3.4: Collaborating Effectively in a Group

One of the main themes for my biology courses have been being able to collaborate with a group of other students on a research project. In my college courses, I have worked on many different assignments with a group that have gone relatively well with little to no issues. Throughout my time working in group settings, I have experienced different team dynamics and leadership positions within the group. Some of the most notable group projects was my BIOL 251 Introduction to Ecology and Evolution,  BIOL 330 Conservation Biology, and BIOL 488 Senior Capstone in Biology courses.

During BIOL 251, this was the first course where I had to present during the research symposium. I was extremely nervous about it even though I was in a group of three including me and our presentation was only 15 minutes including questions. My group was unfortunately not the most productive group since we all worked on different schedules, but we were able to make the most of it through in class time to work on our projects. We decided at the beginning of the project to assign roles of the group: leader, organizer, and data interpreter. I was assigned data interpreter since I was most familiar with the data. My role was to get the data organized and in an accessible way so the organizer can get it ready for presentation. The leader would then report back to the professor and do any other task that was necessary to ensure success for the project. Even with not that much productivity at first, we all knew our roles and were able to present our project on crayfish amphibian interactions successfully.

In my BIOL 330 course, it was the first ever major group project that I had to do. We had to a 45 minute presentation on a certain conservation topic, which in our case was Hawaiian avifauna. This was by far the longest presentation that I have ever had to create and present. Fortunately, I was in a group of four including me so the work was able to be split evenly. Often times, it was hard to find long periods of time where we could all meet up to collectively work together. Ultimately, independent work had to be done to eventually come back together as a group. Not only was this a group presentation, but we also needed to led a group discussion or activity as well.

After tackling such a large presentation with multiple members in the group, the rest of the presentations I had for other classes seemed easy. In my BIOL 488 course, I was tasked again to present a fairly long presentation with a group. We had to chose an article to then do a 30 minute presentation, for our article we chose an article about micro-plastics in shag pellets. Like the last presentation, it was hard for my whole group to meet since we had difficult schedules to work around. Fortunately enough, with the help of google slides, we were able to collaborate on the same presentation at the same time without having to be with each other.

These courses helped me grow socially and obtain the skills to collaborate with a group. They have also expanded my public speaking skills and I gained a better understanding of powerpoint and other technology for presentations. I was able to adapt to different group settings through my projects and to effectively communicate with my partners even if we were not together. Lastly, I learned how to properly facilitate discussion and to effectively present information to people familiar with with material.

Below is my group presentation of the impacts of invasive crayfish species on native amphibians.

Crayfish amphibian interactions

Below is my group presentation on the conservation of Hawaiian avifuana.

Conservation of Hawaiian Avifauna

Below is my group presentation on the micro-plastics in the pellets of European Shags.

European Shag Pellets