So we have this project for my Stats class… a group project. Keep in mind, that we have no in class time, and almost the entire course is self taught (given the materials the professor provides). Now, while I am certainly not against a group project, I just want to know how this is going to work properly…
I mean, you would think that everyone in the group would email each other, communicate, and adequately divide up the work amongst the group, and then bring the final project together before submission, right? Well, that’s not what happened. We had an assumer (as in, I assumed I would just get started, so I did that already… even though he didn’t), as well as the good guy, who really communicated well, and actually did his work, and sent me his stuff. Too bad I have to redo it all, because it does answer the questions well enough; and, because what they do (or in this case, don’t do), can negatively impact my grade.
So, now I am doing the entire project by myself, for our “group”. It seems like working in a group isn’t something that works, at least in this online class, to my advantage in any way. *back to work*…. grrrr….
All I can say, is I better get an A on this!
In law school, one professor asked whether we wanted to work in groups or alone. He left the room to allow us to discuss. I usually vote to work alone because I HATE pulling other people’s loads. In the end, the class voted to work in groups.
The majority of my college career consisted of night classes at State and almost all my classes had at least one group project. Most of my classmates, like myself, were taking night classes because we worked during the day. Needless to say, none of us had too much time to meet. I experienced what you mentioned on just about every project I had.
What I finally started doing was, as soon as a projected was assigned, I would break it into as many logical pieces as possible. I would then send an email to the group asking people which part they wanted to tackle. I would then have them send me what they did and compile it into the final project.
There were always plenty of slackers and over-achievers to deal with but this worked for me pretty well.
Dave, I totally hear what you are saying, and to some degree, we tried that. Unfortunately, neither of them did what they were supposed to do, and in the end, I had to do the entire project alone. From them, I got maybe a page’s worth of text, and all in all, the project ended up being 8 pages long with graphs.
Not happy. I am going to say something to the professor, so that I don’t have to work with at least the “assumer” again.
When I taught, I only assigned group projects when I decided the class was annoying me.
Karma works in many ways
Hi Duane-
All I can say is…get used to it! There will be group projects a’plenty in nursing school. Luckily, you won’t be in a virtual classroom setting. You’ll get to feel people out before commiting to working with them. I won’t team up with slackers. Fortunately, those are rare in program.
Oh, and pay attention. I took a year of stats for my BSBA degree thinking I would never use it again. Wrong! Wait ’til you take nursing research as part of your BSN program. Of course, I’m trying to remember the courses I took twenty years ago. At least it’ll be fresh in your head when you go for the BSN.
I abhor group projects in school. They always do more than my share of the work (excuse me for wanted to get an ‘A’) and there’s that one person who gets carried through.
I’ve always felt teaches assigned group projects because it cuts down on the amount of work they have to grade.
I hate group projects. I am always nervous about getting it done so I start work early, and you have the procrastinators that hold everything until the end so you end up doing more than your share because you are afraid it wont get done. Sigh
During my MBA program at GSU we had one group project like yours. The guy barely delivered a first draft of his part, and it was completely unrelated to the work the rest of us did. He then started so late on his other assignment that we did it without him. Fortunately we all had a chance to “grade” our group members; I hope he got an F on that project.
Worse, though, was the group project in our marketing class. The other students and the professor didn’t really get what we were trying to sell; we got a B on the project. The next semester a friend told me that our project was held up as the example of a great project! WTF!?!?!?!