This week’s topic on “Groups” has been really insightful, as with high student numbers, it’s such a vital aspect of learning and teaching in arts, design and filmaking. It is, of course how we spend our life’s, collaborating and negotiating in groups of friends, family, work colleagues and teaching partnerships. It’s a subject we can all relate to. During my working life the longest group I collaborated with was for 12 years working in a very tight group of designers in the BBC presentation department. We all had designated roles: a leader and subordinates. We were paired into creative teams, split and reformed by project and then worked collectively as a whole group.
In teaching I’ve taught students many times in groups and recently set a project where the students worked in groups on a film production project where the objective was to teach them the different roles required to work together in a professional group:
Together to be creative, organized, disciplined to deliver a film on time and on budget.The group were mainly international students so one of this weeks topics interested me especially: “HE academy.ac.uk on international groups”. I also wanted to understand more about the theory of groups so read “Learning in Groups” by David Jacques, Gilly Salmon.
On P5: “Individual people are the raw material that go to make up groups, not all collections of individuals will have a sense of belonging to a group, though outsiders may perceive them as such, the collective identity.” I have found this to be true when teaching a group project. Some students feel quite alienated within a group, it unsettles them and being “artist – creative” this rang true, “they often struggle to input they’re ideas into a group project and don’t feel motivated within a group dynamic”. In fact I would say it demotivates in some instances.
On Page 6: “Group exists with these qualities – Needs, shared aims, interdependence, social organization, interaction, cohesiveness, membership.” Not sure I agree that group members are interdependent in so far as they are affected by and respond to any event that affects any of the groups members. But I do agree – members influence and respond to each other in the process of communicating.
Freud claimed “ that people are drawn into and remain in, groups because of emotional ties between members, and that one of the principal mechanisms in the effecting of such ties is identification – the process by a person wants to be like his parents.”
I’m not sure I agree with wanting to be like ones parents but I do agree that working in groups, helps emotionally in sharing the responsibility working on creative briefs. The advertising model works, where a Creative Director leads a group of creatives, pairs of copywriter and art director, and creatives are bought together to form a group to “brainstorm – brain dump – blue sky think” ideas.
On Page 7 “Security and protection can derive from the designated leader or any member who is accepted in the role. The group unconsciously assumes that some sort of magic resides in the leader. I.e. way students defer to tutor remarks to exclusion of their colleagues contribution”
I don’t agree that students believe “magic” exists in a tutor / leader but they rightly assume that this person knows what they’re talking about and can impart knowledge and help the students in the task they’ve been set. In the advertising world – the creative director is paid handsomely as they have to produce “magic” and led their group to create “magic” although what is produced is often along way from Magic!
On Page 19 Jaques discussed the role of tutor within the group i.e. Authorative (leader is dominant, Directing, Informing, Confronting Versus Facilitative (less obstructive, releasing tension, eliciting, Supporting & more discreet) I found this interesting and would put myself in both camps.
I touched on the subject of internationalism in a response to a C1 group’s blog for Topic 1. It fascinates me the way the profile of the students has changed in art colleges over the last 30yrs. When I studied at LCP & RCA there were very few international students, which is very different to the Graphics and film courses I’ve taught on for example at LCC. I’ve been struck how much of the intake is made up of international students and how a significant percentage are Korean & Chinese. What I found relevant to this weeks topic is how the international students interact with UK students, tutors and participate in the classrooms. The Asian students seem to thrive and integrate very quickly and certainly the effort we go to integrate them into social groups from Day 1 seems to pay off.
Graphic from a Government paper
However, If left alone I’ve found in general that naturally international students tend to stick within their nationalities as the HE Academy paper says “ Majority of students, left to their own devices, are likely to with students they perceive as culturally similar to themselves…A minority …develop friendships, broaden their perspectives and learn skills suitable for a diverse and globalized world”
On the film project, the students were assigned groups; each group was 3-4 students mixed up with UK Nationals and Internationals, male and female. As tutors we socially engineered this to happen. It was interesting to see how international students performed within the group dynamic. I found that a number of the international students were quieter, as they we either not confident with the English Language, and as people naturally quieter and not used to being so vocal and opinionated. To quote HE paper “ Cross cultural work, conducted in a language where everyone is not equally comfortable, requires resilience, effort and additional time.” I’m also mindful that one needs to be really careful not to make sweeping statements and generalizations of particular nationalities and not fall into stereotypes.
