Imagine being assigned a group assignment. As you and your group begin to work, you realize that there are many complications that make it difficult for your group to create an exemplary project. You try all you can to keep the project afloat, but when your grades come back, you get a C. This grade will drag down your final grade for the quarter. Teachers should assign less group projects because uncooperative members can negatively affect the remaining group members; it limits the creativity of individual students, and keeps students from experiencing the full lesson of the project. Group projects can negativity affect individual members of a group because uncooperative members can bring down the whole group. These members leave the majority of the work to the other students. This is unfair because they get credit for the work they did not do. In addition, these unhelpful members can cause tension in the group as the rest of the group can become frustrated. The tension will distract students from the project. Furthermore, these students slow down the progress of the group, which can lead to them not completing the project in the given time. For example, while working on a group project, a group member put off doing their part off their part until the night before it was due. Their action had a harmful effect on our score which …show more content…
This keeps students from fully experiencing and learning everything about the entire process of the project. Furthermore, when responsibilities are divided, each member often gets assigned to something they can do well thus not challenging themselves. If it was not a group project, they would be forced to complete the whole project themselves, including the parts that challenge them. In addition, this will allow teachers to evaluate what area a student needs to improve on. All in all, individual projects are more challenging when compared to group
The general purpose is to engage the students with a provided curriculum and play time for the children. Between these sessions includes various breaks where the students have time for breakfast, and lunch. The agenda is a way to better engage and develop the students through early education. The teachers plan the schedule catered to certain needs of the children, such as speech, behavioral, and psychological thoughts.
Normally in a group, the work will be divided into the number of members in the group and may be arranged to each of the members to receive the part where they are more confident and have more knowledge of it. In addition, if a member is confused with their work, he can receive assistance from his teammates rather than just being alone and figure it himself independently. However, I believe sometimes been in a group can have its cons. A common pitfall associated with working as a group is disagreement about the way something is being done, a particular issue, or an opinion. Sometimes one member might have his own beliefs and want to perform a task in their way and conflict can arise from this. Once conflict arises, the members can discuss their own opinions and might arrive to a solution, but this can cause a member to not show their full potential because something was not done the way they wanted. I believe this is very common but if you are open minded, it can be overcome for the sake of the team to be
Groupthink is the psychological phenomenon in which groups working on a task think along the same lines which could have drastic results. It is the result of group polarization where discussions are enhance or exaggerate the initial leanings of the group. Therefore, if a group leans towards risky situation at the beginning of the discussion on average they will move toward an even riskier position. (Marks, 2015). The idea when everyone think the same no one is really thinking. The drastic outcomes result from people trying to avoid conflict with one another, being highly cohesive, and results is questionable decision making (Oliver, 2013). Houghton Mifflin publication of Victims of Groupthink: A Psychological Study of Foreign-Policy Decisions
The group should come up with a list of tasks that need to be completed to lead to project completion. Assign tasks amongst the group, with this idea in mind: tasks are one thing that can be done by one person, not a major responsibility or series of tasks that complete a goal. The tasks should be completed by everyone, then put together into a whole to meet the goal.
If you are studying together it is very helpful, and you will get a lot done. Also, with a group mind, if you are doing a project for work/school there is always somebody there to look over your work, just in case you mess up. Then, if you are doing a project with some a lot of calculations, having a group is very helpful. In case you mess up or just do not see a mistake you made on a calculation and correct it, so you do not have to get some points taken off for getting it wrong. There are pros and cons to this subject matter, but I think the cons outweigh the pros.
One project-based assessment is assigned about once a month to students, but do they realize that they include benefits that will help them in the future? Most kids think that it's just for pleasure or to improve their teamwork, but they don't acknowledge that it shows them responsibility and how to critically think. "Project-based learning increases long-term retention, improves problem-solving and collaboration skills, and improves students' attitudes towards learning."-Strobel 2009. Surprisingly, these projects help introduce children to the upcoming tasks of college. Once high school graduates move on to college, they will already know how to be a responsible student who takes all tasks seriously. For example, a teacher could assign a
A team project is for a select few of people to work together as a whole. No one should be left out. Everyone should give their input their project. When working together everyone should be committed. If a group have a group project about health advocacy. One group member may do the history of health advocacy, another member may do their research on education programs, and others may find what organizations offer conferences, workshops, and other opportunities to promote health advocacy. It is fine to break up the work load, but not just one or two
When working on a group project, there are certain skills that are required to make sure that the tasks are being carried out smoothly. With that in mind, it is critical to keep an open line of communication as well as an understanding of the other individuals in the group. The following scenario is of a group project I was a part of that had a breakdown in the two points expressed above.
