“I Hate Group Work!”: Addressing Students’ Concerns About Small-Group Learning

Abstract

This article identifies the strategies used by architecture professors and their undergraduate students to mitigate common issues that students raise about group work. Based on participant-observation, interviews with students and faculty, and analysis of instructional materials and student work, this IRB-approved ethnographic case study complicates the separation of collaborative, cooperative, and problem-based learning into distinct pedagogical models. Rather than viewing students’ concerns as a form of resistance that can be avoided with the right approach to small-group learning, this article explores how the hybrid model operating in design studio pedagogy confronts the problems inherent in any form of group work.