8.4 Battle-scarred veteran

When students undertake their first group project, they often have no idea of where to start or how to proceed.

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This bundle provides the group with experience by introducing, as a leader, a student from a later year who has undertaken (sometimes several) group projects in similar contexts.

The way it works is that the earlier-year students are allocated to groups by the normal process. Each group is then allocated a later-year student to act as leader. (If there are more students in the later year than there are groups in the earlier year, another exercise will have to be devised for those who have no group to manage. Also, a selection process must be established ? for example writing an application: "Why I want to do this, and why I would be good at it"). The later-year students provide what input they think the project needs.

It works better if the project is reasonably short (5-6 weeks). It works better over time, as the managing students will have experienced "being managed" earlier in their programme (and are often eager to participate). It works better if The Management is also part of a credit-bearing course (for which the assessment might be a log of the project, and/or a reflective piece). If such a system is adopted, a collateral benefit of having the later-year management logbooks is that it makes staff assessment the project itself much easier.

It doesn't work unless the two cohorts are available at the same time of the year.