<p>my college had group projects in every class, it was very group centered. At work, We work in teams and are viewed as a group as well as individually. I think the group work in college def. helped to be ready for that.</p>
<p>and to whoever made the comment about in the real world people can quit or move on to other jobs - most of my college projects, we could ‘fire’ someone from our group if they weren’t doing their job, or if someone felt we weren’t doing our fair job they could quit and move on and do the project themself/try to form a new group with others who quit their group. Either way in the end everyone had to do the project, it’s just some people went about it differently.</p>
<p>in some of the classes, the prof would delegate 100 points to the group’s leader for them to divy up between all of the members how they thought they performed throughout the semester. So in a group of four, if everyone was the same everyone would get 25/25 on that project. During one of my senior capstone projects my leader gave me a 35 and somebody else a 15 because they weren’t completely reliable and i did one of his sections. he also gave himself and the other girl in our group 25’s. You just have to be mature about it.</p>
<p>No. When your prof asks you to give an honest assessment of what went on during the project, lying does not show character.</p>
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<p>I’m not sure what I think about that. People perceive situations differently, so asking everyone that question seems like a better way to get at the truth than asking one person.</p>
<p>“If that is the case, the difference will amount to a reduction of about 0.02 on the GPA over a college career. Is that worth so much fuss?”</p>
<p>ABSOLUTELY!!!</p>
<p>In some post grad situations that is the difference between an interview and a rejection letter. So yes, to some, it does matter. When you have a kid who has to get a A in a bio class and a business major who only needs a C, should you stick them together? </p>
<p>Most profs who do this nonsense, don’t let you choose your partners. </p>
<p>I know when mine dealt with it, she was extremely upset. You see, she is not attending college to yell at other people. It is not her wish to be in charge of a bunch of other “co-workers”. She is very shy and having to get on somebody’s case for not working as hard as her makes her very uncomfortable. You see, even in college there are peers who hate you for setting the curve so high. Having to get on them to bring them up REALLY doesn’t help the situation. There are some who already attached labels to her, now she has to inspire the uninspired? I don’t think so. </p>
<p>Having two children and watching them deal with other people who resent their abilities is a study of genders for sure. For the boy, it just ticked him off and he wanted to do more to show them. For the girl, it made her feel awful that she hurt others feelings and became filled with self doubt at first about doing so well. Alot of talks and tears have improved that outlook over time. These type of situations don’t help though.</p>
<p>beck, what we actually did was meet as a group of the 4 of us and as a whole we decided who would get the points that were given to the team leader to hand out. </p>
<p>and, what is one of the questions they almost always ask you on interviews? teamwork. they want examples. i can tell you that most of the group work i did in my undergrad business classes is work that is done in MBA classes at other schools… and the companies are usually very impressed by that. one of my college prof’s even said to def. bring up our group work experiences, because they are a huge part of what we did in school. </p>
<p>one of our group projects was where we were assigned a company, did a fulll semester long analysis of that company (shadowed, took tours, etc), and then presented it for our class and also their upper management. Imagine being 21 and telling Harley Davidson how they can improve their productivity, how they can reduce costs, how they can help boose employee morale, etc. Now that’s something that looks good.</p>
<p>The rationale for having group projects - to prepare for the work world - doesn’t make sense for most school projects. Employed people are working in a field of their choice and making a paycheck; school kids don’t have these motivators. The best teacher my kid had in grade school let the kids choose whether to do a project alone or in a group. Most kids chose both options over time. I’ve heard kids say they don’t want to work with other people because of these stupid projects.</p>
<p>I recently heard a horror story about a college group project in which 2 of the three students didn’t do their share. The third chewed them out, pulled the project together, and gave the slackers OK peer reviews (didn’t want to burn them). The slackers gave the worker a terrible peer review because of the chewing. He got a D for the class and couldn’t graduate on time. In my opinion the punishment didn’t fit the crime of not monitoring these other students to death.</p>
<p>We hate group projects too! If an employee did not show up for codes, likely they would be fired, I don’t think the other medical personal are supposed ot find him and exhort him to do his job!</p>
<p>My D is in a speech class and her group project includes numerous ESL kids (Asian) who may have passed the TOEFL but they barely speak English and their portion of a presentation will not be highly enlightening to the rest of the class.</p>
<p>Teaching group stuff in business majors might be fine training for the real world, but leave it there! Not when grades are so important and there is no parallel of the control the real world offers- like working in the same office every day, all day, vs being students with various schedules and transport difficulties.</p>
