Speaker 1: Hi everyone, my name is Alexis O'Sullivan and I'll be talking to you today about effectively working in group projects. So, just a little bit about me. I am the Academic Success and Retention Graduate Intern for the Finish and 4 team, and I also just started working as the Graduate Assistant for their office as well. I'm currently pursuing my Master's in Higher Education Administration here at Stony Brook, and I'm also the Graduate Coordinator at New Student Programs. So, if you are a new student this year, you've probably interacted with me in that capacity before. I got my undergraduate degree at Marist College, studying Communication and Public Relations. So, just, you know, maybe pause the video in a moment, take a little bit to think to yourself, what do you normally feel like when your professor tells you, we're going to be starting a group project? As you can see, it's the source of a lot of memes, it tends to be, you know, something that gets students really stressed and anxious or, you know, annoyed and frustrated at having to deal with working with others. I can completely relate to that, but it doesn't have to be so bad. So, just a little bit about why they matter. Skimming down to the bottom, they are needed for any job and for any job interview to secure a job in the first place because group projects kind of help you exemplify things like patience and compromise and leadership and teamwork. They'd be great at helping you answer those interview questions that are very common, like, tell me about a time when you solved a conflict between you and a peer, or talk about a time where you exemplified leadership, things like that. Group projects are a great thing to refer back to in an interview when asking about those types of situations. So, first things first and not just because it was my major, communications. So, I always suggest that you should take the time to get to know your group members. A lot of times, you know, you don't get to pick your groups, and they're assigned to you. And so, even though they're not your friends already, you know, There's no need to not treat them like they could be your potential friends. Ask them a little bit about themselves outside of class, get to know, you know, where they live now, where they're from, from, what they like to do, and things like that. It'll help you guys throughout the project if you have a little bit more of an understanding of each other. Definitely, as soon as you get together, make a group chat, whether that be on iMessage, WhatsApp, you know, GChat, just kind of getting all of your information exchanged so that you can contact each other at any time and you don't have to wait until the next class session or the next group meeting to discuss something. Definitely use Google Drive to store all of your files for your project, whether it's pictures, videos, you know, any writing. It's going to be really helpful for you all to have access to everything. That way, you know, if one person can't make a meeting, they're not the ones like holding all of the information for the project. You know, if you forgot your laptop, then you can log in to your account on any computer and access all of your files. It's really important to be able to have that collaboration. That way, you can all be working in the same documents. You don't have to worry about combining everything in the end. It really does the work for you in that way. The great thing about Google Drive is they have so many different platforms depending on what your project needs. You know, you can work in a document, you can create a survey, an Excel-type spreadsheet, a presentation, even a website. Google Sites, I think, is really valuable because it's very user-friendly. It's really easy to use. It's really easy to use. It's really easy to use. It's really easy to use. It's really easy to use. It's really easy to use. It's really easy to use. It's really easy to use. It's really easy to use. It's really easy to use. It's really easy to use. And it makes creating a website really easy. And it's something that a lot of people aren't going to do for their project. And so it can just kind of like help you stand out a little bit creating that site if it's something that fits into your project. Also, what's really helpful is that right within all of these different Google tools, you have a chat where, you know, if you see somebody else is working on a project at the same time as you, you can message them, you know, right through Google Docs, and it'll pop up on the screen of their documents, you know, they'll see it right away. You can make a comment, you know, if there's something you're thinking about changing, you can highlight it and make a little comment and say, like, what if we change it to this? And then you can get feedback on it, as opposed to, you know, just simply deleting somebody else's work and filling in your own answer. Something that can also help you kind of keep all of your group members accountable is checking the history. It really helps to kind of see if there's somebody who hasn't opened the document, or if there's somebody who hasn't opened the document, or if hasn't contributed anything to the document, you can go in and see that and then, you know, kind of act accordingly from there. So one thing that I always find really helpful as well is to kind of establish roles for the project. That way, nothing gets left out or overlooked. The way I like to do this is to just kind of ask everybody from the start, you know, what do you like to do? What do you not like to do? And then, you know, if there's somebody who hasn't opened the document, you can give them that way as much as possible. You can give people the responsibilities that they would be best at. So, you know, if somebody says, like, I'm an English minor, so I'd prefer to check the grammar. And, you know, somebody else says, like, you know, I don't really have neat handwriting, so I don't want to write things down, but I'm great at public speaking. You know, then just kind of, like, establishing roles just based on what people are naturally good at. If there's something that nobody wants to do, like, for example, everybody, you know, says, like, oh, I hate having to go through and put all the pictures in, you know, even just something little like that. Like, then you can rotate or you can make it a divided responsibility. You know, the roles don't have to stick for the whole project. If for, you know, the first half of the project, somebody is going to go through and make the presentation, and then for the next half of the project, somebody else is going to do that, that's fine, too. But just assigning specific duties to make sure that everything's covered is going to be really essential to making sure that, you know, nothing gets left out. So another thing that's going to be really helpful for you with group projects is knowing how to manage your time. When it comes to working with others, I always like to establish pre-deadlines. So if the professor says, for example, I want this in on Friday, telling your group to have it done on Friday, I want to have it done on Friday. So if the professor says, for example, I want to have it done on Wednesday, is something that'll be really helpful because, you know, that way you have that extra day and a half where, you know, if you realize that something's left out or, you know, if somebody's having computer troubles, stuff like that, you know, the more people that are in the group, I think the more time you should allow just for some little things to go wrong. So if you have those early deadlines, then by the real deadline, hopefully things will be figured out. Also, I think it's really important to be