Is it fair to make students work as a team or with a partner?

[Shadow Wolf]

Is it fair to force students to work in a team?

My honest statement to such a question: Such is life, get over it. Even in college I have had poor group communication, have had to carry groups to ensure that at least I got an A, and have had discussions with teachers about lazy partners. I even had one group project, that was a semester project that included a presentation to the class, and the very first time we met as a group was the day the assignment was due and we had to give our presentations. But I do love the teachers that have let me do group work on my own, which I usually complete long before any groups do.
But in life you will be working with groups.

 

[painted wolf]

Plus teachers generally know when one member is carrying the rest and don't punish the hard worker for the slacking of the rest.

wa:do

 

[Father Heathen]

I know this sounds a bit different, because usually when a teacher tells me to find a partner I always look at my friend... "" and we'd just fool around and care less about the grades (always fun).

Today, though, the teacher told us to work in a team, we got to pick our teams, but this project actually interested me, and I know for sure my friends wouldn't do it the way I'd like it to be done, so I asked the teacher if I could work independently and she denied...

I personally like doing things on my own if I really want to get it done, because when I want something done RIGHT I do it on my own.

Another bad reason to force kids to work in a team is: What about those introverts? My introverted friend that really has more going on in his head than out of his mouth is in this class and I don't think he likes anyone in that class (truly likes, that is).


Is it fair to force students to work in a team?

When you get out into the real world, you will find yourself in many situations where it will be necessary to communicate, cooperate and/or collaborate with people you would rather have nothing to do with. That's life, and school is only trying to prepare you for that.

 

[Î Î¿Î»Ï Ï€Î­ÏÏ‡Ï‰Î½ Γʹ]

Plus teachers generally know when one member is carrying the rest and don't punish the hard worker for the slacking of the rest.

That's not always true. There have been times where I've even gotten a lower grade than a slacker that I had to work with for "failing to communicate" with my partner.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Plus teachers generally know when one member is carrying the rest and don't punish the hard worker for the slacking of the rest.

My Biology 2 grade in high school was lowered by full leter grade because the teacher picked one persons paper to be graded for the whole group, and if the person she picked was too busy socializing to fill the paper out then oh well.

 

[painted wolf]

Perhaps that's a difference between college and high school. Or an example of a bad teacher... either way...

Part of learning to work as a group is learning to get people to pull their own weight.

The real world won't care about why something didn't get done right.

wa:do

 

[UTK007]

As a student, I hated group projects. However, as an adult I find myself continually participating in "group project"-like environments, and, looking back, those projects in school were good practice.

 

[MatthiasGould]

I detested and still detest any form of group work. I find social interaction with people quite difficult and my communication skills, even though my level of language is quite high, are really quite poor. I struggle to function within groups and the level of my work suffers as a result.

 

[MatthiasGould]

I sometimes have trouble working with groups that don't share the same enthusiasm or sense of urgency. Back in college we'd often have to work in groups. It bothered me that people would schedule meetings for say, 10AM Saturday but there'd always be one member who had partied the night before and couldn't make it as a result. They'd arrive an hour late, then mess around for another hour. By then, it would be lunchtime and they'd go to lunch until 2PM, come back and goof off for another hour. So by the time we finally got started, it was 3PM.

It really annoyed me, especially if I had plans later that weekend.

I used to have this problem in university, especially as the main 'going-out' night was Thursday and my study group was 10.30am Friday morning.

 

[Musty]

I didn't like group work at University because I often felt like other members of the group weren't putting enough work into it. I'm also rather blunt (But not rude) in my criticism of other peoples errors which tends to rub people up the wrong way (I accept criticism with no problem).

In the workplace I've found things to be much worse with the added complication that other peoples mistakes and laziness can have a much greater impact than losing a few marks on a group assignment. Sometimes it feels like all I do some days is fix other peoples mistakes and the negative impact which peoples mistakes have on my companies reputation with it's customers can be difficult to undo.

An important lesson to learn from forced group work is people management. First try and help people to improve their performance to an acceptable level. If that doesn't work get rid of them. Far too many organisations fail to properly manage their staff performance.

Carrying dead weight benefits nobody. That said I can't imagine many teacher would accept you kicking someone out of your group for being crap.

 

[Wherenextcolumbus]

The best thing about team work is a)not having to do everything yourself
b)benefiting from other people's ideas
I think there is a lot you can learn from working in a team I have some tips:

You do need the confidence to be able to contribute and share ideas. You said your friend lacks this, but there is a way around it. They can write every idea down before meetings and then share by reading them out. Mutual respect and encouragement will help everyone be open about sharing ideas.
Assigning tasks- being honest about strengths and weaknesses is important. Assign tasks based on individuals strength and skills. Being honest about needing help. Becoming dependent on other people is a problem but there needs to be room for helping each other complete tasks.
I found that what made teamwork a failure at school was the lack of organisation. Deadlines need to be set for each task so everyone is motivated to do there part and will also spur on quick development. When there is nothing to aim for or look forward to and there isn't any structure or progress people become lazy and lost. Regular meetings is essential but make it a same place same time type thing, have too many meetings or irregular meetings risks things not getting done.
Communication-very important that everyone is updated on what's going on and what everyone is doing in the team. Other wise people will become isolated from each other which will cause all sorts of problems when trying to put the work together.

Also if someone is generally being an ******* you always have the teacher to go to for help.

 

[Koldo]

Most tasks i had to do in school that required me to have a partner were rather simple to do it by myself. So that's what i did most of the time, and simply presented the results as being created by the group.

 

[Infinitum]

I'm a very introvert person, which shows when I need to work in a group. Even if everything is going fine I get easily stressed just by the social aspect of it. I just started on a group project that's supposed to go on until May, so I'll have plenty of time to try to improve in that.

