Pedagogical Responsibility for Group and Team Work

As professional educators, engineering academics have a responsibility to ensure that the educational experiences of our students are designed and structured so as to prepare them personally as well as technically for successful professional practice. Some educational experiences will inevitably be unrewarding for both students and staff. However, our firm conviction is that the vast majority should be positive and enriching. As educators we have an ethical responsibility to plan and carry through our work to ensure that, as far as is possible, this is the case. It would be nice to think that pressure for group working stemmed essentially from pedagogical pressures. However, we believe that in the current climate of economic restraint, there are major pressures for group work to be introduced as a way of coping with large classes and particularly of reducing the number of assignments to be marked. Our belief was supported by many of the presentations at a recent major international conference on engineering education (Tornkvist 1997). However, group dynamics are powerful, and many academics lack the background and expertise to address the complex human issues that can occur within the learning group. Some basic understanding of the issues involved can help us to achieve richer outcomes from group work. In this paper the authors explore some of the valid pedagogical reasons for introducing group work, and discuss ways to optimise its educational value in engineering curricula.