how are students supposed to show they work well as part of a team, if group projects in school are so awful?

A reader writes:

I teach in a business school and previously worked in my industry. I’ve been an AAM reader for a long time.

I have seen you write about how group work in school projects is nothing like group work in the real world, and I’m not sure I totally agree. I have definitely worked with coworkers who slacked off or didn’t have the right skills, but there was no accountability, etc. I think getting some output from folks like this is actually a common challenge, which mirrors student work.

Anyway, regardless of my personal opinion, every single industry speaker we have says they want students who work well as part of a team. Hiring managers who come here tell us our students are all very technically skilled, so teamwork and initiative are the things that will make them stand out. So the question is, do you have any suggestions on how instructors can a) help students develop these skills, and b) do so in a way that lets students demonstrate them to employers (via resume, interview, career fair chats, etc.)?

One thing I’ve noticed in my years of teaching is that far fewer students have part-time jobs and such in high school (the emphasis on extracurriculars and obsession with college admissions seems to have taken its place) so where, 10 years ago, I would have told students they can highlight the part-time job where they went from server to shift lead to assistant manager, even if it has nothing to do with their professional field, now many have zero work experience at all.

Some common tools among instructors:
• Team contracts to set norms about communication, meetings, division of work, etc.
• Dividing up the groupwork so each person turns in an individual portion and then combine them into a final product.
• Regular formative peer evaluations so I can address conflicts early in the semester instead of hearing about them during finals week.
• Regular meetings with each group so I can observe the group dynamic and attempt to surface issues.

If you were teaching a class of undergrads, what would you do?

It’s true that employers want people who can work well as part of a team, but group projects from school listed on a resume aren’t the primary way they’re assessing it. In practice, it’s much more commonly assessed through how the candidate comes across in an interview — are they a know-it-all or do they have a reasonable amount of humility? Do they talk about other people (teachers, fellow students, coworkers, whoever) respectfully? Are they forthcoming enough in conversation that you can picture collaborating with them or does it feel like pulling teeth to get any info from them? Do they seem engaged when they talk about work they’ve done? Do they have examples of conflicts (even minor ones) they’ve encountered, and how did they approach those?

I can almost guarantee you that the person who was a drag to work with on group projects in school is painting themself on their resume as an active, helpful member of those teams, and interviewers generally know that.

That doesn’t mean the tools you listed aren’t useful ones (although I would be interested in students’ feedback on them in practice — and whether it really does solve the problem of one or two people feeling like they end up carrying the rest of the team). I just don’t think they’re terribly useful to employers and are often incredibly frustrating to conscientious students, who end up feeling like they have to babysit their team members when they’re supposed to be learning. (And sure, that’s its own kind of lesson! But I don’t think it’s the one you’re setting out to teach to the class as a whole.)

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