<p>School has been underway for a month, and there have already been 3 or 4 group projects in APUSH and English classes. Groups are sometimes self-selected and sometimes assigned and can vary from completely terrible (grouped with slackers) to amazing and wonderful. I have to confess I am at a loss as to how to counsel my children when they end up in the former group–kids not willing to work on the weekends, “too busy”, come over and slouch and don’t really participate while one or two actually work on the project. I realize that leadership skills are needed but it still seems so arbitrary to grade kids on the entire team when the quality of the team can vary so completely.</p>
<p>Has anyone else watched this happen and does anyone have any suggestions as to whether parents can be at all helpful other than commiserating?</p>
<p>S had group projects in k-8 where he routinely did 3/4 of the work; he did not mind, but the other 3 did not learn much. Since, however, there were no grades, there were no consequences for either my S or the slackers.</p>
<p>I realize that in the case of high school, the stakes are higher. Is there a way of defining clearly what each student is responsible for, and not make project completion dependent on every student doing his/her part? For example, in 7th grade, S did a unit on a country in the Middle East. One kid was supposed to write up the history of the country; one was supposed to focus more culture; S, the technically-inclined wrote up a proposal for a desalination plant in which he explaine the rationale for needing one, then proposed a design that was technologically appropriate but also culturally sensitivie. So it did not matter that the parts on the history and culture were skimpy. I was pretty impressed with S’s portion of it. </p>
<p>Is it possible to divide up the projects along similar lines?</p>
<p>This scenario has happened to my kids. It happened to my H when he was at the Kennedy School. It even happens in places of employment. Sometimes you just have to grit your teeth and do more than your fair share.</p>
<p>It actually happens in jobs all the time. One of H’s colleagues was going on vacation in Europe. The company gave her a cellphone with orders to call back everyday at stipulated times in case consultations with other colleagues were required. Projects could not go ahead without her input. H cannot schedule vacations that last more than a week for the same reason. In sciences, teamwork is the norm. Just look up the string of authors of single journal articles.</p>
<p>OP, you may want to find out how the kids are graded. Not all group projects have group grades. My Ss have been in groups where individuals were graded separately.</p>
<p>I agree with the earlier poster that it helps to divide up a project into smaller chunks with clear responsibilities. If a team only needs to meet twice - once to plan and once right before it is due; that simplifies matters.</p>
<p>Off Topic re: jobs requiring one to be available when on vacation and to check-in. Hopefully that can be avoided by scheduling around projects, although it is clearly not always possible. Once when I was leaving on vacation and a VP asked for my cell phone number, I handed him my cell phone and said ‘better yet, you can just have this’.</p>
<p>Re: off-topic:
Nope, it has not been possible and taking more than one week at a time is actively discouraged by the company (small). Projects are always due yesterday.</p>
<p>Thanks for your thoughts and also empathy. I believe that grading policies vary by teacher. I also am not in the classroom and of course I don’t know how much instruction the teachers give on how to work effectively in groups, what to do when someone refuses to cooperate etc. I am afraid it is probably in the order of “Now, remember that everyone else in your group is depending on you so don’t let them down” more than coherent group instruction (that should probably be uniform across classes) on collaborative teamwork. Sometimes I see that one student shoulders 90% of the work; of course sometimes there is the opposite problem that one person actually WANTS to do all the work and leaves the other ones out or bosses them around. I know it’s a learning process; I just feel uncomfortable with the quantity of group projects–especially when everyone’s schedule is busy and often free times for one are not the same as the other’s. It’s also a stress management issue at our house. Right at the moment there does not seem to be much I can do except fret. </p>
<p>Re vacations. In our area of law, in California, the use of “Tenderloin notices” (named for a case where the issue arose) has become overwhelming. A lawyer sends out a “Tenderloin” notice before going on vacation, to all lawyers with which he or she has cases, announcing unavailable dates when the other side is not supposed to set any hearings, complete any discovery, etc. All fine and good except once in a while someone sends one out that is purportedly effective for 3 months!! Talk about “if I ain’t working, ain’t nobody working”!</p>
<p>what I do, and maybe some don’t agree, but if my D is stuck with a bad group, I try and help with the busy work- if its making a presentation board, I help cut out stuff, I help find links for research…</p>
<p>My D just recently told me that people say, oh good, we are working with D, so we will get a good grade…some work hard, others, not so much, but both my Ds have learned having to share an A with slackers is better than sharing a C to prove a point…</p>
<p>at my Ds school, they often give 2 grades- on for the group work and on for the individual</p>
<p>I HATE group projects that count for a lot of points, when one kid slacks off, the rest suffer</p>
<p>at our school, kids live all over the place, sometimes 50 miles apart, so, it can get complicated, throw in sports, church, family time, parents who won’t or can’t drive, sick students, bad equipment, retreats, siblings, trying to get kids together…argghhh</p>
<p>Both D and S1 have each had one class in college (so far) in which there was a big group project. D pulled her hair out to even get everyone to meet, much less email her their portion of the project paper. S1 had the same problem with a writing group he was in–one member of the group emailed him (at the last minute) his portion of the paper in bullet points (not ok in a Writing class!). Luckily for both, the profs knew who was responsible for the portions, so as it turned out, no “group grade”, but very stressful and annoying for them.</p>
<p>As a teacher I am not a fan of group projects at all for the very reasons mentioned. I sometimes will give a group exam but that is in class with very strict parameters i.e. there must be obvious evidence of contributions from the entire group. More commonly I will have groups for review/study for exams and award bonus points for any group that has a certain average score on the exam. I also will have my students work in small groups for discussions. I NEVER though assign a project for which there is a group grade. I only give individual grades and then award bonus points if every person in the group has contributed to the final product and met the deadline.
