Mixed-focus collaboration without compromising individual or group work

Creativity is a significant element in design education, and frequently a significant competency during recruitment for design professions. Group work and individual work are widely employed in higher education. Many studies have highlighted the merits of employing group work in design education, cultivating collaborative design abilities and fostering sought-after employability skills. Although the benefits of group work in design practice and education are widely recognised, few studies have shown evidence that group work outperforms individual work regarding creative design activities in higher education contexts. Therefore, the aim of this research is to explore whether group or individual work is more beneficial for fostering students in generating creative designs in STEM design education. A case study, involving two cohorts of second-year undergraduate students studying a UK Engineering degree Industrial Design programme, is reported. The case study compares the design outputs produced by the two cohorts tackling the same design challenge in a product design module but employing individual and group work, respectively. The case study results show that no significant differences have been found between the design outputs produced by group work and individual work, considering novelty, usefulness and overall creativity. Further analysis reveals that a student’s academic performance is not significantly related to the level of creativity of the design produced. This research indicates design educators should employ both group and individual work to complement each other in design education, and suggests potential solutions to enhance students’ design creativity.

Research on procrastination mostly focuses on person-related antecedents and neglects situational and social factors, such as group work. Prior research indicates that conjunctive and additive group work may increase individual effort and performance as compared to individual work. Based on these findings, we investigate whether conjunctive and additive group work may also help reduce procrastination as compared to individual work. In a registered field experiment, N = 218 students with high levels of trait procrastination worked on an academic task over the course of 10 days in one of three conditions (individual work vs. conjunctive group work vs. additive group work). Dependent variables comprised task procrastination, task performance, and positive and negative task-related affect. Regarding conjunctive group work, results are mixed, with some evidence that conjunctive group work leads to lower procrastination as compared to individual work. Both types of group work resulted in higher negative task-related affect when assessed prospectively. No other effects were found. The findings contribute to the idea that targeted changes in the learning environment, such as the implementation of group work, may help reduce procrastination.

Teaching and learning occurs in three main instructional settings, i.e., whole class, small group or individual work. Each instructional setting provides affordances and constraints in terms of the types of teaching and learning strategies that can be implemented effectively, which in turn impacts on students’ opportunity to learn. Variation between teachers’ use of instructional settings within a culture is likely to be a reflection of their beliefs and instructional style whilst variation in teachers’ use of instructional settings across cultures is likely to reflect the cultural framing of teaching and learning, and curriculum emphases within those cultures.

In organizations, decisions usually involve multiple persons working together, spending considerable time in meetings. Group decision support systems (GDSS) are designed to help groups in meetings reach consensus. Such systems started with facilities (called decision rooms) in which people work together at the same time and in the same place. Such decision rooms contain individual computers where people can do private work, public screens seen by all, and networks and software to support both group and individual work. Over time, GDSS has expanded to include people located in different places and at different times. Although GDSS hardware is mostly off-the-shelf, specialized software is used for generating organizing, and prioritizing ideas, for organizational memory, and other tasks associated with group work. This chapter discusses the nature of GDSS, includes brief descriptions of early decision rooms, and considers major software vendors. The chapter concludes that GDSS is now a mature technology, many of whose concepts are now embedded in the way organizations work, and the major legacy of University research is to practice what was learned about individual and group behaviors in computer-based environments.

The methodology and content of the project activities of students in biology is relevant in a modern school and should be applied in educational activities. Project activities have a fruitful effect on the personality of students, include them in social and research work. This work provides for the implementation of a system of sequential actions, makes it possible to express one's opinion and realize individual goals and objectives, to realize ideas, forms competencies aimed at searching and analyzing information, collecting data, observing and experimenting, helps develop communication skills and contribute to the product by group or individual work. Also, students most often acquire competence in the use of ICT. Each student acts simultaneously as an organizer, executor, expert of activity. Since the biology curriculum includes knowledge from many academic disciplines, the project activity clearly implements interdisciplinary connections. The knowledge acquired by students in the course of project activities is more solid. The analysis of work on project activities shows that students increase the level of formation of key competencies (problem setting, goal setting, planning and evaluation of the result, search and processing of information, written communication, oral presentation, group work), which is recommended in the Federal State Educational Standard.Based on the data of various events for students in the Samara region, an analysis of the topics, content and quality of projects in biology and ecology was carried out, the main shortcomings were identified, and recommendations were given for their elimination. Developed, implemented and presented as examples of projects in grades 5-9 on the general topic «Medicinal plants». The proposed study is of practical importance, since the materials and conclusions can be used in the organization of educational and scientific and educational work of schoolchildren in the process of bioecological education and methodological training of students in the course of industrial pedagogical practices on the basis of Samara State University of Social Sciences and Education.