<p>My D is only 16 and taking comm college classes and the group elected to do a project which involves attendence in places you have to be 18 to enter, so she cannot even go in, yet I had to drive (at $3.50/gal) 45 minutes to give her teammates our video camera to use, with 1 days notice. They are just lucky she is responsible or they would ahve been cameraless at the last minute…but I am still grumpy about it :(</p>
<p>Our D learned years ago that when a teacher decides who is in the group to be prepared to do all or most of the work. I especially loved it when a teacher would say that she placed a student in D’s group because she knew D could and would do the extra work. Oh yeah, just stick it to my kid while a known slacker also gets a good grade.</p>
<p>Sports teams - play well, you are on the field, don’t carry your weight, you are on the bench.</p>
<p>Music - play badly in auditions, you get an easier part and less recognition. No solos.</p>
<p>Scouts - lots of explicit training for leadership, organization, planning. </p>
<p>School - assigned groups, no outside accountability, but share the grade. A recipe for disaster.</p>
<p>Successful groups are a thrill to belong to. The problem is generally that school projects have too little structure and accountibility. Furthermore schools rarely provide any training on group processes and dynamics.</p>
<p>I appreciate what you’re trying to say, geomom. Your sports analogy seems the classic example of group effort – if you are talking team sports. Something like gymnastics or swimming or ice skating - maybe not so much.</p>
<p>But your music analogy doesn’t quite work. Certainly there are aspects of playing in a group that require group dynamics, but an audition is all alone. Absolutely nobody else to blame it on. </p>
<p>Within an ensemble, if one person plays badly consistently, it does bring down the level of the group. But there are few ensembles that would put up with consistent poor performance, simply because they don’t want the low “group grade.” So the consequences of poor performance would utimately be individual in nature. </p>
<p>I do think there are jobs, like music, or artistic endeavors, that may attract more loners. I know that someone relying on group dynamics to get them through a job would never be a musician! My S2 spends the vast majority of his time alone, perfecting his skills, and is happy to do so. </p>
<p>Your point that successful groups are a thrill to belong to is an interesting one. I, like my son, prefer solo endeavors, and have found plenty. I do free-lance writing, genealogy research, teach piano… I always cringe inside at requests for group activities of any sort. Even the “I don’t know; what do you want to do” decisions of group dates drive me crazy.</p>
<p>On the other side, my H is an engineer, and shares many patents with co-workers. Maybe our school experiences with group projects help sway our eventual job choices! To me, group projects are best for natural leaders and natural slackers. Everybody else is worker bees, getting it done, but not necessarily getting anything out of it.</p>
<p>My solitary introverted older son, much preferred playing in band to practicing solo. I think there’s the fun of 1+1+1 equaling something much bigger than three. ;)</p>
<p>quote: “We hate group projects too! If an employee did not show up for codes, likely they would be fired, I don’t think the other medical personal are supposed ot find him and exhort him to do his job!”</p>
<p>I don’t think they are supposed to find him and make him do his job either; they are supposed to make the code work without him. That’s what a team is all about - when one part fails, the rest are willing and able to figure it out and make the project work anyway. </p>
<p>I think this is all just part of college - learning how to deal with the BS. If as parents, we always step in and “fix”, where will the lessons come from? LIfe isn’t fair, things don’t always work the way they are supposed to, people don’t always do their part - and sometimes grades hinge on things that we wish they didn’t. </p>
<p>In the code analogy - if I was the boss I hope that my employees would be more concerned about whether or not the patient died (and whether or not they ran a good code despite the lack of a full team) rather than whether or not they were going to be in “trouble” or if the slacker was going to “get fired”.</p>
<p>I went from being an individual athlete (track) to doing field sports (rugby and soccer). Under good coaching, and with healthy team dynamics there’s a “greater than the sum of the parts” effect. That’s the thrill. </p>
<p>Of course you still have to perfect your individual skills, and the skill involved in producing a good effect as a group (running plays, seeing strategic opportunities on the fly) are even more time consuming to develop. Only after you have done both do you have ability to function as a team.</p>
<p>On orchestra is the same effect. Each instruments contribute it’s own sound and the total effect is more than the sum of the parts. You’re right, if you play badly they will throw you out. But you also have to do more than play well. In a good orchestra, everyone shows up with their part down pat, but they still rehearse quite intensively. In rehearsal, most of what you are doing is listening and fitting in, since your own playing is almost automatic. The group process is something different from the individual process.</p>
<p>That’s why school projects are so frustrating in my opinion. There is little to no instruction in team functioning, and then (surprise, surprise) the students are often frustrated and ineffective and learn to hate group projects. </p>
<p>“If that is the case, the difference will amount to a reduction of about 0.02 on the GPA over a college career. Is that worth so much fuss?”
