Team and Collaborative Work of the Students within Subject on Master of Science Study

The team of authors collaborates in teaching of students of Master of Science (MSc) studies on different subjects. Special attention in this work is paid on laboratory classes of Fundamentals of Biotechnology for Energy Production. Students from specialty group/groups are organized in 2-3 person teams which elaborate different experiments. Five specialties are engaged to these subjects. Most tasks are carried out by students in small teams, but they work with different substances and the instructors expresses the expectation that students will exchange information in order to prepare reports on experiments (the summary and conclusion, not data analysis). The number of experiments exceeds number of teams in the group so, some experiments are led in the schedule as common for group/specialty. Experiments are led simultaneously with different options between groups. Finally, whole experiment area touch several number of groups from different specialties. The clue of the cooperation is to exchange data from the experiment between groups. Students can share experiences, data or ask the instructors for further advices or explanation. Answers are achievable for all participants of the course. Data obtained by different teams and groups become a collection based on which students carry out analysis and summaries to their own reports, and a clear explanation of the origin of data is one of the requirements to pass the subject. Moreover, students are evaluated on the base of the laboratory reports. The pattern of reports was not imposed on students; they develop reports based on loose guidelines of instructor. It appears that students organize themselves and make agreements on the shape of the reports. However, some of them express doubts on the collaboration in a large human team. Eventually, cooperation is stated successfully. The article presents the impact of group work on the development of soft skills and the acquisition of knowledge.