School Group Projects are Detrimental

Pixabay Image under CC0 Creative Commons

This week I am going to talk about the great time I have had working together in a team for a group presentation. This is a group presentation for the class I am writing this blog for to let others know ahead of time. I have had mixed experiences with group projects, from doing the entire thing myself to having other people monopolies the work to egos being played but sometimes the right group is formed that just meshes. This group project was like that, everyone participated and ended up coming together to laugh and have fun. The point though that I am going to make today though isn’t about my great experience in this group project. I’m instead going to voice my opinion that schools need to rely less on them. I understand they are supposed to teach us that life is one big group project and that in our future jobs we will be filled with them but that just isn’t true. In group projects in a work environment there is recourse for a poor performance or inadequate job yet there isn’t a big enough incentive in school. The worst that could happen is that you fail and part of your grade suffers, which isn’t the big stakes of “Will I lose my job today?” that the real life offers. Also, one of the big aspects of group projects is at the end you review your peers giving your scores to the teacher on what grade they should get. Yeah that would surely go over fine in the real world. “I’m sorry Mr. Big Client but bill didn’t chip all I thought he could. That’s why the result was crappier.”  You would get fired on the spot and maybe even sued. I understand why schools use it as the “Well it will waste sometime in the semester so I don’t have to do as much and maybe they’ll get something out of it” but its basis that it emulates reality is actually quite naive and shows that maybe we need to come up with a better system to collaborate in a school setting. 

Another person who agrees with me: Link

Comments

  1. UnknownOctober 5, 2017 at 11:59 AM

    Hi there! This actually was a very interesting post to read and I love the honesty of it. It is easy to side with group projects because after all, we are posting on this blog for class. But the reality of group projects is they are tedious and sometimes redundant. When you take the approach that you did, being that in the real world with jobs and such, majority of what we are learning now does not work in the real world. I like that you were honest and expressed exactly how you feel! Great post to read!

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  2. Christian WilliamsOctober 5, 2017 at 7:22 PM

    In different classes growing up I too have had similar experiences regarding group work, some were great, others were terrible. Its even worse when a teacher will grade the group as a whole and not how the individuals performed, in my opinion, another persons poor work shouldn't affect your grade. However a fair share of group work that Ive been assigned in college has been graded individually. In that case, I feel that group work is beneficial because it is true, as you mentioned, that we will need it for our future, but if it isn't graded per person, then I feel its unfair. So Im kind of with you and kind of not. Great post!

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