Trecia

Structuring Group Assignments

One challenge of doing group assignments is coordinating with everyone, meaning getting people from all over the country to meet at the same time to discuss the assignment and assign roles and work.  Surprisingly, after the first couple of times of doing this, it gets easier and everyone in the group gets into a rhythm.  It is important to set-up a schedule for meeting.  A schedule will make it easier for everyone involved and that way you aren’t meeting at random times during the week, which could lead to people missing meetings.  Another thing is to assign or breakdown the work...I find that if work is not assigned it doesn’t get completed.  When everyone says that they can post the final assignment, it usually doesn’t get posted, because everyone thought someone else was going to do it.

 

What I found helpful was to make a rotating schedule for the team lead for each week.  The team lead is responsible for running the meetings and posting the final assignment.  Everyone still gets involved in doing the assignment but one person is responsible for that week for getting everyone’s input and handing in the assignment.  This has worked out pretty well in all of my courses that have used this technique.

 

Another thing is to make sure you leave yourself enough time between your coordination meeting and the due date of the assignment.  You have to be able to get input and complete the assignment and make changes if they are needed and review it before it is submitted.  Whichever way you choose to structure your group, make sure the assignment is complete and submitted on time.

Forgetting to Order a Book

How did I not order my book for class?  I mean, I really thought I read through the entire syllabus and listed all the books that were required, but I missed one.  I have written blogs about being organized and even ran down a list of what you are supposed to do during orientation week; one of those things being to order your books.  I think it was just an oversight on my part, I mean there were three required books, but I only got two of them.  So, now I have to make sure to add one more thing to my orientation checklist...double check all book lists to make sure everything is there.

Being an online student, I can't just walk into the campus bookstore and buy the book.  I have to order it online and wait to have it shipped to me, which takes a few days.  Good thing I only have reading assigned from this book and not actual problems or analysis because there would have been a big issue there...

 

Fall Semester '09

                    

 

                    

                         

 

 

The fall term has started and I’m still ramping up in my two courses, because it’s only the first couple of weeks of online classes.  However that doesn’t mean that I haven’t had any assignments due.  The first couple of weeks seem to be the same for each class I take, meaning:

 

-         Read the orientation slides

-         Buy the books

-         Create your student profile

-         Form your teams

 

Out of those four the first two are the easiest, but the student profile can be tricky, especially if you are the first to post your profile.  I mean you don’t want to come off as a workaholic bore with no life, but you don’t want to come off as a person with too much of a life and no time to meet with your group and work on team assignments.  You also don’t want to paint yourself as some super obsessed person who wants the team to meet every night.  It’s a fine line and you never know how someone will interpret what you say.

 

The last thing on the list is forming the teams, which after you read through the profiles of your classmates you try to figure out who is the most compatible with your meeting schedule and work habits.  You have to choose wisely, because you will be working with your group for the entire semester...so far, I think I chose wisely. 

Round Two

So this is round 2 of blogging for me.  I am still trying to get the hang of it and making sure that my posts are interesting and timely.  It’s harder than it appears to be, keeping people interested when it has to be about school and being a web based student and all, I don’t really get to interact with people face to face.  So most of my communication is done via discussion boards, therefore clear and concise writing is necessary in order to get your point across.  However, words can be taken out of context or the meaning misunderstood because the tone cannot be conveyed.  Based on those facts, you would think a lot of people would have hurt feelings based on responses to discussions that were taken the wrong way.  But, people are usually okay about it and don’t take things the wrong way and if they do, they keep it to themselves.  Out of all of my online classes, I can only recall a few times where something was taken the wrong way. 

 

It is important to write things in a way that they can’t be seen as offensive or belittling of other people’s ideas.  This helps not only when taking online classes but in everyday life, when writing emails.  When I started my job, all new hires have to take ethics courses, and one of these was about careful communication.  Careful communication is just being mindful of what you are typing; personally I think everyone can benefit from it.

 

Anyway, I’m looking forward to my new classes this semester; I decided to take two courses after only taking one during the summer session…more to come on that later...