Working in Small Groups

Doing a group project can be a lot of fun. It can also be challenging, especially when someone is not doing their fair share of the work. Therefore, it is important for the group to spend some time talking about expectations and ground rules. It is also important to develop a timeline to accomplish specific objectives and to stick to it.

If problems arise within the group, the students can seek advice from the instructor.

To facilitate effective research development, the roles of Leader and Recorder will be accepted by two members of your team for each class period. The duties are as follows:

Leader

·          Draft a tentative agenda for the upcoming class

·          Consult with team members at beginning of class to finalize agenda

·          Assign responsibilities to team members as necessary

·          Consult with team members to assign out-of-class tasks

Recorder

·          Record notes during class time

·          Post summary of class notes on Discussion Board

·          Post out-of-class assignments on Discussion Board

Final Products

The final products for this research project will include a poster for presentation at a public poster session, a Powerpoint presentation at the Arkansas Symposium for Psychology Students and to the class, and a one-page critique of the project. Posters are meant to be a concise and visual method of disseminating information. Examples of posters can be found in our classroom. Powerpoint presentations have become increasingly common, both in the research world and the business world.

Assigning Grades

The poster presentation and Powerpoint presentations  will be assigned a grade based on their quality. Each student in the group will receive these grades. Each student's individual effort on the project will be reflected by the assignment of class participation points. Students will lose class participation points based on the instructor's direct perception of uninvolvement and reports from other students in the group. To accomplish the latter, each student will, at the end of the semester, submit a report of their group project that will describe the contributions made by each member of the research group.