A few more words on group projects and group dynamics

In my last blog post I have been praising group projects. Group projects in higher education are great. But that is not the whole truth. Be aware of the pitfalls.

One could argue that group projects involve the following issues: When working in teams of several students, chances are pretty high that there may be a subgroup of people who are less motivated and do not want to invest a lot of energy into the project. Or perhaps they are just less talkative than their partners and prefer staying in the background during discussions. Another possibility is that there are other types of students involved, let's call them "control freaks" or "self-promoters". I believe that there is no need to explain these personalities in more detail.

Defining success in higher education teaching

"What are you most proud of to date in your teaching career in higher education?"

That was one of the questions during my interview for an assistant professor position at a primarily undergraduate institution in the United States. 

I think that every teacher, professor and lecturer has had some very positive moments, but also negative experiences in their past teaching activities, no matter how advanced they are in their career. It is extremely valuable to reflect on these experiences, and usually you can draw important conclusions for teaching in higher education in general. I will try to do this in today's blog post by considering one of my greatest achievements thus far as a teacher. Perhaps I am going to do the same in a future post, but with a negative example.