Research Exhibition Guide: Organizing the Work

Depending on the course and assignment, your professor might give specific instructions on how to organize your group--or they might give no direction.  If your professor gives you instructions--follow whatever your professor says.  If your professor does not--see below for suggestions that could work on many situations.

*Determine what role(s) each group member will serve.  The role(s), and number of role(s), will depend on how many are in your group--and on the assignment/project.  All group members actively participate in the main 'work' of the group (e.g. making suggestions, doing problems/questions, writing a final report, etc.)

• Leader/Facilitator/Manager--almost always needed in most groups
  • depending on how long long the project will take and how complicated it will be, the role of leader could rotate through group members
• Record Keeper--responsible for keeping a record of the group ideas and suggestions, interactions, copies of files, etc.
• Monitor--keeps the group on task, keeps track of how much each member participates, encourages/reminds those who aren't contributing, pulls back a member(s) dominating the conversation
  • this role could also rotate through group members, and/or be shared by more than one member

*Based on the complexity of the assignment/project, your group might want to identify additional steps (not specified by the professor) to be completed.

• Example: if part of the project is to create a PowerPoint presentation of 10 slides, steps to complete that could include creating an opening slide, creating a Reference slide, creating slides about certain topics, etc. 

*Based on the final deadline of the assignment/project, decide on intermediate deadlines--in addition to any intermediate deadlines set by the professor.

• the more complicated the assignment/project, the more intermediate deadlines your group should create
• if one group member will submit material to the professor, deadlines for submission by group members to that person should be at least 1-2 days before the material is due to the professor

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