The tutor

The tutor as group facilitator
Mid-project tutor-group meeting

The tutor as group facilitator

Because a group project entails both content and process learning (ie learning about the topic and learning about group work), your tutor should be there to support both. The concept of the facilitation of groups is inherent to group work, and your tutor is your primary resource for concerns with group work just as they are for concerns with your academic content work. As a facilitator 'outside' of the group, your tutor can be objective and can offer valuable advice and procedures to help solve problems and to develop your group.

Encountering some difficulties with group work is not unusual, and problems are best dealt with as they arise. Seeking help from your tutor/facilitator shouldn’t be seen as a sign of failure but as a sign of a group or individual seeking improvements.

Our group project was really disorganised and everything was going wrong so we approached thetutor and let it all out, they gave us some help, and gave us a good mark in the end.

We had good facilitation from the tutor, especially in helping with group dynamics. The differences between our enthusiasm levels and the problems that created for us and group dynamics. The tutor really helped us become aware of this and this helped us. Facilitation made the whole thing work and actually mean something.

We were so busy on the work itself, at end we had problems, I realise now we should have got help earlier.

From one of the tutors:

It's not so much that the tutor has to hold the student's hand as they work through these collaborative projects, it's more that there's a responsibility for the tutor to monitor what is going on through the semester. It's not just a matter of saying OK you and you are in these groups now go away and I don't want to see you for the rest of the semester. Through the contact in the tutorials and the lectures the tutors get to see how the dynamics of the group are happening, they can see if people have left, for example, or if they're having difficulty actually negotiating the power relationships or difficulty in negotiating responsibilities. I think the tutor can be seen to be a vital reference point, a landmark which you can refer to, and then let the students themselves decide how they are going to resolve their problem.

Mid-project tutor-group meeting

In longer duration group assignments (eg more than 3 weeks), it is useful for the group and tutor to have a formal meeting midway. Such a mid-project group-tutor meeting has both a content and process function. It is an opportunity for progress to be reviewed, problems to be aired, solutions generated, and changes to be tried. Preparation for this meeting includes a trialing of the assessment procedure in order to:

Note that this trialing does not include tutor collection of assessment forms or the calculation of marks; rather it is simply a chance for the group to try out the process and fine tune it for improvements. Members can, if they wish, share their ratings as part of group reflection and growth.

If the course design has not built in such a meeting, it is up to your group to request a meeting with your tutor. Of course, it should be assumed that individuals or the whole group can request a meeting with the tutor at any time, not just mid-project.