Have you ever wondered why so many students dread group projects? Why do they often fail? What makes some succeed? And how do you ensure the success of your next group project so your team members aren’t all angry by the end?
Assistant Professor of Sociology Ashley Harrell is new to Duke and here to help us understand the science behind collaboration and help her students be better group project members in the future–in and out of educational settings.
Professor Harrell is teaching Sociology 227 Leadership and Collaboration, a course she originally developed while at the University of Michigan. She brings years of expertise in leadership and collaboration to the fields of Sociology and Markets and Management Studies. She primarily studies cooperation and pro-social behavior and has for a while been thinking about how to create solutions to social problems and get people to cooperate.
She articulates that the important question at the root of collaboration and leadership studies is "how do we get people to put aside their own self-interest for the good of the groups to which they belong." One of the solutions to this problem we use in the real word? Leadership. Through Professor Harrell’s research and course, students will be able to better understand how to use leadership and social psychological solutions to better foster collaboration in and out of educational environments.
Students taking Soc 227 with Professor Harrell will get to put these tools into practice by working together in group projects. She teaches students about the science behind the common tension of group projects and similar assignments: should I take a free ride or should I put my interests aside and work with the group? But Professor Harrell says that she finds that “just having awareness of [these issues of collaboration] makes people less likely to succumb to the dilemma here and to be that person that slacks off.”
Whether you love them or hate them, group projects are not just a core tenet of the university setting, but they also translate into most other social, professional and business settings. Markets & Management is excited to have Professor Harrell’s course among our extensive elective course options. We believe this course will help teach students about the role of effective leadership and collaboration in our modern context. We welcome her to the program and to Duke!
Markets Management Studies