Many people are for the use of group projects while others are against the use of group projects. I am personally for the use of group projects because members can evenly divide the work between each group member, it strengths the student’s communication skills, and students can help each other out.
To avoid isolated pairing of group members, many studies suggest that an odd number of group members is ideal for group functionality. Most studies show that the ideal number for group members is 5. In a study conducted by Hackman and Vidmar (1970), they asked groups ranging in size from 2-7 members to evaluate the group process and performance on various tasks assigned. Few people thought that seven was too large; few thought two was too small. However, where both lines crossed, the ideal group size averaged to be about 4.6 members, keeping in mind that size is not the only factor in a groups’ success. Sensitivity, understanding, leadership, cooperation, and mutual effort are also important to gain success in a group project.
Projects can be completed individually or as a group and assesses academic learning goals, how well students work together cooperatively, and individual accountability.
Working together with other people for an assignment can be a challenging task in some cases but luckily, I worked well with my group members. The decisions we made were anonymous although we paced ourselves individually when it came to completing our separate parts of the essay. As a group I believe that we connected well on an interpersonal level as all four of us were able to make alterations to any problem together . Furthermore, we did not give each other a chance to get angry at one another as we knew that this would only cause conflict that would disrupt our flow as a group. There was an equal divide in the amount of work that we all did; our contributions were fair and no one was lacking behind. In addition, my group members were great at keeping each other informed if one of us were not able to attend a group meeting; emails were sent out informing us what we missed and ideas that were formulated. Everyone in my group worked according to deadlines and in synchronization with each other; we did not have to nag anyone to complete work or wait on a member to complete their task.
When group members contribute to the decision-making process, it is more likely that they bear a stronger sense of accountability and commitment as they know that they are fully aware of their assigned team roles. This reduces unrealiablity of individual deicions as individuals are solely responsible for the decisions that they make, be it good or bad. Moreover, imput from a larger number of people are generally less biased therefore group decisions are usually less opinated and impartial.
Robert and David Johnson, two publish authors and faculty members at the College of Education for the University of Minnesota, stated that when working in groups, there are three ways students will interact with the rest of their team; they can compete to see who is “best” in the group, they can not pay attention to other students and work individually, or they can cooperatively work with the rest of the team while having an interest in the other’s learning styles. Some children become dependent on the work ethic of the other students, causing a decline in the student’s motivation and responsibility to do his or her own work. When grouping multiple students together to perform a shared assignment, more advanced students can take over the majority of the project for the sake of ease and speed. However, this action does not help those struggling to learn and can lead to students relying on others to complete their own work. This outcome can overall diminish their effort in the classroom. Resulting back to the inaccurate individual assessments, sometimes all members receive the same credit despite their unequal efforts, which can cause students to be behind because of the false evaluations. This act clearly can have a negative impact for the students relying on others to do his or her work. Advancing in a class after being credited for work he did not do individually will impact that student’s ability to complete similar assignments by himself in the
When students work in groups there may be some arguments about individual opinions and ideas. It is almost impossible for people to work in groups to always agree. In cooperative goal structures students may have problems agreeing on how to meet group goals (Johnson, 2003, p. 11). Not everyone thinks alike so this would be an obvious conflict that could arise, especially when everyone must agree unanimously since it is a group effort and the outcome represents everyone. Another disadvantage that I found in my research was when working in groups some may want to socialize or slack off more. Some students may do less because they know that others will cover their load because they don’t want to fail. This is called social loafing. Anderson suggest a way to eliminate this is, “to have total individual accountability which eliminates positive interdependence which is the basis of cooperative work” (Anderson, 2006, p. 7). Since cooperative learning structure has so many other benefits, I don’t think this is a viable