I see huge benefits for the current generation of students studying in HE Arts, Design and Film, to quote the vice chancellor of Liverpool, “ the main benefit of the globalization of HE are not financial but intellectual and cultural. The HE paper also challenges the metaphors of international students which discusses whether international students work in “ global villages” or ‘silos” (containing those from the same country or region of the world & or speaking a similar language.)
I was interested in the suggestions the HE paper makes to help international students mix within the classroom and on courses.
- Teachers re-designing group based coursework – requiring co-operation and collaboration.
- Teachers mixing up students so they understand this is normal.
- Student support specialists, induction activities, staff developers – who collectively can help international students.
Running the group film project it forced students to work together and as it was over a number of months involved them spending time often socially or weekends which bought them together and helped them. Talking to international students they were able to reflect that it was meaningful and authentic project and had enjoyed working in a group. As the HE paper says, “It’s a mix of formal curriculum with informal curriculum which helps break barriers.”
Finally I asked a tutor at UAL a few Q+A’s on teaching International students.
Q How do you find teaching International students?
I find teaching international students may need a little extra work at the start but it does pay off. International students need help in identifying cultural places in London (for instance) that will reassure them and assist with their research processes which can really help in the development of a project. This is often practical advice but showing that extra care and level of help starts to create trust between student and tutor. For instance I have a Brazilian design student. Another Brazilian photography student needed a designer to work with. I introduced the two and it was that act of care and thoughtfulness, which made a difference to both student’s attitudes and trust of me –It was the facilitation of an opportunity, which they appreciated rather than the practical act of twinning.They have been excellent students since.
Q What are the positives and negatives?
The negatives are isolated international students. We tell all our students from Day 1 that being ‘global citizens’ is vital to their progress as professionals. The opportunity to understand different cultures is an enormous advantage. They have a ready-made team of people who understand regional semiotics. They are surrounded by students who may be their life long professional network – this is an enormous opportunity. Good projects should prioritise and highlight this in the brief. International insight is very valuable.
Q What are the challenges as a tutor?
The challenges for a tutor are finding that extra time for international students without affecting the parity of care given to the group as a whole.
Q How will UAL adapt over next 10yrs to the globalization & internationalism of HE education.
There are many ways to adapt but it is important that UK Education is unique and distinctive – adaption to fit the ‘perceived’ needs of international students could be a mistake.
Care with induction, brief writing and explantation and terminoilogy used in assessment are key initiatives, which would be very useful as we adapt.
Hello Mark, I was interested to see that you also began by ‘reflecting’ on your own history of working within groups. Like me you seem to be used to workplace groups in which people have different roles (‘teams’ as Jacques & Salmon call them). The advertising model you mention is also that kind of group. It sounds like you are recreating this type of project group at university to prepare students for ‘real-life’ situations. My teaching, however, is mostly seminar-based. That usually means everyone has to do the same thing (has the same role): they have to contribute to the discussion. I have found that when students are working on a group project, rather than working ‘in’ a group, they are quite good at organising themselves and playing to their individual strengths. This is less the case when all students do the same. Even if they are not supposed to take on different roles, they often sort of do: one will be the quiet one, one will be the clown etc. How you you get them out of those roles?
I had some of the same experiences you describe with international students, i.e. students from the same country/continent sticking together. I sounds like the teaching project you were involved in worked well in breaking this up. I am wondering how to do this if you are working with students on less intense projects and for a shorter period. At the museum we teach a summer school. We see students for only three weeks and most curators only see them once or twice during that time. What do you do in that situation to stop students huddling together with others from the same geographical place? Or maybe there is no point (maybe it is even a bit mean?) breaking up those groups as the students in London for three weeks only and have often come alone? Having said that, I really like what the tutor you interviewed said – that they impress on students from Day 1 how much they can gain, also for the future, by engaging with students from a different background. I guess you could build that sort of pep talk into a short course.
