We describe an exercise for introducing undergraduate students to the practice of assigning tasks to followers and illustrating that proper task assignment is contingent on context. Students are assigned the roles of "manager" or "employee," and managers instruct employees how to create a penholder out of Mega Bloks® using only…

Students routinely take part in group assignments, but many faculty fail to provide a supportive work environment. The author argues the value of team building and introduces a conceptual framework for developing multipart group assignments. The author's purpose is to provide management faculty a framework for an interactive group assignment in an…

The present study used a unique design in which multiple factors were combined in a multiphase study to find if there are any significant interactions among six factors known to be effective in successful group work. The results indicated that the effectiveness of group work depends on how the effectiveness is measured, how the group is formed,…

In the strategic management course, students select, analyze, and present viable future alternatives based on information provided in cases or computer simulations. Rather than understanding the entire process, the student's focus is on the final presentation. Chickering's (1977) research on active learning suggests students learn more effectively…

Team projects can optimize educational resources in a laboratory, but also create the potential for social loafing. Allowing students to choose their own groups could increase their motivation to learn and improve academic performance. To test this hypothesis, final grades and feedback from students were compared for the same course in two…

This article reports a multifaceted course assignment involving the development of information literacy skills, speed partnering, a brief team VoiceThread presentation, and peer evaluations of the presentations. The assignment was rooted in Chickering and Gamson's (1989) highly regarded principles of good educational practice, as well as the…

This study investigates cooperativeness, assertiveness, group satisfaction, leader grade, and leadership negotiation in a collaborative assignment conducted in a small group. Researchers manipulated the assignment of team members who reported on measures of group satisfaction and original scales of assertiveness and cooperativeness. Respondents…

First-Year Seminars (FYS) are among the high-impact practices described by AAC&U. We studied the long-standing First-Year Seminar Program at our public research university for the ways in which writing assignments--individualized for each seminar--help faculty and students achieve program objectives in critical and analytical thinking, the…

There are many different delivery methods used by institutions of higher education. These include traditional, hybrid, and online course offerings. The comparisons of these typically use final grade as the measure of student performance. This research study looks behind the final grade and compares student performance by assessment type, core…

The purpose of this study is to describe the impact of implementing different strategies on fifth grade academically gifted students in order to motivate them to perform to their full potential. My research project is based on the motivation of gifted students in the general education classroom. I will study eight academically gifted fifth…

This paper presents the methodology and results of teaching an entire engineering course using challenge-based instruction. The challenges consisted of eight biomechanics multimedia learning modules developed by the authors as part of a broader NSF educational coalition. The biomechanics modules were presented in an undergraduate mechanical…

This action research project addressed the problem of missing assignments among fourth- and fifth-graders at a school in northern Illinois. In order to document the extent to which students lacked responsibility for turning in daily assignments, the teacher-researchers kept track of missing assignments for each student and grade book records for 6…