CS301 Class #8 Spring 2002
March 15, 2002

Group Management

Dan Garcia <ddgarcia@cs>
Christopher Hirsch <chirsch@uclink4>

Class outline

• CS301 Evaluations (10 min)
• Welcome (+ handouts)
• Clint finishes talking about his teaching experiences (10 min)
• HowDidItGo(tm) (20 min)
• Break (5 min)
• Guest speaker: Randy Katz <randy@cs.berkeley.edu>
• Group Management Psychology
  • How do your students' groups work?
  • Survey:
    • How many of you had positive group experiences? Negative?
  • Role Play:
    1. Meet with them proactively to find out how things are going! Don't wait for them to come to you.
    2. How do you observe that a group has problems?
    3. What is going on? What is the other side of the story? What kinds of questions should you ask to find out more?
    • Different Work Styles
      • Everything is going great! I write all the code and my partner reads it over the night before it's due to make sure it's correct.
      • My partner does all the coding without telling me, so I never get a chance.
      • My partner says we have plenty of time to finish; I'm getting nervous.
      • My partner and I don't ever seem to be able to find a time to meet.
      • My partner is a morning person and gets all of their work done between 6-9am. I'm a night person and do all my work from 12am-3am. We just can't sync up.
      • My partner likes to work at the last minute, whereas I want to work a little bit each day.
    • Different Abilities
      • My partner is stupid; his code sucks. I have to rewrite everything.
    • Don't know how to start
      • We haven't started yet.
      • We have all the design done, but haven't started coding.
      • Whenever we come to the lab, all the computers are taken.
    • Outright hostility
      • I hate my partner and refuse to speak to him again.
      • I haven't heard from my partner in two weeks. I don't know what's going on..
      • My partner does no work, but feels so guilty about it that she nags me all the time to finish my piece.
      • My partner is a lump. He has no motivation to do anything.
    • Other
      • My partner dropped the class!
      • My partner claims to have mono, but last weekend, I saw him partying at his fraternity.
      • If my partner were wandering in the desert and she was dying of thirst, I would not stop to give her any water. She is a rat, and I hope that a snake comes along and eats her.
  • How do you fix these problems?
    • Ask each member individually for a list of grievances.
    • Each member of the group gives one another a grade for the project and an explanation of why they deserve it.
    • Call the group in for a group meeting. Force them to talk out their problems and resolve them.
    • Rate the group on its "group health." This is the big brother approach. You'll be watching them...
    • Meet with the "problem" group member and tell them to get in line.
  • If the group just CANNOT stay together, then what?
    • Separate the partners and force them to pick new groups.
    • Have each person submit a survey of their skills and ability in the CS topic and match them up. Do you match whizkids with whizkids or mix up the skill levels?
    • Find out if students can work on their own.
    • Ask other TAs for people in their sections who need new partners.
    • Complain to your professor.
    • Consider the situation when assigning grades to the project.
• Homework:
  • Tools for Teaching: Watching Yourself On Videotape (Section 42)
  • Journal topics:
    • On a big, final project would you, given the choice, rather work individually or in a group if the group were to be randomly assigned, such that you had no control over with whom you would be working?
    • What would you do if you were in a project group and one of the members wasn't pulling his weight? What should be done?
    • Come up with a creative solution to the accountability problem. That is, how would you balance a diverse group where some of the members have more talent or are harder working than others.