Group and individual work with older people – a practical guide to running successful activity-based programmes Swee Hong Chia<i>et al</i>Group and individual work with older people – a practical guide to running successful activity-based programmes Jessica Kingsley Publishers 208pp £18.99 978 1 8490 5128 6 9781849051286

&lt;p&gt;There are numerous claims of whether physical spaces of academic libraries still required as more resources moved from print to electronic. This project set out to investigate the impact of IT developments on space usage in Manukau Institute of Technology (MIT) Library in order to help librarians and space planners to manage the physical spaces better, and improve existing spaces. They will be able to make informed decisions when planning for future use of spaces. A web based questionnaire was used to collect data on who was using the library and the activities in which they are engaged. There were 261 complete responses to the questionnaire. The researcher also conducted interviews with the Associate Librarian and the Institute Librarian from MIT Library on asking them how they have planed and managed the physical spaces in MIT Library. In addition, the researcher also examined the MIT Library statistics: Data in relations to volumes of print serial and monograph acquired, total number of issues, total number of library visits, total reference enquiries from 2003 to 2008 was analysed and then presented in charts, graphs and tables. The majority of respondents from the online questionnaire were found to be undergraduate fulltime students between the age of 20-25, and they were mainly female students. More than half of the respondents reported they can easily find the place to carry out individual study and group work. However, some respondents commented that in certain times of the year (for example, assignments/exams period) it is very difficult to find a place for individual study and/or group work. The majority of the respondents also reported they mainly come to the library to work on their assignments and study for tests/exams. The Institute Librarian and Associate Librarian mentioned that instead of just storing print materials, the physical spaces is also required to house more computers to access online resources, for quiet study space and group study rooms, and to provide more electrical outlets to access wireless using laptops. The conclusion reached was that the physical spaces of MIT Library still remains essential even through more resources has moved from print to electronic.&lt;/p&gt;

The whole history of education of deaf children presents an eternal fight for finding out the most original forms of transferring knowledge from older to younger generations. Acquisition of new knowledge, abilities, habits and skills deaf children realize in institutional conditions appropriate to their needs. Most of the educational tasks given can be fully realized by correct organization of teaching, as acquiring of new knowledge, habits and skills of the deaf children depend on many factors and on the adequately chosen forms of teaching process. In addition to the frontal type of teaching, which is the most common one, group work and individual work are also used in teaching while individualized teaching has been introduced recently into teaching too.

Group work in language learning has been praised for its success stories in encouraging collaboration and interaction among learners. However, a scant attention has been given to explore how students perceive the Other and how group work can be a platform for identity construction. Within the context of EFL classroom where different cultures and values interact, this study focuses on students’ preference towards group work and peers, which is reflected through their perception and behaviours towards different attributes of the constructed Self and Other. The data were collected through questionnaires involving 241 students of English Literature Study Program at a state university in Indonesia. The results show that, first, despite the challenges to embrace difference among the members, group work is still preferred over individual work for the advantages, productivity, and enjoyment it offers. Second, while friendship is seen as a crucial contributor for a successful group work, students choose peers based on personalities and skills on English language, teamwork, communication, leadership, and technology. This preference motivates stereotyping and othering, whereby the good characteristics of the preferred Self are contrasted with the bad qualities of the dis-preferred Other. This study has proven that subtle othering prevails in group work practices in the academic environment and that such othering practices have influenced students’ behaviours, roles, and abilities to engage and succeed in group work. Pedagogical attempts should be devoted to decrease othering, so as to foster awareness towards difference, in order to create a more accommodative environment for language learning.

Although the importance of the interplay of literature and philosophy in Germany has often been examined within individual works or groups of works by particular authors, little research has been undertaken into the broader dialogue of German literature and philosophy as a whole. Philosophy and German Literature 1700–1990 offers six chapters by leading specialists on the dialogue between the work of German literary writers and philosophers through their works. The volume shows that German literature, far from being the mouthpiece of a dour philosophical culture dominated by the great names of Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Heidegger and Habermas, has much more to offer: while possessing a high affinity with philosophy it explores regions of human insight and experience beyond philosophy's ken.

