence” in the data – what is not said?
Clarke (2003)
Situational analysis
Actors & Actants
Actors
The student writing the reflection
Other individual group members
The lecturer The client
Actants Ways of communicating:Voice call, Facebook group, email, skype, whatsapp, google docs, facebook message, in person, Instant messenger, text message, MOLE, Meetings Tasks Work (load) Hardware: (smart) Phones,
computer (1 mention)
Needing to respond quickly to communications“By communicating on a regular basis it means you and the group will keep on top of things while also allowing you to become more efficient”. (21) Looking into the future – what employers want/will
value regarding team working“On reflection I have been able to critically analyse my behaviours as well as other’s views, this will help in my line of work after graduating as it helps me to better understand how to work more closely with the group.” (7)
Temporal elements
Working at the same pace Reflecting on past experiences of group work Time taken to arrange suitable meeting times “This proved irritating as it would take a prolonged period of time to organise group meetings, especially when getting hold of one group member who was particularly difficult to correspond with.” (16) Group members not being ‘on time’ for meetings
Temporal elements
Ubiquitous access to mobile networks and wifi (only 2 mentions of “internet”)
Physical space suitable for group working – no mention of booking rooms
Conflict within the team – annoyances, but no full blown group breakdown mentioned.
blurring between ‘social’ and ‘work’ software – no distinction made by students
Twitter No mention of support from tutors or
the scaffolding that was given to students
Silent actors/actants
Arranging meetings Need for time management Shared desire to ‘do well’ (Taking) leadership in the group Effective communication linked to team success Valuing each others’ contribution Getting good marks Developing skills in working with others for the future Developing self confidence through group working There are successful, positive outcomes from group work Work done by individuals must be synthesised into a
coherent whole group submission Information must be shared
Discursive constructions
I am also surprised at how valuable this reflective part of the assignment has been. I was initially sceptical that I would have learnt anything from this task but it has become apparent during reflection that I would now conduct group work in a very different way. This has also taught me to approach corporate personal development reports with much more enthusiasm for the reason that I will be able to change my working styles for the better. (group 10)
Positive outcomes
Importance of keeping in touch with the group Importance of negotiating tasks and who is best suited to
which task Challenges in selecting the ‘best’ method of
communication Feeling that some group members have not contributed
equally Feeling that the work of some group members is not of
sufficient quality Importance of face-to-face
communication & meetings
Major issues/debates
In order to communicate with the group throughout the project we first decided to use Google Docs as we all have a University Google email account which would have supported this. However this didn’t prove to be the most effective method of communication for the group and we all preferred to use email as our main method of communication. This was appropriate as emails could easily be sent to all group members at once allowing conversations to arrange meetings and discuss different sections of the work that we were all undergoing. (22)
Selecting the best method of communication
Better (technological?) support for students to arrange face-to-face meetings
Reflective assignments are a useful way of enabling students to understand their own development.
Encourage student groups to discuss methods of communication: email is not necessarily the best method of communication.
Need to make (more) explicit the support and scaffolding that we give to students
What we need to do as educators to support student group work
Clarke, A (2003) Situational analyses: Grounded theory mapping after the postmodern turn. Symbolic Interaction 26 (4) p.553-576
Greenall, J. and Sen, B. (2014) Reflective practice in the library and information sector. Journal of Librarianship and Information Scienc. URL: http://lis.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/09/24/0961000614551450.abstract doi:10.1177/0961000614551450
McKinney, P. and Sen, B. (2012) Reflection for learning: Understanding the value of reflective writing for information literacy development. Journal of Information Literacy. 6 (2) 110-29 URL: http://ojs.lboro.ac.uk/ojs/index.php/JIL/article/view/LLC-V6-I2-2012-5
Sen, B. (2010) Reflective writing: A management skill. Library Management. 31 (1/2) 79-93.
Sen, B. and Ford, N. (2009). Developing reflective practice in LIS education: The SEA-change model of reflection. Education for Information, 27(4), 181-195.
Vasconcelos, A.C., Sen, B., Rosa, A., and Ellis, D. (2012) Elaborations of grounded theory in information research: arenas/social worlds theory, discourse analysis and situational analysis. Library and Information Research. 36 (112) 120-146
References