Whenever I announce a group project, it often evokes looks of uncertainty or concern on my students’ faces. They know that such work will force themselves and their team members to rely on each other as they work toward a common goal. Differences in perspective, work ethic, and schedules will also undoubtedly emerge.
But while life would certainly be simpler if we worked alone, it wouldn’t be nearly as rich. We need other people; we need community.
Our vocational pursuits could be described as ongoing group projects. We’re typically more productive when we work with others, and in academic settings, collaborative projects can enrich students vocationally through self-discovery and connections with others. When students work with their peers and receive feedback about their contributions, they discover strengths and interests they may not have known they had.
In Love’s Braided Dance, Norman Wirzba writes, “What people genuinely want … is to be welcomed and encouraged as the unique beings they are, endowed with particular gifts and potential but also with specific challenges and limitations.” These gifts, challenges, and limitations can reveal themselves through collaborative activities. In group settings, students must navigate social cues, schedules, and even work styles—all of which contributes to their development.
The ability to collaborate with others doesn’t always come naturally. The first-year students starting college this fall were transitioning to middle school during the pandemic, and they still recall spending months alone with a screen instead of sitting with their friends in a classroom or school cafeteria. While instructors can’t replace those missed social opportunities, we can certainly help our students by emphasizing teamwork. These interactions can help students practice the skills that are necessary as they explore their emerging sense of vocation and discern their future paths.
Group Communication
The term group communication describes a setting in which three or more people (typically no more than 12) share a sense of identity and depend on each other. This experience often brings together different perspectives and requires students to work through the different types of relationships that form organically. Systems theory states that communication within this group dynamic creates feedback loops that affect members’ behavior. In this way, the group’s outcomes can’t always be predicted. Such collective work helps students gain insights that they might miss through individual efforts. The unpredictability of various perspectives and approaches can lead to a richer, more thoughtful experience.
Individual roles within a team aren’t always defined at the start of the project, but they typically crystallize as team members work together. This provides opportunities for self-discovery. For example, one student who is normally quiet and reserved may learn that she functions well in a leadership role. Another may learn that he’s better at designing deliverables than delegating tasks. These potential lessons help mitigate the need to “be good at everything.” Instead, students can focus on elements of the project that they find most fulfilling—as long as they also realize their common purpose together. This offers them an opportunity to practice roles that align with their vocational paths and may perhaps give them greater clarity about their career aspirations.
Even so, groups of students may experience “noise”—anything that interferes with the transmission or understanding of a message—which can distort communication among team members. These barriers may be literal (undependable Wi-Fi) or psychological (personality clashes). While such noise can be troublesome, it also provides an opportunity for students to overcome obstacles. If they can learn to work through these kinds of challenges in the low-stakes environment of a classroom, then they can bring these competencies into their future workplaces, where they will likely face similar challenges long after graduation.
One way to prepare students to be successful in this kind of work is to explain the importance of the process. Deliverables are key, but so are the ways we work together. It can be helpful for instructors to share what went well (or didn’t) from previous projects. What led to positive or negative results? What can a group of students learn from previous projects?
Psychological Safety
When assigning group projects, instructors should create a sense of psychological safety, assuring students that they can ask questions or raise concerns without feeling alienated or being ridiculed. Without it, they are more likely to stay silent; anyone who has worked in a toxic environment knows that colleagues are less likely to contribute if they’re feeling defensive. Instructors can foster such safety by developing ground rules before the project and seeking feedback afterward. They can also allow time in class for students to make connections and establish communication channels. If conflicts emerge, the instructor can make changes right away. I also tell students that they are under no obligation to share phone numbers; there are plenty of other platforms that facilitate collaboration for such work.
It’s important that students provide feedback on the group’s process as much as its outcome. If one student takes over and does all the work, it limits or prevents others from learning, which is especially problematic for group projects meant to enhance vocational exploration. Discerning a vocation is difficult, if not impossible, when one student does everything. There’s also a good chance that some students might engage in social loafing—when they take a back seat and defer to the others. Instructors can pre-empt these imbalances by requiring teams to reflect on the experience as part of the grade. Who contributed and in what way? This practice emphasizes the process of collaboration as much as it does its outcome. Students can also provide informal feedback on the process before the project’s due date to verify that everyone is engaged. Catching a student who’s falling away before the due date offers a path to redemption.
The Vocational Benefits of Group Work
Many students have told me they prefer to work alone so that they don’t have to depend on others; however, group projects are an inescapable part of most if not all career paths. As Heather Brady and Amy Patterson write, teamwork “is ubiquitous in professional environments.” It’s so important that the National Association of Colleges and Employers includes teamwork as one of its eight career competencies. Instructors can connect their assignments to this competency to show students that potential employers want to hire people who can work effectively with others.
The benefits of these experiences go beyond career preparation. Loneliness is an ongoing problem on college campuses; in one survey, more than half of respondents described feelings of loneliness, and 12% of respondents said they always felt lonely. Collaborative work is one remedy to this problem and can help students connect personally with each other through a shared objective. Students also tend to achieve better results and report higher satisfaction through such projects than they do when working alone.
Perhaps most importantly, collaborative projects enable students to learn about themselves through the reflections of others. In Living Vocationally: The Journey of the Called Life, Paul Wadell and Charles Pinches observe that students’ participation in these kinds of group experiences “helps them discover the fundamental ideals, values, and convictions of their lives.” In this way, collaborative assignments offer a concrete way for students to prepare for a lifetime of group efforts that push them beyond their individual limitations. Vocationally speaking, they also help us learn about ourselves and connect to community. When we share with others, we are enriched—and these interactions can powerfully shape our vocational exploration and discernment.
Brian Bowman is an assistant professor of communication studies at Campbell University and a NetVUE Faculty Fellow and consultant. He co-facilitates a faculty cohort at Campbell that explores questions of vocation and calling. His areas of academic interest include media messages and media literacy. He was a member of the 2022 cohort of NetVUE’s Teaching Vocation Exploration seminar. For more posts by Brian, visit his author page on this blog.