This cross-sectional analysis study aimed to identify the prevalence and factors associated with musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) among Thai Burley tobacco farmers. Subjects included 603 burley tobacco farmers from Sukhothai province. Farmers were interviewed twice, (during planting and harvesting seasons), with a questionnaire consisting of demographic and health characteristics, musculoskeletal symptoms, and ergonomic exposure questions. The subjects average age was 49.5 years, more were female (58.5%), most had only a primary education (74.3%), 38% were overweight or obese. Farmers had a significantly higher prevalence of MSDs in the lower back (37.1%), knee (28.7%), shoulder (22.9%), wrist (19.9%), and hip (8.3%) during the harvesting season than in the planting season (p < 0.05). Models found that factors influencing MSDs prevalence during planting included long work hours in seedling, tasks such as topping tobacco plants, and using machine tools, after controlling for age, gender, and body mass index (BMI). While in the harvesting season, models found tasks conducted as a group had lower MSDs prevalence than individual work when carrying fresh tobacco to the barn, piercing/threading and curing the leaves, baling the bundles, and transporting the finished goods. We recommended working in groups to reduce workload and MSDs, especially during harvesting, in burley tobacco farming.

The article explores the connections and contradictions between community organizing and curriculum. Huckaby distinguishes coordinated habits that move a. populace in a particular direction from community organizing that is intentional collective work that is corrective in nature as it aims to advance freedom, rectify injustices, and amend inequalities. Community organizing also functions to expose and reveal the oppressive structures and processed bolstered by hidden curricula that implicitly inform individual actions and practices enacted by people en masse. Community organizing builds movements that are collective in nature, taking into consideration the wisdom and experiences of the community without imposing a prescribed solution or agenda to the issues. This piece specifically attends to grassroots community organizing around neoliberal impositions on education. To disrupt, resist, and refuse neoliberal policies, laws, and structures that further marginalize individuals, grassroots efforts must go beyond networking. Huckaby turns Haraway’s cyborg theory to understand the necessity of weaving, rather than simply networking, to create and sustain solidarity that binds different kinds of things, moving in different directions together. Weaving makes for transformation through connection, affinity, coalition, and political kinship. This process, a process toward not only transformation but also toward freedom offers reciprocal, yet unguaranteed benefits for individuals and the world. As individuals work in groups to better understand their needs, the world, too, has an opportunity to learn. While community organizing as curriculum may not solve all the problems of the world, it acts as a robust vehicle for collective steps toward various types of freedom as individuals demand rights for themselves and others. This text offers examples and forms of community and grassroots organizing including testimonies, teachers’ strike, #hashtags, and teach-ins conceptualized via participatory democracy, critical pedagogy, Kaupapa Maori research, cyborg weaving, freedom from, and freedom for. Community organizing as curriculum and for curriculum critique and reform has a corrective purpose that reveals injustices and seeks to unravel inequalities, while weaving relations that create and sustain solidarity and conjoined liberation.

The aim of this pilot study was to explore the risk of metabolic abnormalities in steel workers employed in different shift-work rotations. Male workers in a steel factory [16 employed in a fast clockwise rotation (CW), 18 in slow counterclockwise rotation (CC), 9 day workers (DW); mean age 43.3 ± SD 6.8 years] with at least 5 years experience in their current work schedule participated. All workers provided fasting blood samples between 06:00 and 08:00 h for plasma glucose, insulin, apo-lipoproteins A and B (ApoA, ApoB), high- and low-density lipoproteins (HDL and LDL), total cholesterol (tCH), triglycerides (TG), minimally oxidized (mox) LDL, C-reactive protein (CRP), interleukin-8 (IL-8) and serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D). HOMA index (homeostatic model assessment) was calculated to evaluate insulin resistance, beta cell function and risk of diabetes. Information on demographics, health, stimulants, sleep, social and work life, chronotype (phase of entrainment) and social jetlag (difference between mid-sleep on workdays and free days) as a surrogate for circadian disruption was collected by questionnaire. Neither chronotype nor social jetlag was associated with any of the metabolic risk blood markers. There were no significant differences in 25(OH)D, ApoA, ApoB, CRP, HDL, IL-8, insulin, LDL, mox-LDL, mox-LDL/ApoB ratio, tCH and TG levels between the three work groups. Although we did observe absolute differences in some of these markers, the small sample size of our study population might prevent these differences being statistically significant. Fasting glucose and HOMA index were significantly lower in CW compared to DW and CC, indicating lower metabolic risk. Reasons for the lower fasting glucose and HOMA index in CW workers remains to be clarified. Future studies of workers in different shift rotations are warranted to understand better the differential effects of shift-work on individual workers and their health indices.

