PRESENTATION
The future graduate – the importance of group work
Author
Nigel Francis
Swansea University Medical School
Abstract
The 2015 QAA benchmark guidelines include a range of key transferable skills including collaboration and communication that graduates are expected to have mastered upon completing their course. One assessment that is appropriate for helping students to learn these key skills is a group oral presentation. Group work is an incredibly powerful tool for assessing large numbers of students provided it is set up correctly and a positive learning environment is created. That environment needs to foster collaboration to ensure that the end product is a true reflection of the contribution of each individual student. The first time group work was tried it was a disaster as the absolute necessity to generate individualised marks to ensure that students have some ownership of their outcome was not fully appreciated. What has followed is a continual refinement Of the assessment process over the last 7 years to a point where each student feels they have a degree of control over the performance of the group. The result is an assessment that is authentic, robust and most importantly a fair measure of student engagement.
Session Outline
This will be a short presentation with some audience participation. The session will outline the evolution of a group work assessment over the past 8 years and highlights the importance of embedding transferrable skills that can be assessed fairly and generates a personalised mark.
Key Messages
A better understanding of the power of group work when it is done correctly
Key Words
Group-work, transferrable skills
FOR STAFF USE ONLY : Projector and laptop running PowerPoint. Slido will be used in the lecture via mobile devices
SALT Conference 2019 