Rhetoric and Writing

What You Should Do if You Have Problems in your Group.

 So there you are thinking about all the positives of doing collaborative work with fellow students and then you have a problem: What do you do if John or Jane just isn’t doing what they are supposed to? The first thing you need to do is have a discussion with John or Jane and see what is up. Maybe it’s something simple that can be resolved through discussion and get everyone back on the path. If that does not correct the concern, then it’s time to involve the instructor. It’s very important that this occurs early on in the project timeline because if you wait too long, it will be too late to take any form of corrective behavior and John or Jane will sail through leaving the rest of the group trying to salvage the assignment.

So after that initial conversation if the problem still exists you need to get the instructor involved. You can involve the instructor in a couple of ways. The easiest is where the group starts an email conversation with the student about the problem and includes the instructor in the loop as to the problem and progress to fix. Another way is to have the group sit down with the instructor and have a face to face discussion. This session allows the group to discuss the problem and what actions have been taken to resolve. Everyone gets to tell their side of the story. Either of these methods keeps the instructor aware of the problem so they can decide if they need to step in and make changes.As you can see, communication is key to success working in a collaborative environment. Whether it is between students or instructor it is vitally important to maintain lines of good communication. Most students in a group setting, may swap information to enable communication. For some it is an email address, a phone number…etc. It’s important to note that you should only share what contact information you feel comfortable with. If your not comfortable sharing information, try and find a way to still be able to stay in touch with group members. Perhaps using your school email address vice your personal email address might be a alternative. Some groups set up chat rooms or other group type settings and use those for their main form of communication.  
 

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