These days, some work groups use the publication of employees’ performance information as feedback on their work, such as sales champions in car sales or real estate sales, to improve group performance by using well-performing employees to motivate poor-performing employees to promote their individual work effort. Social comparison theory helps people to evaluate their abilities when lacking an absolute objective standard. This study explored the effects of individual ability level, the combination of ability levels, and personality traits on social comparison among co-operators. Method: A three-way mixed design of 2 (work condition: individual work; group work) X 3 (individual ability level: high ability; medium ability; low ability) X 3 (combination of ability levels: the combination of two high-ability, one medium-ability and one low-ability; the combination of one high-ability, two medium-ability and one low-ability; the combination of one high-ability, one medium-ability and two low-ability) was used, with 180 subjects completing the illusion ensemble task and completing the personality trait questionnaires (including Rosenberg self-esteem scale, Eysenck Personality Inventory(EPQ), Social Comparison Orientation Scale(INCOM) and social comparative effect scale) under different experimental conditions. Results: The results indicated that work condition significantly influenced individual performance. Besides, individual ability level had a significant effect on social comparison. The impact of work condition on individual performance was different for subjects with varying levels of ability: the performance of high-ability subjects significantly decreased, while both medium-ability and low-ability subjects significantly increased, and low-ability subjects had significantly higher performance improvement than medium-ability subjects. Moreover, different combinations of ability levels significantly impacted subjects' individual behavior. Low-ability subjects in the combination of one high-ability, one medium-ability, and two low-ability subjects had the most significant improvement, which was the combined result of the upward identification and parallel comparison. Furthermore, personality traits play a crucial role in social comparison. Self-esteem had a significant effect on participation in social comparison. Subjects with low self-esteem were more inclined to participate in social comparisons and changed sharply in individual performance relative to those with high self-esteem. In addition, neuroticism was associated with adverse effects caused by social comparison (e.g., upward-contrast effect and downward-identification effect), whereas extraversion was associated with positive effects induced by social comparison (e.g., upward-identification). Apart from this, social comparison propensity was found to be positively associated with changes in individual performance and negatively related to self-esteem scores. Additionally, performance change in medium-ability subjects may primarily come from the effect of the downward-contrast effect from the result of the social comparison effect scale. Conclusions: This study illustrates the impact of individual ability and personality traits on social comparison, and provides feasible suggestions for the work organization to improve group performance. Based on the performance changes across groups, an increment in the number of high-ability subjects caused a decrease in team performance, whereas an increment in the number of low-ability subjects positively affected overall team performance. Therefore, group work organizations can improve team performance by increasing the number of low-ability members and reducing the number of high-ability members in future management.

US and international students engaged in study abroad programs are increasingly choosing countries on the continent of Africa as a destination. This article presents research findings on how cross-disciplinary study abroad experiences in Ghana impacted visitor awareness of issues in Ghana and, more broadly, the continent of Africa. The study explored the level and nature of change in the visitors' awareness of issues in Ghana and, in particular, the types of experiences that contributed to these changes. The activities that received the highest endorsement were those that involved informal discussion or hands-on contact with Ghanaians. Structured course activities received higher ratings in terms of student benefit than structured and unstructured assignments, such as individual work in a journal/sketchbook, specific projects, group work, open-ended study, and available readings. The respondents felt a strong connection with the art, design, craft, and music traditions, followed by connections with food and cooking, family and village life, and religious traditions of Ghana. Moderate connections were felt with gender roles, fashion and hairstyles, and urban life. The study illustrates a number of supporting arguments for study abroad programs highlighted in previous studies, such as the benefits of out-of-class experiences that promote true cultural immersion and learning. Additionally, it adds to the extensive knowledge base of study abroad in terms of its unique focus on students' understandings of local issues at the host site, and it situates broad generalizations about the advantages of study abroad programs in the specific context of Ghana and the African continent, as well as the impacts of immersion on visitor notions of race, class, poverty, gender, art, and traditional culture.