Some of the most dreaded assignments in school are group projects, and for good reason. Not only are they extremely time-consuming, but they also cause a lot of conflict and resentment among classmates.
The biggest issue about group projects is that group members tend to fall into roles: the leader, the researcher, the writer, the slacker, the list goes on and on. Each person has a different idea of how much effort needs to be put in, so there’s an imbalance of work. Usually, one person takes charge and does the majority of the work, while everyone else either scrambles to keep up or sits back and waits for the project to be done. In the end, each student receives the same grade, no matter how much they put into it.
Many teachers try to remedy this problem by giving individual grades. They usually use forms and ask questions about who did what and how you’d rate your teammates. Personally, this doesn’t work for me because I feel guilty rating my classmates lower than myself, even if I’ve put in much more work than them. Conversely, students who don’t do any work can rate themselves very high, and the people who actually did the majority of the work lower than they deserve. I don’t think it’s fair to base students’ grades on the contradictory 1-5 ratings of the other group members.
Another issue with group projects is the conflict created between the different group members. Everyone has a unique vision of how the project should turn out. However, there is usually a lack of compromise, leading to only one idea winning out, usually originating from the loudest and most combative person in the group.
This is related to the difference in work quality contributed by each teammate. I’ve had so many problems with group members who copied and pasted answers directly from Google, and they never listen when I tell them our grade will suffer for it. Not willing to receive a low grade, I always end up redoing their whole part of the project for them. This happens often in many group projects, and it’s unfair. One person essentially fills the role of two or more, and the others coast along with the same grade.
Keeping in touch with group members outside of allotted class work time can be difficult too. When flying solo on a project, it can be worked on whenever is most convenient, but group work time has to be scheduled. It’s hard to find times that work for everyone in the group, and when parts are delegated and later put together, the result is a very disjointed project.
Despite all the challenges of group projects, they do have their merits. Students can share ideas and learn from each other, hear new perspectives, and practice valuable soft skills, which are useful throughout their whole lives, no matter their future profession. Small group projects, spanning a single class period, are usually fairly successful and carry all the benefits of large group projects without all the hassle. Large group projects end up being a pain to manage, learn from, and grade.
Teachers can assign small group projects all they want because they really do encourage learning, but the big projects should be left for students to do themselves. It will save everyone so much pain, frustration, and resentment in the end.