able to do a lot of the work that you're doing and to be flexible. You know, a lot of you may think like, oh, I, you know, really just want to be able to meet right after class because it's easy and we're all there. But just being respectful of other people's schedules and keeping in mind that, you know, there are some non-traditional students who may have other jobs, they may have children or other family members that they need to take care of. So I think it's really important to, you know, be willing to meet people where they're at. And if, you know, somebody can only meet at eight o'clock in the morning or eight o'clock at night, just, you know, being accommodating and working that out with them. It might not be, you know, your favorite time to meet, but I do think it's important for everybody to be able to be at the meetings. So whatever time that be to make it happen. So when it comes to those meetings, as soon as you can establish when everybody's free, do that as soon as possible and put them on your calendar. The meetings, you know, can be in person or as we all know, due to the pandemic, lots of meetings can be on Zoom or they can even be a little bit of both. Some people may prefer to meet in person, but there might be one or two people who aren't able to make it for whatever reason. So, you know, Zoom them into the meeting. I think, you know, that's totally possible and doable if, you know, one person can't make it instead of just, you know, saying like, oh, we'll fill you in later if they're able to, you know, log on and be there virtually. I think it's still valuable to have them present for it. And another thing that I always say is like, you know, make sure it's down somewhere, whether it's on a physical calendar or it's on a Google calendar. That's great because you can send people invites. You know, it's just necessary to have it down somewhere. That way, like, everybody can see it. Nobody could say, oh, I didn't know about the meeting type of thing. But also with meetings, you know, they don't have to be something that you dread going to. When I did a semester-long group project my senior year of undergrad, you know, we always made sure to make the meetings fun. We would bring pizza and snacks and, you know, sometimes we would come in our pajamas. Like, it doesn't have to be a bad experience. You know, you do have the power to make it enjoyable. And these three websites down at the bottom, when it comes to figuring out when everybody's free, it can be, you know, a little time-consuming. For everyone to sit there and say, what about Wednesday? What about Friday? What about three o'clock? What about four o'clock? But these websites give you really easy access to be able to see when everybody's free and not free in, like, a really visual way. And it makes it a lot quicker to decide, you know, when is the best time to meet. So I would definitely recommend checking out those websites. So when it comes to where to meet, you all have your own favorite study spot already. But it just might not be best for a group meeting because when you think about it, if your favorite study spot's a little quiet corner in the library, it's not going to work when you have five or six people and you all want to be able to talk to each other. You definitely want a space that's big enough for, you know, each person in your group to have a seat, have room for their laptop, their notebooks, things like that. And also to be able to speak at a normal volume without, you know, disturbing other people. So just a few places on campus that are great for this would be the Cole Lounge in the Union, the Traditions Lounge in the SAC, which is pictured right here, or the North and Central Reading Rooms in the library. So now if you want to pause it and just take a little bit of time to think about these scenarios and what you would do in this situation, and then we'll go over some potential solutions. So first, if you have a group member who isn't answering in the group chat and doesn't show up to meetings, I think a good way to approach this is just to kind of like, you know, not come off aggressive, just ask, like, is there a better way to contact you? Is there a better time or place to meet? Because for example, you know, you may have created an iMessage group chat and you're not sure why somebody isn't responding, but then when you ask them, it turns out, you know, they're not responding. They have an Android and they were never getting the iMessages. So, you know, just trying to give people the benefit of the doubt, I think, you know, will make for better communication. So, you know, there always is one person who doesn't actually want to do the work and they just want to have fun, which is understandable. And it can be a little hard to kind of be that person who feels like a buzzkill and just want to, just wants to say, like, let's get back to work, let's get back to the work. But I think just, you know, a little phrase like, oh, can we go back to where we were a few minutes ago and see what we were trying to do is like, it's, you know, a non-confrontational way to say, like, you know, let's just get back to work. So, if there's one person who keeps ignoring others' ideas and input, it can be, you know, natural for somebody to take over as the leader, but it doesn't mean that they should be the only one voicing their opinion. So, saying something like, let's check in with each other about how the process is working, is everyone contributing, and things like that, or then saying, like, let's go around and see where everybody stands on this, doesn't necessarily call out that one person for being so controlling, but it gives everybody the opportunity to speak. So, I feel like we've all been there. Part one is due at the end of the week, and you're the only one who has contributed. Once again, giving people the benefit of the doubt, I think, maybe they just need help. So, saying, can we figure out a time to get together and help each other out? And another logical approach to this is, you know, the way that I always feel about group projects is that if there's a presentation at the end, it's going to be very clear to the professor who was working on it all semester and who wasn't. When it's somebody's first time looking at the presentation, when they're up in front of the classroom, everybody can see through it, and so just logically saying to your group, like, we all need to do the work now so that we'll be able to do the presentation well, I think, can be, you know, a good way to approach it. So, if you don't like somebody's idea, you know, I'm sure you have a reason for it, but, you know, letting them know, I don't think it'll work because of this reason, do you have a solution for that, is a great way to put it, because, you know, you might not be thinking the same way as them, and they may actually have a solution for it. So, instead of shooting their idea down outright, just kind of giving them a chance to defend it is, you know, a better way to communicate it. And, if you want to change what somebody wrote, like I said, you know, using the comment feature and saying something like, I noticed you wrote this, could we change it to this for these reasons, rather than just going in. And, then deleting it and replacing it with your own words. And, lastly, this is just some additional resources. So, those solutions to some of the situations I got from this resource right here, and they also have a lot of other great information about group projects as well. So, thank you all for coming, and I really hope you enjoyed the presentation. And, thank you to all of you who participated in this presentation. And, thank you to all of you who participated in this presentation.