(no subject)
Things I hate about groupwork.
1. It punishes good students, while rewarding bad students.
2. The good student will always end up putting in the work to ensure the result meets their high standards. The bad student knows this, so they have no incentive to work hard to provide something that will meet or approximate the good student's standards.
3. Taking it a step further, group members can disappear for large parts of the project, and reappear at the end, with no personal consequence.
A week ago, I had a major freakout on the phone at one of my group members, about the lack of planning that was happening in our group (the whole project happens online in a discussion forum). Rather than brainstorming and discussing the topic, people were just posting drafts for their sections. It's a little easier to brainstorm in a dozen pointform notes, than an 800-word document, but this is apparently lost on my groupmates. When I tried to address this concern, I was told that it would all work out in the end. Here we are a week later, and all my fears are realized. The person who was absent through the planning and writing process has been charged with putting the project segments together, because the group wanted to be nice and give her something to do to justify her receiving the same mark as everyone else. Except that she didn't follow the planned outline, and missed a whole section of several hundred words in her draft. So, I sent around a new draft. Now, I am criticized for not letting her do her part. *facepalm*
1. It punishes good students, while rewarding bad students.
2. The good student will always end up putting in the work to ensure the result meets their high standards. The bad student knows this, so they have no incentive to work hard to provide something that will meet or approximate the good student's standards.
3. Taking it a step further, group members can disappear for large parts of the project, and reappear at the end, with no personal consequence.
A week ago, I had a major freakout on the phone at one of my group members, about the lack of planning that was happening in our group (the whole project happens online in a discussion forum). Rather than brainstorming and discussing the topic, people were just posting drafts for their sections. It's a little easier to brainstorm in a dozen pointform notes, than an 800-word document, but this is apparently lost on my groupmates. When I tried to address this concern, I was told that it would all work out in the end. Here we are a week later, and all my fears are realized. The person who was absent through the planning and writing process has been charged with putting the project segments together, because the group wanted to be nice and give her something to do to justify her receiving the same mark as everyone else. Except that she didn't follow the planned outline, and missed a whole section of several hundred words in her draft. So, I sent around a new draft. Now, I am criticized for not letting her do her part. *facepalm*