How does ‘group project’ facilitate students’ skills in learning?

Project-based learning is generally regarded as a comprehensive approach to classroom teaching and learning in which students are actively involved in investigation of authentic original problems from their daily lives. The objective of this paper is to provide a general overview of the use of group project as well as to relate this methodology with the general discourse of education. There is a question in group project learning. Why and how do group projects help students learning? This paper provides information on implementing group project. 1. Why project-based learning? The main purpose of using project-based learning hopefully is to educate students through a project to achieve all-around development, communication skills and particular vocational skills. It seems that project-based is used to motivate students and provide practical skills training. It is believed that group project has the following advantages identified by Nightingale [1]. (1) Students are free to make their own choice of a topic of study and thus it encourages a sense of commitment and personal responsibility for the task. (2) Projects give students practice in learning to learn by undertaking a piece of personal research involving activities such as planning the work schedule, monitoring the work progress, searching for resources, collecting material, selecting and deciding on ways of presentation. (3) Projects enable students to experience the satisfaction of working on a complex task over a period of time with the possibility of producing a result of permanent value and interests to the work involved. P ge 10699.1 “Proceedings of the American Society for Engineering Education, Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2005, American Society of Engineering Education” Moreover, it also provides learning situation for students to work among others in where students are highly possible to produce a sense of self-awareness for interpersonal skills. In other words, not only the technical skills, but also other generic skills like cognitive, behavioural, language and communication skills are embedded in the learning process so that students are expected to achieve a wide range and diversity of skills in order to become professional in their vocational development. Gibson [2] made a further attempt to break down this concept like ‘able’ or ‘increased self-confidence’ into twelve operational core skills: 1. The ability to assess one’s strengths and weaknesses. Students know what they are good and bad at, what tasks are going to be easy, difficult and beyond their capability. 2. The ability to seek information and advice. Students can locate their handy recourses, what to ask, who to ask, sussing things out, and getting the facts. 3. The ability to make decisions and agreement from working partners both within and outside the groups. 4. The ability to plan time. Students can organize and plan activities programme on a time schedule. Prioritising work flow becomes the key success at work. 5. The ability to carry through agreed responsibilities. Students are able to take up duties assigned and share with individual expertise. 6. The ability to negotiate. It means to empower students strike a bargain or discussion with others. 7. The ability to deal with people in power and authority. That is to provide opportunities with students to sort ‘people in charge’ out. 8. The ability to solve problems. That is to sort things out, find a solution and overcome obstacles. 9. The ability to resolve conflicts. It means to empower them to get over disputes. 10. The ability to cope with stress and tension. Students are under their control over their own time, place and pace of studying. 11. The ability to evaluate students’ own performance. They know how well they did, what went wrong before, during and after the project work. 12. The ability to communicate. Students are able to express their ideas clearly, and listen P ge 10699.2 “Proceedings of the American Society for Engineering Education, Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2005, American Society of Engineering Education” to what others think. As a whole, the introduction of project-based learning in groups provides learning opportunities for solving real problems at workplace. Students are actively engaged in a cognitively complex task which may draw analogies from daily operation and incorporate their internal mode of knowledge from across disciplines into a final product. It symbolizes the solution of the authentic problem accordingly. Brown [3] further expounded the result of such a teaching and learning approach. Learners are even motivated to persist at problems from their workplace, meld prior knowledge and experience with new learning, and develop rich domain-specific knowledge. It is contextualized in social context that students construct their own knowledge by solving complex problems in situations in which they use cognitive skills, multiple sources of information, and other individuals as resources. In the following part, the benefits of group project learning at workplace will further be explored. 2. The benefits of group project learning Constructivist and phenomenographic approach were reviewed by Biggs[4]. The relationship between individuals and the object of study had been discussed. According to the literature, ‘meaning’ is constructed as an internal relationship between the individual and the object of study. ‘To learn’ means to experience the object in a certain way. The meaning of a particular object is thus a relationship of experience between the individual and the object. It is therefore the importance of cognitive skill in learning cultivates students’ further development in lifelong learning. Furthermore, students are always thinking and devising new practical knowledge for themselves in every walk of life through experiential learning [5]. Project-based learning means learning through ‘experience’. However, Oakeshott [6] viewed ‘experience’ as the most difficult words in the philosophical vocabulary to manage. He focused on how experience is being used in learning situations, such as daily life, didactic classroom education, student-centred classroom education and workplace learning. Project-based learning is believed to be a comprehensive approach of learning, and not surprisingly it has become something to engage students in investigation of authentic problems. Applicable in working organization, project-based learning is conceptually underpinned by the learning-network theory, which establishes a bridge connected between authentic problems and learning [7]. Within project-based learning at vocational context, the experience encompasses three phases: 1. A diagnosis of existing conditions, developments, and problems; 2. Data feedback and formulation of learning themes; and P ge 10699.3 “Proceedings of the American Society for Engineering Education, Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2005, American Society of Engineering Education” 3. The organization of one or more learning projects. The first step entails an investigation of existing policy developments or problems of students. These investigations can be done by survey or by observations or by interviewing any other individuals at work or at school. The diagnosis aims at finding starting points for the content of the learning project. The next step is to assimilate data collected from within or outside organizations into a brief written report. Specific themes or strategies for learning projects are discussed and defined. The final step consists of organizing one or more group learning projects. A learning theme represents an issue relevant to the daily work of the students about which they want to learn; and a set of activities, taking place both in formal and informal settings. Students finally decide for themselves how the project should be set up, which learning activities will be conducted, and who should undertake them. Both the central theme and the learning objectives are defined and agreed by students so everyone in the team takes up the role in mutual support. 3. What is Project-based Learning? “Project can be defined as consisting of a substantial piece of work on an original problem, undertaken with minimal supervision.” [8] There is no consensus of the definition of project-based learning, there are six criteria acting as definition according to Henry [9]. Nevertheless, students usually select their own project topic, locate their own source of resource, present an end product, for instance, a report to be assessed, and conduct an independent piece of work. Project lasts over 6 months and the teacher assumes as an adviser. Students work in groups to solve challenging problems that are original, curriculum-based, and often interdisciplinary. Students take the active role to decide how to tackle a problem and what activities to pursue. Students gather information from a variety of sources and synthesize, analyze, and derive knowledge from it. Their learning is inherently valuable because it is connected to something real and involves liaison skills such as collaboration and mediation. The most important element is reflection. Students can demonstrate their newly acquired knowledge in the final report. Students are judged by the presentation and peer assessment. The role of teachers, unlike traditional classroom teaching, is to provide feedback, guidelines and advices, rather than to direct and manage student work. P ge 10699.4 “Proceedings of the American Society for Engineering Education, Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2005, American Society of Engineering Education” Table 1: Four stages of a project execution and associated skills Activities (Stage) Planning (I) Organisation (II) Execution (III) Presentation (IV) Skills acquired Self understanding, Team spirit, Innovation Information search, Liaison with parties Pragmatic skills e.g. drawing Ability to articulate, Communication s