Controlling Group Dynamics

When students graduate from their undergraduate institution and begin the transition to becoming professional chemists or graduate students, they will undoubtedly be required to work and collaborate with others. The theme-based modules offer students the opportunity to practice and hone their team-work skills.

In most cases, the group will easily identify several instruments which will contribute data necessary to addressing the project goal. Likewise, the group often finds a best method for utilizing their individual strengths for the benefit of the whole. However, students often gravitate to the one instrumental technique or job where they feel most skilled and they never gain exposure or experience on any other aspect of the project. In this respect, the instructor should encourage students to become involved in multiple aspects of the work. This can be done informally, with a gentle nudge or positive comment, or this can be planned, by requiring students to rotate to different aspects of the project. For example, in one implementation of the spectroscopy and art module, one student felt more comfortable only processing data, but not using the instrument to collect the data. In this case, the instructor guided the student to work with one other student to collect data. In this way, both students gained a better understanding of the project as a whole.

In the case where the instructor notices or learns that one or two students are not contributing at all to the work of the whole, the instructor may need to meet individually with the student(s) and grade accordingly, with the expectation that the rest of the group will still need to get the work completed.