Monday, February 28, 2011

Working in Groups/Groupwork

You've all been there.  You're looking over the syllabus for your new class and the first thing you rush to is the list of assignments.  You glance at the list: Essay, essay, test.... and finally:




Unfortunately for me this is definitely not an unusual occurrence in my program.  For those of you who do not know, I'm going to school to become a social worker.  Unfortunately to be a social worker, you have to work with people.  Huh, who'd a thunk it?  As a result, a lot of our projects involve group work in order to get us accustomed to working with others.

The downside with groupwork is that everyone relies on eachother.  It's difficult to put all your trust into another group of people, especially when your grade depends on them.  I just had an unfortunate experience with groupwork myself.  Our group was assigned a project to find a research study done on violence and education.  We were to make a poster about it.  Our meeting to begin our project was this morning, but unfortunately I couldn't make it.  I texted my groupmates to tell them to leave me some work so I could do my share.

A few hours later I got a text telling me that all the work was done! I'm feeling kinda dooped out now.  I really didn't want to be "that" student that doesn't contribute anything to the project.  But what can you do, right? I was told I could look over the poster and add my two cents to it, but it seems pretty finished as it is.

I guess all I can do is try to get my creative juices flowing and add something to the poster that contributes. 
So tell me bloggers, how do you feel about groupwork? Does it make a difference if its with your friends, or do you think that makes it even worse? 

13 comments:

  1. My "oh they paper is due tomorrow? better get started" doesn't mesh well with group projects.

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  2. Yea, same here. I mean, I could finish it the night before no problem! But my groupmates seems to think that IS a problem. Oh well!

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  3. Heh...Groupwork. I remember that. Always so awkward because I never played well with my peers, so I had a tendency of just completing the work and turning it in (sometimes even before I let me team know).

    Most often they didn't have a problem with it. They liked the A's. But still. XD

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  4. In my own opinion group works indeed fun if you are group mates with friends that do their work.
    Stuff like what happened to you also happened to me when I was in college. I felt some shame because of such but we just have to accept that others love doing some people's work because it takes away their anxiety.

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  5. I feel like it's always worse with friends, you either get too comfortable and that's not good but I always feel like I'm not contributing during my physics labs primarily because our professor puts us in groups of four for labs that only require two people so there's only so much I can honestly do..

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  6. Alexander, I agree. There were 6 people in this group and it was one poster with probably a total of 4 paragraphs on it.. um- what!

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  7. I'm usually that guy that does all the real work and lets others do the report, that way I know it's done well.

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  8. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa groooouuupwooooork how I hate you!

    We had to do a crap load of group work in first year nursing (most grades were made up of at least 50% group work). I hated it so much. I'm one of those really high achievers and it seemed last year that everyone was just happy with a pass. It made me furious sometimes.

    One particular example was this 6000 word assignment on HIV/AIDS. Three of us had our sections done three weeks before the due date. One of the other two got me her section 2 days before the due date and the other didn't give me his at all. The part that did get to me had to be completely re-written anyway. I spent three near-sleepless nights finishing the project myself. And they get to share in the grade, how silly.

    Gah, it just makes me angry that I had to rely so much on other people to get the grade I wanted.

    Don't get me wrong, I'm the kind of person that will do his essay the night before it's due, but I do group work early as a courtesy to the other students.

    Sorry about the rant, but your picture up there is basically my face.

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  9. ive dropped classes because of group work. dont wanna depend on others for my grade

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  10. Group work..
    I hate relying on people. Wait I just hate people in general.

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  11. i hate group work, so glad im pretty much past that part it my education

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  12. I usually like working on my own because it allows to make my own schedule without stressing about others

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  13. I know the feeling of becoming an unintentional freeloader lol. Common courtesy is to do a bit of extra work on the next assignment, but getting along with your team mates really pays off in that they give you a little slack when you really can't work on something.

    http://freekjensen.blogspot.com/

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