Lazy group member - let him burn?

mathmom
Sat, 07 Dec 2013 15:03:32 +0000

I think for school projects having to take up the slack just teaches the wrong lessons to the slacker. That said if you get stuck with a group project and a slacker I’d take it up with the professor/teacher as to what they recommend. If everyone is going to get the same grade, you obviously are going it have to do the slacker’s work.

I only saw one group project work really well. In middle school my kid was in an English class where the teacher had gotten a grant for them to put together magazines. They were in groups of about six kids. Everyone had an assigned job - generally to write at least one article and something else - editor, art director, cover designer whatever. The groups agreed on a theme and went to work. The teacher kept an eye on them. While articles were written as homework - everything else took place in class. If someone didn’t pull their weight she fired them and had them do really boring grammar work instead. (And I use the word fired on purpose - she structured it like a job - they’d had to put together resumes to apply for the various magazine positions.) Only a handful of kids in all her classes got fired. The results were amazingly professional and I never heard a peep of complaint from kid about the whole process.