I don't think teachers should let teenagers pick their own groups, exactly for the reasons already mentioned in the thread. If you work with your closest friends you don't get much done. If you're picked last into someone else's group you feel left outside and don't feel comfortable working with them. I knew I would have trouble with group work since I didn't know anyone in the class, so I told that to the teachers in good time before the groups were formed. The teacher held a very convincing speech about the benefit of working with people you don't know from before and asked everyone who didn't know people from before. A girl spoke up and said she didn't know anyone and would take anyone into hers, where I quickly responded we're a pair from then on. She turned out to be a extremely nice person, who's promised to make sure the rest of our group is working. So not all groups are horrible, it just takes some effort to find one. I really think teachers should also put more effort into it, knowing how the vast majority of teachers do it.

 

[MatthiasGould]

I'm a very introvert person, which shows when I need to work in a group. Even if everything is going fine I get easily stressed just by the social aspect of it. I just started on a group project that's supposed to go on until May, so I'll have plenty of time to try to improve in that.

I don't think teachers should let teenagers pick their own groups, exactly for the reasons already mentioned in the thread. If you work with your closest friends you don't get much done. If you're picked last into someone else's group you feel left outside and don't feel comfortable working with them. I knew I would have trouble with group work since I didn't know anyone in the class, so I told that to the teachers in good time before the groups were formed. The teacher held a very convincing speech about the benefit of working with people you don't know from before and asked everyone who didn't know people from before. A girl spoke up and said she didn't know anyone and would take anyone into hers, where I quickly responded we're a pair from then on. She turned out to be a extremely nice person, who's promised to make sure the rest of our group is working. So not all groups are horrible, it just takes some effort to find one. I really think teachers should also put more effort into it, knowing how the vast majority of teachers do it.

This wouldn't work with someone like me. I find social situations like group working at school intensely stressful even where I know the other members of the group, as was the case in my small school. I just don't deal with other people very well on a social level, and especially not when we're supposed to be doing some work or project. I'd rather do it myself and know that whatever grade I get is entirely my own result and not dependant on whether my partner can be bothered to pull their own weight.

 

[Alex_G]

I know this sounds a bit different, because usually when a teacher tells me to find a partner I always look at my friend... "" and we'd just fool around and care less about the grades (always fun).

Today, though, the teacher told us to work in a team, we got to pick our teams, but this project actually interested me, and I know for sure my friends wouldn't do it the way I'd like it to be done, so I asked the teacher if I could work independently and she denied...

I personally like doing things on my own if I really want to get it done, because when I want something done RIGHT I do it on my own.

Another bad reason to force kids to work in a team is: What about those introverts? My introverted friend that really has more going on in his head than out of his mouth is in this class and I don't think he likes anyone in that class (truly likes, that is).


Is it fair to force students to work in a team?

Yes and no really. Its fair in the sense any aspect of your schooling is 'forced' or mandatory, and also in terms of justification, it does help hone your abilities to work with people, see how you perform, how others perform, identifying different skillsets for different tasks and so on, these are for the most part useful skills to have in the real world, and if school is there for anything, preparing you for the real world is one of them.

However, i must say 'group work' has been way over used, not just in school but in the real word too. There is no good evidence to show that group work will do a better job than the best individual in that group would by him/herself. 'Groupwork' has become a sort of buzzword, something that's 'done' simply because its fashionable, or for some vague feeling that it should be done. Most of my experience of group work and from what ive researched shows that the loudest people get their way, shy and introverted people dont get anything out of it, and due to social pressures, many ideas and proposals go unmentioned, because people are worried about looking silly for example.
Much better would be have a project individually tackled by every member on his/her own regarding ideas, plans of action etc. Then all of that work can be collated and the group can democratically decide together on which aspects they think are good and what they will run with.

 

[Infinitum]

This wouldn't work with someone like me. I find social situations like group working at school intensely stressful even where I know the other members of the group, as was the case in my small school. I just don't deal with other people very well on a social level, and especially not when we're supposed to be doing some work or project. I'd rather do it myself and know that whatever grade I get is entirely my own result and not dependant on whether my partner can be bothered to pull their own weight.

It's not easy for me either. Yesterday I was supposed to show up for group work, but the stress got so intense I stayed at home instead. We worked over Google Docs with lets you edit the same document at the same time as someone else and I got a lot more done that way (although my stress levels went through the roof nonetheless). However for people who aren't extremely introvert things should work just fine.

 

[JamesYaqub]

I know this sounds a bit different, because usually when a teacher tells me to find a partner I always look at my friend... "" and we'd just fool around and care less about the grades (always fun).

Today, though, the teacher told us to work in a team, we got to pick our teams, but this project actually interested me, and I know for sure my friends wouldn't do it the way I'd like it to be done, so I asked the teacher if I could work independently and she denied...

I personally like doing things on my own if I really want to get it done, because when I want something done RIGHT I do it on my own.

Another bad reason to force kids to work in a team is: What about those introverts? My introverted friend that really has more going on in his head than out of his mouth is in this class and I don't think he likes anyone in that class (truly likes, that is).


Is it fair to force students to work in a team?

Kids have a great need to learn self discipline. Having to work with others of all types is a good way to accomplish that goal or at least to identity road blocks.

 

[Titanic]

The world is not fair man. Just tough it out, that's what I did.

 

[InChrist]

While it is important to learn to work together with others at times, I think being required to constantly work in groups can stifle unique individual creativity. Taken to the extreme constant group activity can result in peer pressure or a "group think" mentality which can be manipulated by the one leading the group(s).

 

[The Sum of Awe]

What if a student has social anxiety