Group Work Engaging in Knowledge Transfer

Question: Discuss about the Group Workfor Engaging in Knowledge Transfer. Answer: Introduction Group work is simply when a group of students or people work towards a common purpose in unison. Within the learning process, proper interactions amongst students are critical in the learning process, (Brown et al., 2014). Such a traditional mode of learning is said to boost morale and the ability of students to learn most aspects through peer teachers. In many public institutions, this formula seems to be working in practice. However, there are the malfunctioning dimensions of this mode of learning. Therefore, it is for the said malfunctions that my paper talks exclusively on the problems that are ignored about the whole idea of working in groups. My article will mostly detail and explain the reasons as to why we should either encourage team works or discourage group work in learning institutions. Group work faces laziness from individuals. Some students are exerting fewer efforts and leaving most of the work to the involved members of the team. Working in groups facilitates raising an entire provide task where everyone puts their effort towards a common goal, (Gregory and Thorley, 2013). The above kind of idea limits an individual to pull all of his or her weight entirely to the success of a particular task. Another thing to consider is that in a group work people offer their personal views which are discussed and thereby guarantee a high quality of information on a given topic. However, the personal views of individuals may not be the truth pertaining a subject of discussion. The above discussion is not to deny the fact that group work bolsters information thereby increase the reliability of information but to show how it can be detrimental in one way hence derailing us from that learning motive. Group work is prone to conflict. The conflict between team members discourages individuals from contributing in a learning process. The conflicts may arise due to disagreements about some facts. (Dolmans, et al., 2015) suggests that lack of polite disagreements with views of others leads to a conflict hence making the weaker students fear to air out their views. Hence making the group work very unhealthy to the learning process. Moreover, Wolfhagen is the fact that, as opposed to personal studies where one cannot conflict with self-regarding facing a dispute of points, a group work presents the challenge. On the other hand, Van Der Vleuten adds that individual contribution positively gets discouraged when other team members fail to give in their opinion and yet expect to earn from the overall effort, (Dolmans et al., 2015). It is for such a reason that group works if not adequately controlled might lead to a violence culture instead of a learning culture. Since it discourages especia lly the weak from participating, and it also makes other people dormant within the discussions since one's idea may vary from the overall group's perception of seeing facts hence lead to such a conflict. The group work can be dominated by an individual or particular individuals. Domineering occurs in the group in cases where other members of a group become active in answering questions and the overall activities of the group at the expense of other members who have to contribute. In agreement with (Hillyard et al., 2010), the presence of very active contributors within the group's discussions is very detrimental to a particular group. Since such people limit the ability of some non-active members of such a group to participate, they should be discouraged. Such, therefore, distorts the whole mechanism of group work, more so its essence. Another form of domineering is the aspect of Littig, (Hillyard et al., 2010). The author suggests that it is common to experience members of a group interrupting others in the middle of a talk so as to air their personal view pertaining a topic of discussion hence disregarding that of the former speaker. Some even go on to rubbish what the speaker has said in a rude manner. Such a vice reduces morale in people. For instance, if the person speaking is not as experienced in public speaking then the individual may feel out of context hence reduce his or her morale. Such behavior is very hurting especially to the whole learning process of an individual. Additionally, another aspect of domination by a person is when few people take leadership roles within the group. Such a vice creates that issue of inequality within the group hence may make other team members feel unappreciated or even overlooked. When there are dominant people within the group, the learning process interfered with; people will not be able to learn some aspects of the topics of discussion for instance how and why things get done, (Brandler et al., 2015). Since most of the activities will be done in such people's way, not in a way everyone is comfortable. Similarly, lack of proper leadership within a group is another reason as to why group work is not an effective study process. Lack of good leadership is considered as a recipe to the challenges of having an effective teamwork, (Fukada et al., 2017). The aspect of favoritism within the group is a big problem in groups. Issues such as time allocation to different members present a problem. The team leaders award some members more time as compared to other colleagues, (Sadath, et al., 2016). Therefore, making some members not feel useful or even wanted within such a group. Such an act reduces the output of a group since not everybody was given the same opportunity to participate in the group work. Such a habit can also be seen when the leader is in support to a particular group's way of thinking without properly giving equal chance to scrutinize the subject of discussion. Another way of which poor leadership is a problem to the learning process is when there is when there is a lack of f airness and respect of opinion. Such makes individuals feel intimidated during the group works hence stop to engage in active discussions, therefore, acting amongst the reasons for poor output quality. Another reason is when the leader has no control over the group's activities. For instance, when there are members of the group that feels more superior to the others and the group leader puts no efforts in containing such behaviors such as rudely interrupting a speaker and maybe over speeding the discussions that some members of the groups are left lagging behind regarding understanding the concepts. When there is no active leadership within the group, there is a likelihood that the team will collapse since there would be conflicts within the group. Hence real leadership plays a vital role in team works, (Cohen and Lotan, 2014). All of the mentioned aspects of lack of proper leadership within the team, a clear indications that when the panel work has nobody to conduct it, the whole learning process using the group works is just but a mirage of the facts that group works are meant to increase the adsorption levels of students, boost confidence and enable a friendly learning space, (Arends, 2014) Therefore in as much as we are encouraged to participate in group discussions, we should also take reasonable measures to ensuring that our deliberations have less of laziness, reduced conflict, domination and proper leadership from people who share the same group. With such measures, the group work can be very useful to students. References Arends, R. (2014). Learning to teach. McGraw-Hill Higher Education. Brandler, S. and Roman, C.P., 2015. Group work: Skills and strategies for effective interventions. Routledge. Brown, L. K., Angus, D. C., Marin, M. G., Balmes, J. R., Barker, A. F., Ewart, G. ... Nathanson, I. T. 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