Importance of Group Work Skills for Students in Their Life

This argumentative essay focuses on the importance of group working skills for students, ways in which these skills can be applied by a student, and opposing arguments against group working skills. It explains how group working skills help students in learning different skills of communicating with each other, working together with other students on shared goals and objectives, and learning different points of view and perspectives of other students. It also discusses how these skills help students in becoming flexible enough to work on complex and time-consuming projects in order to complete those projects within given time in an effective manner without degrading overall quality of project. The essay also explains how different kinds of group working skills can be applied by a student such as listening skills, critical thinking skills, and interpersonal skills. Finally, it presents opposing arguments against group working skills such as the importance of collaboration, co-ordination, trust, self-awareness, creativity, and individual decision making.

STUDY SKILLS

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
IMPORTANCE OF SKILLS HELPFUL IN GROUP WORK IN STUDENT’S LIFE..................1
EXPLANATION OF WAYS IN WHICH GROU WORK SKILLS CAN BE APPLIED BY A
STUDENT.......................................................................................................................................2
OPPOSING ARGUMENT..............................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
Group work skills can be defined as skills that are required by people to work together
with within a team for achievement of shared goals in an effective manner (Phillips and et. al.,
2021). There are many different types of group work skills that are important within a student’s
life that can help them in accomplishing different task that can cannot be complete by a single
student and require group efforts. This argumentative essay will focus upon explanation of
importance of group working skills for student, ways in which these skills can be applied by a
student, opposing argument against group working skills.
IMPORTANCE OF SKILLS HELPFUL IN GROUP WORK IN STUDENT’S
LIFE
Group working skills are extremely important for a student in many different ways. It
helps students in learning to work within group or within team together with other students for
completion of a task or activity that can be can only be complete by combine efforts of various
students together and is extremely difficult to be completed by a single student (Solanki and et.
al., 2017). Group working skills are extremely important for individuals to learn but for students
it is even more important because it not only help students in learning different skills of
communicating with each other, but it also helps student in learning to work together with other
students on shared goals and objectives but also help students in learning different point of view
and perspective of other students.
Various students have further helped in learning that it is one of the most important skill
which is required to be developed by students for gaining employment because in mot of the
organization’s employers prefer employees working in groups rather than them working
individually. Group working skills help students in becoming flexible enough to work on
complex and time- consuming projects in order to complete those projects within given time in
effective manner without degrading overall quality of project (Sjølie, Strømme and Boks-
Vlemmix, 2021). There are many other reasons because of which these skills become important
to be enhanced and worked upon because can further help students in learning new and different
ways of learning such learning time management skills so that they can prioritize their work,
work upon multiple projects or activities etc.
There are many other factors that increases importance of group work skills for student.
These skills can directly help student in learning ways in which social network can be developed
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and further help them in becoming dynamically aware. Whenever a student works in a group it
helps them in realizing that there are many other thigs that are required to be developed by them
and for that it becomes important for them to learn as well as enhance different kinds of skills
that are important for employment (Sjølie, Strømme and Boks-Vlemmix, 2021). Skills helpful in
group work are important to be learnt and enhanced by every student as today most of the
organizations demand these skills as most of the projects done within organizations are done in
group only. Due to this, these skills become important in student’s life.
EXPLANATION OF WAYS IN WHICH GROU WORK SKILLS CAN BE
APPLIED BY A STUDENT
The aspects of the topic i.e. skills required for group work are practically implacable with
regard to the student life. This can be understood as:
If a student will adopt the practice of effective communication in terms of making clear
conversation, then it will lead to the delivery of the desired message in the desired form. This
will assist in the better performance of team work and as a result the group outcome can be
achieved (Landon, Slack and Barrett, 2018). It is also to be noted that in order to apply the
effective communication skill student need to be very clear with regard to the role as well as the
language barrier so that the desired message will be delivered within the given sense.
Likewise, through the aspect and skill of problem solving in terms of making the problem
to be analyzed and then solving in the best possible manner will lead to have better group
outcome. Thus, this skill can be implemented in terms of resolving the problem that may occurs
at the time of performance of group work.
Similarly, in order to execute the aspect of group work, time management skill also plays
