Group work doesn’t work
If you told me that God really wanted to make humans suffer so he created group projects, I would believe you in an instant.
Teachers at Southwest High School usually assign at least one group project per year in order to allow the class to work as a team and obtain social skills.
There have been multiple times where I’ve had to carry the group because everyone else was slacking off. Where I’ve had to lose sleep because I was too busy finishing my group’s unfinished work. The worry of if I don’t do it, no one else will.
According to edweek. org, students dislike group work because certain students don’t try as hard as others because they don’t care about their grade or they assume others will do the work for them.
This kind of thinking can cause other students to be unwilling to contribute to the project due to the unfairness.
Not only is the distribution of work unfair but I know from personal experience that it’s common for students to go off-topic.
I remember many times when a group project was assigned, the work was pushed aside in order to catch up on the newest scandal at SHS. Not only is going off-topic bad for the students but it’s hard for the teachers to keep track of what the class is doing and make sure they stay on task.
I think back to a time where I was put into a group with three other boys in my freshman English class. I had to write all the information and draw illustrations on a poster board with no help from the boys, who were messing around. I remember thinking it wasn’t fair for all of us to receive the same grade for my hard work.
In my physics class, whenever we have a project, if one person doesn’t turn in the project, everyone gets the same zero. It’s unfair for all of us to get the same grade because some of us put more work into it, it’s not fair to suffer because someone else did not put that much work into it.
Some may say that group projects in school are necessary for students because students can come together to enhance each other’s learning and collaborative skills.
Most often than not, group work ends up not working and being annoying not only for the students, but for the teachers as well.
Teachers should give students separate grades for their part of the group project. I feel like it would be better because people will feel more motivated to do their own part of the work because if there is only one grade per group, why work harder than the least-motivated student?