Lastly, you say that working in group can demotivate students. Why do you think that is?
Hi Mark,
Two specific (possibly interrelated) things occurred to me when reading your response.
You mention that in “the group film project it forced students to work together […] often socially or weekends which bought them together and helped them.” I think the idea of a group bonding through social activities is really interesting and it feels like it fits with the Tuckman notion of ‘norming’ that Linsday mentioned in our online seminar. Going by the Tuckman model this norming appears to happen just before the final stage of group development (performing).
From my own experience of working in groups I often wished this element of socialising (which in turn can bring about norming) happened at the very beginning of forming a group. Generally when you’re put in a group you tend to have to just dive straight into the project at hand. For me, there is real value in connecting with people in a social environment as it creates an opportunity to form bonds and identify individuals’ strengths. I wonder whether it would be possible in a HE context to start with this social element? While I’m not suggesting putting students in groups and then sending them to the pub for the afternoon (!), it strikes me that giving a group time to ‘breathe’ in a relaxed social setting could help with group formation and dynamics.
I was also reading the interview you did and it struck me that often we (myself included) talk about what extra/different support we need to provide international students. But in your second question to the tutor about the positives and negatives of internationalisation he/she mentions that Home students often need to be made aware of the value of being ‘global citizens’.
This is really interesting because we need think more about how we can prepare Home students to work more effectively with their international peers as well as considering the additional support those international students need. I’m not sure what that preparation would look like but it seems sensible for internationalisation to be considered from both perspectives.
Hello both. I am really valuing this conversation, so thank you.
In my area, Graphic Design, we do a lot of group work and I have constructed groups every which way depending on the task we are working. But when I first started teaching integration via social engineering was the usual way of attempting to get students to move away from their social / language group. Over time I have become rather concerned with the limitations of this way of constructing groups. There are simple reasons that I worry: I see International students disadvantaged by language difficulties and even alongside the most thoughtful home students still unable to contribute fully. (Now here is a confession: the online seminar is not fun for someone who types slowly and spells badly!). The fluent English speakers can become impatient or embarrassed. The International students may feel that they have little to offer as their educational / cultural experiences are so different to the home students, and so on. However, when students from one language and culture work together they really help each other and all benefit. Working through ideas with notes in their own language is more fluid, creative, and natural. However, if I never socially engineered groups I would likely have a studio populated by fixed cliques.
Going back to your post, I wondered if the alienated student might be rare if we could get the group to ‘buy in’ to the idea of group work more. If right at the outset the group were asked to identify commonalities and aims, to anticipate potential problems and suggest strategies, discuss the value of being part of a group, and so on, pretty much along the lines of the questions asked by Jaques in chapter 2, “Considering the Properties of Groups”.
I too really appreciated your mentioning that we need to talk to home students more. Having talked to individual home students about this very subject I discovered that the majority say that one reason they relish being at University is the cultural mix. They just find it difficult to act on. I have tried writing projects that require a culturally specific input (tales from your childhood for example) but I notice, as do you, that the relationships don’t stick. So I wondered if this year I could try socially engineering pairs and running a “teach somebody something project”. Anyone tried one?
Overall though, I suspect that a social event is most likely to be effective. What about research in an environment completely unfamiliar to all of them? Or the pub.
Wendy, I love the idea of a ‘teach somebody something project’. Have not tried it, though.
When I reading what home students said to you – that they like the cultural mix but don’t know how to act upon it – it made me think, possibly idiotically – of going on trips to foreign countries which I am sure many of the home students do. It then seems odd that they don’t take up the possibility of engaging with another culture if it turns up on their doorstep. Language is of course a problem which I know only too well from my own experience.
