Making groups better

• Jim Thomas

  Indiana University Northwest

  Author

• Matthew Lutey

  Indiana University Northwest

  Author

How can we best prepare students for careers in our competitive environment? This paper examines how group work or cooperative learning is beneficial in the learning process. It examines certain areas of learning that lend themselves to cooperative learning. Cooperative learning leads to benefits and potential problems in working with groups. We examine ways to prepare successful groups for a project. The paper suggests ways to monitor group work in the classroom. Finally, it reports on a group work study taking place over many semesters in an introductory accounting class. Results include a very successful semester. While subsequent semesters provided good results, results were mixed. What can we do to enhance our students’ success in group work projects? The research points to several problem areas that can be addressed. What factors can we consider to improve our results? The research points to ways to prepare students for group work. This paper adds to the research by exploring ways to make group work more successful.

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