Group assignments

[Vorago]

Can anyone explain me the educational value of group assignments?

Except establishing that

1) the people who you have to work with are completely ****e at what they have to do.

2) are too stupid/lazy/both of the before to make a valuable contribution...

2) in the end one sucker always has to pull the cart and make sure the end result is somewhat acceptable.

I tend to be that sucker

[doctorjazz]

Yeah, I guess theoretically it's to teach you how to work with a group of colleagues, but in actual practice it pretty much always results in that.

[Sonic_Death]

Well colleagues are just as much prone to slacking off and doing nothing as much as students in a group project are.

[4bpauly]

just to teach you to work as a team... as in a work force... actually more useful than what most schools teach you... come on, school these days is nothing but job training... opening your mind and becoming truly educated comes in a distant second.

i wish it were the other way, but that's just not how it's set up.

[Vorago]

This is probably the most lazy bunch of ****heads I've ever had the honour to work with.

Even notifying the rest of the group if they cancel is too much of an effort

[Tsal]

Well, you can see it this way: if it's a good group, you learn about sharing the workload and combining the thoughts to form the ideal paper. If it's a crappy group, you learn the interpersonal skills and how to save the situation/your own ass if you happen to be in a crappy workgroup. Both are skills valuable in working life, I think.

And yeah, group works are the suck. Everyone just wants the easy way out, "you do this, you do that, I'll do this and we'll combine ok?". That's the worst way to do it, considering you probably want to learn something. Learning how to split the work into equal portions is not the frigging point in a group task - the point is to learn how to gather and combine different ideas from different people!

My personal opinion for how to save your own ass: assume leadership and tell everyone that all those who work as a part of the team will get their names on the paper. The rest, they can do their own paper instead. Simple as that.

[Vorago]

Saving your own ass = doing everything yourself

[wabbit]

Originally Posted by Vorago

Saving your own ass = doing everything yourself

welcome grasshopper to the reality of life and a newly realized modicum of maturity

[Jared Lash]

Originally Posted by Vorago

Saving your own ass = doing everything yourself

Bingo. For me that was always true of group work in humanities classes and business classes with one exception. I did have a financial accounting class that had three major projects and I ended up with a great group. We divided things up right, everyone pulled their weight and we aced all three. But that was the only time. Pretty much every other "group" project ended with me up all night with a pot of coffee trying to weave the crap other people gave me into spun gold.

My upper division science courses were a different story. In those cases it was pretty easy to get people to work, but generally I'd have two or three group members with poor communication/interpersonal skills so I'd have to take charge. Still, I'll take that over the lazy, self-involved and generally worthless group members I had in non-science classes.

[Muusers]

the solution is just not to care, that's what i always do when i'm put in a no good workgroup. it then usually comes down to the wire, but then everyone helps. it helps that i've got a pretty stress-proof personality

[Vorago]

I don't then.

The main reason why I want this to finished is because otherwise my holiday is only 6 days and have a lot of other things to do.

[PSPookie]

Group projects simulate the work place better than you might think. Throw in a dress code and some PC BS and you've got corporate America.

[MakiSupaStar]

The idea behind group work, or "collaborative learning" as we teacher types like to call it, is to create assignments that provide various types of explorative learning that gets divided up between the members of the group. The students, when putting their research together, then teach each other the material the learned, and this provides for an enriched experience. When you teach something you learn something. Also students grouped with students from different cultures and backgrounds provides perspective to the project that in turn teach the students how to work with people from different backgrounds.

That's kind of the philosophy behind it in a nutshell. What usually results is the situation you are describing. Group projects need to be engaging and well thought out so everyone WANTS to participate, and perhaps it inspires students to learn and explore beyond the requirements of the assignment. Otherwise they are a waste of everyone's time.

[Muusers]

Originally Posted by MakiSupaStar

The idea behind group work, or "collaborative learning" as we teacher types like to call it, is to create assignments that provide various types of explorative learning that gets divided up between the members of the group. The students, when putting their research together, then teach each other the material the learned, and this provides for an enriched experience. When you teach something you learn something. Also students grouped with students from different cultures and backgrounds provides perspective to the project that in turn teach the students how to work with people from different backgrounds.

That's kind of the philosophy behind it in a nutshell. What usually results is the situation you are describing. Group projects need to be engaging and well thought out so everyone WANTS to participate, and perhaps it inspires students to learn and explore beyond the requirements of the assignment. Otherwise they are a waste of everyone's time.

wow, that must've been the first sensible post of maki's ever!

[Vorago]

Plus, what we're actually doing (like we ALWAYS do at university, or so it seems) is doing the dirty work the professors don't want to do: data processing for which they haven't developed computer programs yet.

Last year, one of my assignments was marking and saving the vowels in 1200 recorded words.

**** that!

[MakiSupaStar]

Originally Posted by Vorago

Plus, what we're actually doing (like we ALWAYS do at university, or so it seems) is doing the dirty work the professors don't want to do: data processing for which they haven't developed computer programs yet.

Last year, one of my assignments was marking and saving the vowels in 1200 recorded words.

**** that!

Yep welcome to reality. You help someone else fulfill their dreams before you're allowed to fulfill yours.

[Vorago]

[ADbassman]

In my experience, people work together as a team better when they're being paid. A good dose of discipline helps too.

[MakiSupaStar]

[PSPookie]

Originally Posted by MakiSupaStar

Yep welcome to reality. You help someone else fulfill their dreams before you're allowed to fulfill yours.

I have heard this referred to as "paying dues".

We all do it sooner or later in one way or another.