I Hate Group Projects

[TheOutlawXanadu]

I hate them so much. I always end up having to do everything.

Last week, I was in a group of three for an abnormal psychology project. There was no way I could do everything like normal because I had a test and a project coming up in another class, so I told my group members straight up: "If you want me to, I can do most of the stuff, but I would prefer we split the work evenly". They agree.

Fast forward to now, and one of the group members forgot to turn his stuff in, and the other decided to go road-tripping to Virginia the night before the presentation, so she was terrible, and now my grade is going to suffer because they are useless.

[rumborak]

Yeah, I feel your pain. What happens a lot in my experience is that there's people who just plain suck, and every time they work in group (where there's people better than them) they get better grades, so they conclude they are a "group worker" who works best in a group. Meaning, they leech onto any work group they can find, dragging down the grade of the good people.

rumborak

[blackngold29]

*knock on wood* I haven't had any this semester. Had a terrible one last semester. We had to write a paper and then give an oral presentation. They all wanted to help, but then I had to print everything out and put it together (which was fine by me). The last kid sent me his at like 2am the night before it was due.

The oral presentation should've been easy, I mean how can you write five pages about something, then stand in front of a class and not know anything about the topic? All four of my group members found a way, one kid never even showed up. Luckily I got to go last and kind of saved it best I could and my teach kind of took pity on me.

[Kosmo]

I'm not the most active person in group projects ever but i don't leave anyone doing everything by him/herself. I'm lazy to the point where i feel that i need to do something.

[jsem]

Hate group projects like this too. No one ever takes responsibilty, so I have to carry that weight all by myself.

Maybe this is why I lean towards libertarianism too... I don't want to be held back.

[Dr. DTVT]

I'm telling you as someone who has graded group projects, its easy to tell who pulls their weight and their grade isn't lowered because other people either didn't pull their share or aren't as good at presenting.

[blackngold29]

I'm telling you as someone who has graded group projects, its easy to tell who pulls their weight and their grade isn't lowered because other people either didn't pull their share or aren't as good at presenting.

You should teach other people how to grade them then, because my teacher said if one kid didn't do anything the rest of the group was responsible to do his work too. And everyone got the same grade.

[j]

After I finished undergrad, I had come to the realization that it's better for me if I just assume that I'm gonna have to do all the work myself from the outset.  In general, you're lucky if you get a group member or two who will pull their weight or better.  I consider it a bonus.

It's a good thing I realized this too, because in graduate and professional programs, everybody in the group gets the same grade.  Sometimes in undergrad, there would be peer evaluations or a form to submit if any of the members weren't doing their shit.  Haven't seen that in years.

-J

[Dr. DTVT]

I'm telling you as someone who has graded group projects, its easy to tell who pulls their weight and their grade isn't lowered because other people either didn't pull their share or aren't as good at presenting.

You should teach other people how to grade them then, because my teacher said if one kid didn't do anything the rest of the group was responsible to do his work too. And everyone got the same grade.

If that is stated, then the students who just want a C will do C work.  The idea is that peer pressure gets everyone to share the work, because in the real world you don't get individual credit on group work, it really is a team effort: your firm either gets the client or it doesn't.  The client won't take one guy from your firm, someone esle from another.  Your group gets the funding or another group does. 

[Pyroph]

Just turned in a group project today, I feel your pain. Had 5 group members, only me and the leader did most of the work. Our project's 8 page paper was due today, and the two of us wrote most of it and threw away most of 2 people's writing because it was so horrendous.

Third person didn't even show up the first three weeks that we met. One of her excuses was that she was visiting someone in the hospital. When we asked her about it the next class period she said she lied and that Sunday (our meeting day) was the day that she didn't do anything, and she had made up the hospital story. We tried to kick her out of the group but our teacher wouldn't let us EVEN though the project clearly states that we could kick someone out with a majority vote.

[Ħ]

I love group projects.  Honestly, once I'm anchored into a group, life is pretty much downhill.  You see, I don't have to do any work, and they'll pick up the slack for me, and I get a good grade without doing anything.

[jsem]

I love group projects.  Honestly, once I'm anchored into a group, life is pretty much downhill.  You see, I don't have to do any work, and they'll pick up the slack for me, and I get a good grade without doing anything.

[Jamesman42]

One thing I will be observed on when I student teach is if I use "cooperative group activities". Not looking forward to that, but maybe it won't be so bad.

[Fiery Winds]

One thing I will be observed on when I student teach is if I use "cooperative group activities". Not looking forward to that, but maybe it won't be so bad.

What age are you teaching?  You'll need to dedicate time to teach them how to work together, down to the very basic details. 

