Group Dynamics

I have been at Preston College today getting everything ready for the new intake of part-time trainees who start with us on the 6th October. We are looking at quite a large group which is good - I always find a larger group has better discussions and group activities.

We start at 5pm in Preston - this can be difficult for some trainees to get there in time and often people are tired after a long day at work. It is often up to me to try and inject some enthusiasm into the group to increase motivations levels and get us all through until 9pm.

I have been looking on the PCET Blackboard pages tonight. Group E and C seem to be very active online and are starting to show some real signs of peer support and resource sharing - this is really exciting. I am always surprised about how quickly some people take to this way of working.

The Group pages for T and P are very quiet. I have posted a 'starter question' to try and develop some comments from these groups. I hope it works! Nurturing online learning communities is quite different from groups in physical classrooms. I would be interested to hear your thoughts about your likes and dislikes regarding online learning communities.

I wonder how much influence the class Tutor has in these matters...

Bye for now
Steve.