The Project Manager / Private Contractor Approach to Group Assignments

We describe an authentic approach to group assignments whereby instructors act as corporate officers in the classroom and assign tasks to student leaders who act as project managers. These student leaders, in turn, recruit and supervise groups of their peers who act as private contractors. This approach attempts to accommodate three known student preferences for group assignments. One, students want to be involved in the group formation process, but often instructors form student groups, and then ask groups to select their leader. We propose instead to let the entire class select its own leaders and then let each leader form a group from the remaining students. Two, students want control of their individual grades, but often instructors lead efforts to assess individual contributions based on incomplete student feedback. We propose instead to let student leaders lead these efforts subject to constraints prescribed in advance by the instructor. Three, students prefer easy scheduling of their group meetings, but often they must coordinate most or all of their group meetings out of class. We propose instead to let students schedule most or all of these meetings in class. We conclude by discussing two limitations related to class size and distance learning.