[LieLowTheWantedMan]

Ha. Just a couple months ago, me and my friend had to do a report. The report was supposed to be split evenly amongst 5 people, yet somehow my group ended up with 3 people. Well one member dropped the class, and the guy I ended up with didn't do a single thing on the report. He just sat and looked at sports standings all class. So I had to do like 5 peoples worth of work all by myself.

[juice]

@thread

Agreed.

[Jamesman42]

One thing I will be observed on when I student teach is if I use "cooperative group activities". Not looking forward to that, but maybe it won't be so bad.

What age are you teaching?  You'll need to dedicate time to teach them how to work together, down to the very basic details.  

Somewhere between 9-12 grade. I've done it a few times before and it was fine, although rules were already established.

[MetalManiac666]

I've never really had a terrible experience regarding group work, and you would think that it would be worse for high school than college.  This thread makes it sound like that's not the case though.

[Elsydeon]

We had a group presentation tonight for class. One person didn't show up (there was also a test tonight, ouch!), so the rest of us had to improvise our parts about what we were going to talk about to make up for her absence. She still got full credit though...
I must say that this group is a rare exception where we all work pretty equally(for the most part) to do what we need to do. There was one member who was lazy in the beginning by skipping a lot of presentations and group meetings...but she got her act together eventually. There are two people including me that I think really motivate the others in our group to pull their weight and get their shit done

[RuRoRul]

I hate group work as well - all it means is I have to do the entire thing by myself anyway, or let other people do part of it badly (or more likely just not do it) and get low marks. Usually I just handle most of it.

Last year in Statistics a whole semester was done in groups, we had to hand in a report and do a presentation every week. Me and one other guy usually did the report while the rest of the group (supposed to be 4 other people but usually only 2) did the Power Point presentation. But since I was the one who actually did and understood the calculations, that usually meant one guy doing research and writing up an introduction and some background information, me getting all the results making all the graphs and writing the report, then sending it to the other people for them to copy and paste my results and conclusions onto a Power Point along with some pictures and background info. And even though we were supposed to take it in turns to do the actual presentation, generally when I wasn't supposed to be speaking one of the people didn't show up, and since I was the only one who understood the stuff I had to go up and talk about it because other people wouldn't know what to say.

That's the most group work I've done, there were a few other group projects in my first year. None this year though, which is good. They're basically just a way for the staff to avoid doing some marking.

[HarlequinForest]

I hate group work too.  In my marketing class, the entire semester has revolved around a four-person group marketing project in which we create a marketing plan for the business of our choice.  In my case, it's not that my group members are lazy (well, aside from two of them being absent from class once a week), it's just that their writing and ideas aren't very good.  I was aiming for an A, but my group has pretty much condemned me to a B.  The only writing assignment we've gotten an A on all semester was the only one that I did all by myself.  Hopefully they come through on the final presentation because I'm godawful at speaking in front of the class.

[Gadough]

All throughout high school, I would always start group projects by saying to my groupmates:

"Ok, look. I know you don't want to do shit, and you know I want a good grade. So just leave me alone and let me do everything, but make yourselves look important somehow."

That seemed to always work. Everyone was in agreement and everyone was happy. Except for the rare occasions where I was actually put in a group with like-minded people...but that didn't happen often.

[Jamesman42]

Myself, I hate group work. Part of it is my introversion, and part of it is that I would usually be way ahead of everyone else and I would have to tell them (really, teach them) the stuff.

[TheOutlawXanadu]

So my group ended with a bad grade. I went and talked to him and said basically, "There were some major communication problems."

He goes, "I know one of the group members was probably not the easiest person to work with" while he smirks (as if to say: she's useless) and then he goes, "And you were really good during the presentation".

Then he finishes, "I will change the format next year, but it is what it is".

Wow. He clearly knew how much my group members suck. He has a notepad in front of him with a million comments about them and only "Good Job!" next to me, and I'm still going to end up with a bad grade.

I should have taken more responsibility of doing everything myself. I should have been less careless. But I still feel like I've been royally screwed over.

[Dr. DTVT]

Because you were.  Take it up with them again.  Maybe with a neutral faculty member present as well.  The worst that can happen is that the grade stands.

Quick question - were you assigned groups, or did you get to choose.  If they were assigned, you have a stronger arguement because you had no choice.

[jsem]

Because you were.  Take it up with them again.  Maybe with a neutral faculty member present as well.  The worst that can happen is that the grade stands.

Quick question - were you assigned groups, or did you get to choose.  If they were assigned, you have a stronger arguement because you had no choice.

This.