Lazy group member - let him burn?

cptofthehouse
Fri, 06 Dec 2013 13:35:11 +0000

You do the work for the kid and put your names on it. Give him a chance first to present his piece and then come after him with what you all did, and include a note to the prof about the situation.

Sadly this happens a lot and some times, the teacher, prof, employer does not care about the group mechanics. You get graded or credited as a team and the project as a whole. My son was in a group project where the one student’s contributions were truly sub par. Couldn’t write, analysis incomplete, etc, So they submitted and presented it as such, and were graded as a group with tha weak point averaged in. Prof could not care less that it was because of a weak member of the group, and just pitched the note with documenation. When the members protested and met privately, they were told, in the real world, which is where they soon will be with possible such projects, that’s what would have happend.

Don’t agree about the prof doing it this way for college, but she was right about this in many work situations… My DH has had to redo and take over weak group members’ work on projects all of the time. You simply won’t get the work if you turn in a weak proposal, and too much rides on the real life business consequences. A client or prospect could not care less that you had a member not pulling his weight, nor would a boss having to present something put together by a team. You have to submit a stellar final project and deal with the deficient member later, and separately.

But for school, that, to me, is a whole other situation, and the teachers/profs should be taking that into consideration. But they may not. You get adjuncts who are full time in the real world, just teaching a class or two, they may run the assignments as they do at their jobs.