The following might seem unrelated, but stay with me … We always have some sort of guessing game involving images at our departmental Christmas parties, e.g. everyone submits a photo of themselves as a child and then people have to guess who is who and that kind of thing. One Christmas we all had to photograph an area of our flat, which was really interesting. I was wondering whether there is something in asking students to bring a photo of an object (or the object) that encapsulates/represents their culture. (Maybe I am thinking of that because we do something similar at the museum for a summer school: we ask students to say what they would donate to the museum.) I think if the home students have to do that as well it makes it obvious that their own culture is a construct, that they can also be ‘the other’. (Maybe that’s too naive?) Food also always seems to be a good icebreaker. But I guess you cannot really ask students to bake, cook something in mixed group to bring to the next session.
I really like our idea of bringing this group-issue-thing out in the open rather than pretending it is not really there. Maybe it is possible to give students one task where they work in their own ‘language group’ (for want of a better description), then another they work on in ‘socially engineered’ groups and then they have to report back on what was different.
Thank you for all your replies. I will do my best to answer some of the points.
Beatrice – yes I use my own experience in work groups, as this is where I have more knowledge. I tend to get invited by universities / colleges to give lectures on my work and they want me to set projects which are often closely related to work I’ve done professionally. This is one of the reasons to do the PG Cert course to expand my teaching knowledge to broaden my teaching.
Re International students project – it was a positive experience and very interesting to see particularly one group a UK / Chinese /Canadian students – they worked very well however the UK student was the definite leader being more confident and forth right in his opinions.
There is no answer to the “group geographical huddle “ other than it appears to socially engineer it that students are forced /encouraged into working together. Its the real world for example this week I’m doing a film project with a leading advertising agency and working for first time with them its with 10 + people, who I’ve never meet them and the group consists of 2 South Africans, a New Zealander, Nigerian and rest from UK – interesting!
Re: my tutor interview – you reference how they make a real event to impress on students the need to work with people from different backgrounds. I attended this week an LCC lectures held each Tuesday where a designer from a different country giving a lecture this week the famous Dutch designer from http://www.kesselskramer.com/ came to talk – the student audience was very international – UK, European & Asian students and it was very encouraging to see how they appreciated the brilliant and very humorous lecture.
Hannah – I think the social aspect of any group can’t be underestimated in fact for students the day time (lectures/tutoring/ teaching) is often balanced with the night time (socializing, meeting students enjoying culture & a simply have a “good time”) After all this enriches a students university experience. I think giving a “group” time to breath is a good idea and maybe projects can be set that they have to meet at the weekend or in evening – after all in work life being creative isn’t 9-5 it should be 7 days a week.
Re- interview Q2 – I think its wonderful for the home students to interact and work with their international peers – this clearly needs support & some socially engineering.
Wendy – it was very interesting to read your perspective about social engineering – that you found it had limitations. What can we do then as tutors to overcome the language difficulties, which means that some international students don’t fully contribute? I guess as tutors we have to balance social engineering & self-formed groups although the later where students will naturally gather around a common language is the easy option? I do think that groups have to be formed so there is a mix and its not based around a friendship group – it’s the real world?
As my interviewee says the home students relish the cultural mix working with international students.
Hi Wendy, some more interesting thoughts above! I also like the idea of a ‘teach somebody something’ project – though have no experience of this myself. It would be a great way to level the playing field, as it were.
I think your point in the second paragraph is particularly relevent to the way I’m thinking at the moment:
“If right at the outset the group were asked to identify commonalities and aims, to anticipate potential problems and suggest strategies, discuss the value of being part of a group…”
There is real value in articulating the aims and challenges of each brief/project – or even better, getting the students to articulate these for themselves.
I would imagine learning outcomes are a standard part of each project brief? Not so in my Careers and Employability world! At the moment I’m really looking at how to identify and articulate the aims (and become aware of the challenges) in each session I run. I think this process of ‘surfacing’ what is, hopefully, already happening can really help students understand the value of what they are learning – thus making them feel more engaged.
Sorry, that’s slightly off topic in terms of group work and internationalisation – but it’s obviously on my mind at the moment!