Group work in Higher Education - Pain or Profit?

In most areas of my life I rely on other people:

• A Family, where my long suffering wife contributes skills and attributes that I never perfected.
  
• A Team, where work colleagues combine resources, talents and ideas to ensure that 2 + 2 equals much more than 5.
  
• A work group, where we all learn from each other and modify our ideas to produce effective outcomes.

In each case I hope that I contribute my skills, ideas, talents and learning too...

So why should working in a group be so alien in Higher Education where students have an excellent opportunity to combine their skills, produce better work together than alone and undertake learning from each other?

The answer, I fear, is in the twin fears of:

1.  the complexity of managing groups - they can go horribly wrong!!, and
   
2. the nagging suspicion that lazy students can free-ride on the efforts of others.

There is PAIN in setting up, managing, supervising, marking and allocating individual marks to groups of students.  And the PAIN is normally up-front whereas PAIN from marking a summative exam or assignment from individuals is deferred.

But there is PROFIT too in enhanced learning, enhanced skills such as organisation, communication, negotiation and compromise.  PROFIT comes in the quality of the work too.  Well designed pieces of group work and well considered mechanisms for reflection and peer review can deliver higher quality outcomes for all students.

So, don't deny students the PROFIT because of the PAIN for the tutor.