It is a common saying that "team work makes the dream works". I personally believe in the benefits of group assignments in unleashing a student's potential. Yet this cannot be the sole mode of learning as it needs to be complemented by traditional lectures.

Group assignment is beneficial for colleage and university students' development as different perspectives from individuals in the team would often spur insightful exchanges and innovative outcomes. Individuals of different academic and social backgrounds are put together in a group and asked to strive towards a common goal. In the process of sharing their ideas and opinions, they may uncover perspectives that they would have never thought of on their own. Such perceptive discussions may lead to great innovations which encapsulate the best ideas of all the team members involved. The birth of many great startups from univeristy hackathons where different groups of students get together to solve business and technological problems well illustrates the merits of group assignment. For example, Carousell, is one of the most successful startups incubated in the university hackathon in Singapore. The two founders are from business and engineering background respectively. They have always attributed their success to great teamwork that maximises the potential of the complementary nature of their backgrounds. Group assignment could therefore lead to amazing outcome that may be greater than the sum of its individual contribution.

Moreover, group assignment helps to hone essential soft skills like communication skills, as well as the ability to collaborate and empathise. The qualities to connect with others are indispensable skills for the students to become effective future leaders in work and life. To work towards the common goal set forth in the assignment, group members would need to have effective and in time communciations to ensure everyone is on the same page. For some of the more self-centred or reserved students, this would compel them to step out of their comfort zone and not to be overly obsessed with one's own world. Effective teamwork happens when one can think from each other's perstive and empathize with the others. Such communication and interaction skills cannot be acquired from the one-way learning in the lecture halls but only through social interactions. They are also of tantamount importance once students step out of the ivory tower into the workforce. Universities across the world from Harvard to Tokyo University have added team assignment grades as one of the evaluation criteria for the students' performance, reflecting the recognition from educators on the importance of group assignment for a stduent's development.

Nevertheless, it would be hasty to conclude that group assignments should completely replace lecture-based learning, for the latter is a great medium to be educated on foundational concepts and knowledge. One should not equate leacture-based lessons as rote learning. The aforementioned benefits of group assignments cannot be achieved if the students are not equipped with a solid understanding about the subject matters. Therefore, it is vital to have experts like the professors to inculcate the knowledge, dissect the complex concepts and highlight the key points for the students during lectures first, rather than leaving the students for a discursive group work without any focus.

In conclusion, group assignment is beneficial to generate unconventional ideas given it aggregates the different perspectives from the individuals, and is effective in developing essential communication skills for the students. It should go hand in hand with lecture based learning to deliver the most effective education.