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\title{Strategies for Effective Group Project Based Courses}
%\author{\begin{tabular}[t]{c
%%@{\extracolsep{8em}}
%c}
%Frederick C. Harris, Jr. &  Carl G. Looney \\
%Department of Computer Science & Department of Computer Science\\
%University of Nevada & University of Nevada \\
%Reno, NV~~ 89557  & Reno, NV~~ 89557 \\
%fredh@cs.unr.edu & looney@cs.unr.edu
%\end{tabular}}
\author{
Frederick C. Harris, Jr. and  Carl G. Looney \\
Department of Computer Science\\
University of Nevada, Reno \\
Reno, NV~~ 89557 \\
fredh@cs.unr.edu  looney@cs.unr.edu}
\date{\quad}
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ABSTRACT:  The fact that people are more productive when working
together in groups has been accepted in industry for a long time, but
it has not been integrated into our educational system broadly or
effectively. The reasons include the question of how the instructor
assigns individual grades and the problem of dealing with the dynamics
of multiple groups. The process requires partitioning the class into
project groups and selecting the topics that entail planning, analysis
and specification, design, and programming.

In this paper we describe our strategies for effectively incorporating
projects into courses and how we are implementing them in the Computer
Science Department at the University of Nevada, Reno. This
implementation covers the spectrum of: i) undergraduate courses; ii)
mixed undergraduate and graduate courses; and iii) core graduate
courses. We present some problems and pitfalls that happened along the
way and the changes we have made that led to better learning for the
students. The students also learned to bridge cultural and personal
differences to achieve common goals. According to companies who have
interviewed on campus, as well as feedback from companies where our
graduates work, they prefer students who have worked on group
projects.



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