Thursday, April 12, 2012

My thoughts on group work

Dear College Professors,
Please stop assigning group work.


I am so frustrated right now after looking up my grade for my Gender and Sexuality course.  My professor for this course assigns group work all throughout the semester.  I have had three film reviews and now a book review that we have to present in a group.  I got a good grade for my first film review because I was in charge of the group and handed out assignments to everyone in the group and followed the guideline for the presentation.  However, I failed my second review because my group was impossible to work with.  The assignment was to chose one scene from the movie and discuss what significance it has in relation to what we are leaning about.  My second group wanted to pick 5 different scenes.  When I stressed that we needed to pick one they "out ruled me".  Then, the person who was supposed to bring in the movie showed up to class late so we didn't have time to prepare.  We have 15 minutes to present, 5 of those minutes wasted because we didn't have our material ready, and then the other 10 minutes rushed because everyone was skipping around to "their scene".  I am just sitting there super frustrated because it was a disaster and it would have gone a lot smoother if we did it the correct way.  It's unfortunate that my grade is based on that presentation when I tried so hard to get my group together, sending emails, texting people with no answers.  No one responded and just showed up to class having no clue what was going on.

So why, Oh why, on a college level are we required to do so much group work?  Don't professors know that there is always one person who actually cares about their grade and the others are slacking?  I have my book presentation on Monday.  I have already emailed everyone twice and I have gotten no answers except from one person in my group.  It's due on Monday and it's Thursday and it's not even discussed yet.  I might go lock myself in a closet with a knife if Sunday rolls around and I still haven't heard from my group.  I have emailed the professor about this and she said "It isn't her problem" and that I just have to find a way to make it work.  What the Hell?????

5 comments:

  1. Yes! Completely agree. I'm in a class that requires team work and after one day of work you can see who will contribute, who won't, and then there is Group C; these people are so clueless, but they don't realize it, so they just become a distraction and a waste of time. Don't mean to rant on your blog, but as soon as I saw the title my mind went into overdrive. Good luck!

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    1. Haha it's ok to rant on my rant!

      I am just a perfectionist so of course I want to do well. Of course the worse is when she is giving the assignment and she gives you someone who can't even bother to show up to class- I cringe.

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  2. I hate hate hate group projects. The work is NEVER evenly distributed and I don't know why teachers/professors keep assigning them. Hope it all works out for you with this project.

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  3. I hate them, too. I don't know how Sara does her classes... they're almost ALL groups. I'd die!

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    1. That's the main reason why online classes are so hard.

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