I realize this isn’t ideal either but since bonus points can only help a person’s grade and not hurt it in any way the worst thing that can happen if there is an irresponsible group member is the other individuals don’t get their bonus points which are usually relatively small anyway.</p>
<p>At our hs, the kids had to sign something after (some? all?) group projects agreeing that all members had contributed/pulled their weight. I don’t remember the exact wording. This was obviously designed to help the kids avoid the slacker member problem.</p>
<p>In my observation, it didn’t work. The kids were just unwilling to refuse to sign and “out” one of the members. It just seems to take a lot more people skill and willingness to “stand up” than teens have to deal with these peers who are willing to take advantage of them.</p>
<p>Although I hate the grade consequences of these things, on balance, I think it’s a good learning experience. Because, as everyone has said, this is a part of work life.</p>
<p>My kids often ended up being taken advantage of during group projects. My kids usually just ended up “assigning” tasks if the group won’t get started and then fixing/coalating the information into the final product. Sometimes they ended up doing the work for another student…it was either that or take a lower grade.</p>
<p>Several teachers had the kids include a page that detailed what each contributed to the project. Good, but not perfect. It would be hard to get the group to trash another group member. One teacher had a fine idea though. He had the kids each fill out a confidential evaluation of their project that asked how the group worked together and what each contributed. AH-HAH! That allowed the kids to explain their own contribution as well as problems arising from non-contributors. I liked it! :)</p>
<p>^^^ That approach might also have the beneficial effect of reducing slacker-hood? If the slackers know there are going to be confidential lists of who did what, they might not want to find their names missing from the list? :)</p>
<p>I absolutely hate group projects for all the reasons mentioned above. If you are a slacker, you come out pretty well. But if you are a student who cares about the end project, in most cases you are taken advantage of (just like real life). All of my kids had group projects through high school and in college. I remember son in a business class had a group project that they divided up into sections. One girl they knew would not do much so they assigned her just to proofread final paper. She ended up just turning in what all had presented her with multiple typos, etc.–their grade was an A in content with points taken off for the lousy presentation, bringing it to a C. </p>
<p>My D. recently had a group project, she took it upon herself to assign sections to group members and had them get all work into her 4 days before due—she ended up reworking 2 students work completely as it was obvious that they had cut and pasted directly from internet sites.</p>
<p>In high school, I think group projects should be things done in the classroom where the teacher can see who is contributing and it is not up to parents to try and provide transportation to get the kids together.</p>
<p>Wharfrat, wish mine had been in your classroom!</p>
<p>DD had several “group projects” during her high school years. Several of those groups were assigned by the teachers. Unfortunately, it seems that all too often there are those who do the actual work and those who sit by and don’t really care. Because DD cared, she had a tendency to pick up the ball when it was dropped by others. It always bothered me more than it did her. I guess it comes down to being a life lesson. There are workers and there are slackers. I guess we can just take solace in the fact that our kids are workers.</p>
<p>You have all given me GREAT comfort. I shared the general experience with my D, and she seemed to calmly accept it. </p>
<p>I may be wrong, but I get the feeling that there are certain things that kids are expected to learn through trial and error, when a certain amount of packaged instruction could help. Collaborative work is one of those. Teachers who want kids to work in groups could spend a class or two articulating the steps to a successful collaboration, give pointers on how to deal with control freaks, slackers, and other common traits. I think it might alleviate a bit of stress. I also think that they should monitor how groups are formed. </p>
<p>When the adcoms are hovering over your GPA and individual grades, and making admissions decisions on slight variations in GPA, it shouldn’t be because you were lucky or unlucky in group project assignments. And, it just adds that much more stress and scheduling challenges into the day.</p>
<p>S2’s school had a limited number of group projects, but the groups generally included gunners and slackers. When a gunner complained, one wise teacher informed him that the mix reflected real life, and he was likely to encounter such groups throughout his education and career, so deal. </p>
<p>Not good news, but not a bad life lesson either.</p>
<p>Those teachers know what they’re doing when they assign a mix of students to each group. They never put all of the A-students and leaders together and put all of the struggling students and slackers together. It can’t be coincidence. To any teachers on here: why do you do that when it either burdens or punishes the best students? If the kids were left to group themselves, you know the hard working kids would all group themselves together!</p>
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My D. recently had a group project, she took it upon herself to assign sections to group members and had them get all work into her 4 days before due—she ended up reworking 2 students work completely as it was obvious that they had cut and pasted directly from internet sites.
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<p>Wow. I wonder if she hadn’t caught that, would she have gotten in trouble to even though she hadn’t written the plagiarized part of the project?</p>
Sometimes you just have to grit your teeth and do more than your fair share.</p>