an important role in student life. This is because with the help of skill student will be able to
accomplish the group goal within the desired time interval.
There are many other ways in which different kinds of group working skills can be
applied by a student. One of the most important group working skill that can be applied by a
student is listening skills. It is one of the most important skills which is required to be applied by
a student because it helps them in collaborating with other or coordinating with other team
members (Sjølie, Strømme and Boks-Vlemmix, 2021). Not only this, it further helps a student in
understanding other point of view, their thinking process, mentality and also helps in bringing
improvement within one’s own communication skills as well.
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There are many other group working skills such as critical thinking skills that can be
applied by students because it can further help in ringing improvement within their decision-
making skills. Critical thinking skills can directly help students in learning ways in which they
can take fruitful decisions for achievement of desired goals and objectives.
Other than above discussed group working skills Interpersonal skills is another type of
skill that can be applied by a student so that they can get to known about themselves, interact
with others, share one’s own feeling with other team members. This skill can directly and easily
help in resolving any kind of problem among team members and can further help in identifying
an alternative solution to a problem.
OPPOSING ARGUMENT
As group work includes the co-operation of all the individuals so it can be argued that apart
from the above skills including communication, time management and various others there are
many more skills that plays an important role in the building of the team work of team spirit.
This can be clarified as collaboration and co-ordination which is one of the major skill in
association with group work. This is because if there will be no collaboration or co-ordination of
actions between the individuals then it will lead to impact the group work in an extensive scale.
As synchronization of efforts and activities will lead to have a production of outcome that is
related with the team aspect so these skills also play a major role with the group work (Driskell,
Salas and Driskell, 2018). Likewise, trust is also an important skill that is needed for the group
work and its outcome. This is because if there is no trust among the individuals then it will lead
to have an adverse impact over the group work in terms of non-generation of desired outcome. It
can also be argued that although communication is the major skill in association with the group
work but without the existence of trust, no communication will be effective and as result of that
group work will not able to produce the desired outcome (Klein and et.al., 2019). Self-awareness
is also an important aspect with regard to the group work because if there would be no self-
awareness among the individuals then the outcome of the team work will be of no worth.
It can also be argued that although critical thinking is an important skill but at the same time,
creativity and imitativeness is also important aspect that will lead to have effective group work.
As this is a fact that the perspective of every student or individual with regard to any issue or
problem is different from each other and if there is an absence of creativity and initativeness then
it will lead to have an adverse impact over the group outcome (Baruah and Paulus, 2019). This is
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because it will lead to hide and debarred an individual in terms of its co-operation. Likewise, an
allowing of an individual in decision making process is also an important element with respect to
team or group building. This is because if an individual or student perspective is being taken into
consideration while taking of any decision then it will lead to have better group activity or
outcome.
Thus, it would be right to argued that apart from the above skills, persistence of these skills
and aspects is also an important element.
CONCLUSION
From the above report it can be concluded that communication, listening, time
management, critical thinking and various other skills plays a major role with respect to group
work. Likewise, it is also understood from the report that the aspect of group work plays an
important role because it will enable the students to convert the complex task into an easy mode.
In addition of this, from this report it is also clarified that with the adoption and implication of
these skills, students would able to practically execute the aspect of team work.
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REFERENCES
Books and journals
Baruah, J. and Paulus, P.B., 2019. Collaborative creativity and innovation in education.
In Creativity Under Duress in Education? (pp. 155-177). Springer, Cham.
Driskell, J.E., Salas, E. and Driskell, T., 2018. Foundations of teamwork and
collaboration. American Psychologist. 73(4). p.334.
Klein, and et.al., 2019. Trust across culture and context. Journal of Cognitive Engineering and
Decision Making. 13(1). pp.10-29.
Landon, L.B., Slack, K.J. and Barrett, J.D., 2018. Teamwork and collaboration in long-duration
space missions: Going to extremes. American Psychologist. 73(4). p.563.
Phillips, H., and et. al., 2021. Using contributing student pedagogy to enhance support for
teamworking in computer science projects. In Computing Education Practice 2021 (pp.
29-32).
Sjølie, E., Strømme, A. and Boks-Vlemmix, J., 2021. Team-skills training and real-time
facilitation as a means for developing student teachers’ learning of
collaboration. Teaching and Teacher Education. 107. p.103477.
Solanki, V., and et. al., 2017. Pharmacy Leadership and Management: Student perspectives of
team-working in a simulated pharmacy business module.
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