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May 30, 2005
Group Work
Lately, the Big Party has been receiving hits from places outside Canada and US. And they want to hear about our world famous education system.
One thing I hate about school is group work. Its not because I don’t like working with others, its because they don’t like working with me. Actually, it has nothing to do with me, because they don’t like working at all. The best way to do group work, is to do it individually. Essentially, the workload is broken down into several parts and distributed evenly (a la divide and conquer). One problem with this is that some parts are more equal than others (somebody has to do the dirty work). The second problem is that most people don’t show up with their work done [well] (and most often the mark is split evenly too).
In Canada here, we have another problem: often the task is dumb, and people just can’t agree how to break it into parts. Unfortunately, we are too damn creative (I don’t only mean it in the good sense). Oh, we also have in-class group work: Basically, we are split into groups of 3 and 4 to brainstorm a topic, write our ideas in point form on a large piece of chart paper, decorate it and present it to the rest of the class (who were doing the exact same thing). Yeah, school is fun.
Posted by Oleg Ivrii at May 30, 2005 05:53 PM
Comments
Oleg, you should be grateful that they don't implement "communist" grading schemes, where everyone gets the class average :)
Posted by: aSo at May 30, 2005 06:15 PM
That would make grading so much easier for the teacher :)).
Posted by: VLA at May 30, 2005 08:46 PM
ogods, I hate the chart paper presentations.
Posted by: jessica at May 30, 2005 10:46 PM
A good hint is to use PowerPoint for all your presentations. Teachers are easily impressed.
Posted by: aSo at June 2, 2005 12:06 AM
the best way is to get someone else to do the powerpoint for you, this way, you can use the time to do more meaningful things, namely: eat, sleep etc.
Posted by: Eric at June 10, 2005 02:32 PM
Haha I hope this isn't a comment about my work habits, Oleg... =P
Posted by: Anonymous at June 14, 2005 08:16 PM
Group work is dumb, but individual work is dumber. Our schools should forget about markers, chart paper and bristolboard and just base our marks on tests and real assignments.
Posted by: Anonymous at June 14, 2005 08:17 PM
I agree with Anonymous wholeheartedly.
Posted by: aSo at June 16, 2005 08:12 AM
Group work/projects is dumb. If some lazy person is included in your group, and the teacher says everyone needs to do something, and the mentioned person is absent/has no will to work, you're screwed. Especially if you then have to work on something you're not good at.
Posted by: somerandomguy at June 27, 2005 06:24 AM
I don't agree. I think Group work is like a taste of what you'll get in the real world. Before teamwork I didn't know how to deal with those idiots that don't get their work done. Now I know:
(1) Clearly indicate that you had nothing to do with the quality of their work (clearly put up their name on the piece of junk; lateron you can argue)
(2) You have to treat them the way they treat you...if they do nothing...you treat them like nothing...you pressure them to do work.
For me, group work, is a practice session for you to learn how to deal with morons, which you'll probably have to do for the rest of your life (although it's not really subject-related)
Posted by: Dimitri at June 29, 2005 11:29 AM