OK I’ve been out all day working, and I know I’m a bit late responding, but I need to explain here. Yes, the 90 and 100 grade are in this one class. Yes, it may make the difference between an A and a B (depends on his grade on the final) No that’s not the end of the world (I told my son that). A complicating factor, however, is that my son is on 2 scholarships with pretty tough GPA requirements. So yes, a B can make a difference! This is one of his easier courses this semester - so he was hoping for an A. Perhaps you’ll say that stinks and point out how you hate scholarships like these and how they put undue pressure on the kids to finish with high grades. It is what it is…yes, there’s a bad side to everything - even scholarships. Losing one because somebody else didn’t pull his weight seems a bit severe to me…<br>
And in terms of the actual test, I don’t want to go into crazy detail here but the 2 incomplete questions DID make the difference between an F and perhaps a B on this assignment. Thats a huge swing!!<br>
Don’t know what the outcome is here. Last I heard, prof wanted to know who did what. My son is handling it - just checking in with me for some advice here and there.</p>
<p>I don’t know what you mean that there is no accountability. I’ve worked in group projects all the time and usually if the project is substantial, the professor requires an explanation of what each member was responsible for. Even if this is not the case, the professor will not assign the same grade for everyone in the group if it is apparent that one member is slacking. If you’re giving a group presentation and one of the members isn’t prepared at all, the professor will not penalize you for his slacking.</p>
<p>Concerning the kid who “has to get an A” and the business major who “only needs a C”, I would want to know more about their motivations. Perhaps the business major has an interest in the subject matter and is working hard for that C because they know they want to go into the business end of pharmaceuticals or a health care field and need to know enough to be able to speak with the doctors and scientists. Perhaps the other student is looking for an easy A with minimum work required because they have taken a similar year-long honors level course in high school and already know two-thirds of the material. Or, maybe the business major is just looking to fill a natural science requirement in the area that requires the least math and the other student is taking the first of a sequence of classes required for a neuroscience major and wants to build a strong foundation with a solid A. Pairing the two of them on a project could be a good experience for both of them or it could be an unmitigated disaster. It is hard to know up front. </p>
<p>I understand that there are employers out there who have a hard GPA threshold below which they do not interview. In fact, I have been on both sides of the desk with such companies, in some cases being interviewed and in others doing the interviewing. Over the years, I have come to realize that building an entire company around only those students with exceptionally high GPA’s is not an optimal strategy.</p>
<p>As a project manager, the people I hire have to be able to deal with an imperfect world. I like to find people who have encountered failure and learned to overcome it, who do not view anything less than perfection as abject failure. Sometimes you have to ship the “B” effort today so that you will still be in business next month to replace it with the “A” effort. Sometimes the “A” effort is simply too costly to ever produce and the “B” effort is as good as a viable product is ever going to get. I can afford a few perfectionists and visionaries on a project, but I need a lot more solid workers who can take care of business today.</p>
<p>As a parent, I have also had two very different children but in my case it was the daughter who was the achiever and the son who was the self-doubter. In the situation the OP describes, I would be happy to help them in grade school, would want them to try to handle it themselves in high school before coming to me, and would not even want to hear about it in college. By that age, I want them to advocate for themselves. If they decide that battle is worth fighting, it will be up to them to follow through on it. (I realize that every situation is different and understand that there are other views on this issue, but that is how I see things for my own kids. Your mileage may vary.)</p>
<p>I am glad to hear that your daughter is making progress, because employers do not like to hear things like “extremely upset”, “uncomfortable”, “very shy” and “not her wish to be in charge.” On the other hand, people who will go beyond their comfort zone, take charge of a situation when necessary and inspire the uninspired without having to yell at them are going to be able to find jobs. It is paradoxical, but some of the most difficult people with whom I have to deal are the ones who seek to avoid conflict at all costs. By trying to please everyone, they wind up pleasing no one.</p>
<p>No, I am not against merit scholarships. In fact my daughter has one. If this project makes the difference between renewing it or not, that does indeed stink and it is worth the effort trying to fix.</p>
<p>Bassdad- don’t know if it will make a difference since his other grades are in process. You really never know until the end! In any case, my advice was that he reach out to his professor to see if any considerations could be made.
Sometimes, I wish I was one of those slacker Moms. I’m really not doing anything other than offering a few bits of advice - but I’m probably worrying about this more than he is! It’s helpful though to see that others have issues with these group projects from h***. Time for a nice glass of wine…</p>
<p>I hate to say this but you are viewing these situations from your work life as if that is the optimal situation. Would you agree that the world spins differently for different people? What is fine and acceptable to you may not be for someone else. </p>
<p>I was talking about grad school, not employment. As far as motivations, let’s say one needs a C to stay eligible for sports, the other needs an A for med school. Both are motivated, differently. The med school student needs the high marks to get a med school interview, the business major is just filling a requirement and is going to work for daddy anyway. There are lots of examples of odd couple parings, I don’t have to list them all do I? </p>
<p>“As a project manager, the people I hire have to be able to deal with an imperfect world. I like to find people who have encountered failure and learned to overcome it, who do not view anything less than perfection as abject failure.”</p>
<p>Does everybody need to work with a project manager? Wouldn’t you agree that some professions don’t require a team effort and/or a team leader? </p>
<p>"I am glad to hear that your daughter is making progress, because employers do not like to hear things like “extremely upset”, “uncomfortable”, “very shy” and “not her wish to be in charge.” My D is fine. thanks. but you’ve missed the point there. She is not working towards being in charge of anybody, she is working towards being self employed professionally. And it is perfectly fine to want a career where you don’t have to deal with dead wood for project purposes. </p>
<p>I don’t mean to be harsh, but we all view the world through our own glasses. Sometimes it helps to look through somebody else’s to see the problem.</p>