What the hell is the point of group projects in school?

No doubt that I do some group project ever day as well. With that being said, I have little faith that US schools do a very good job of teaching collaboration.

ban group projects now! wrote:

My teacher makes every f*cking assignment and activity into a group project. Every one. For no reason. 99% of our time is spent coordinating the group instead of actually accomplishing or learning anything. I can understand if it's a business class and the purpose of the assignment is to teach you to collaborate, but when he the subject being studied has nothing to do with collaboration, why do stupid fcking teachers make things into group projects? Just to be as nutty and irrational as possible?

Just tell your teacher you turned your group project into a group circle jerk. I bet she wouldn't give you any more group projects after that.

113 wrote:

I do some sort of "group project" literally every single day of my career. Most of the people I know are in similar situations. Coordinating and cooperating with people is difficult, but it can also be rewarding. Regardless, it's an integral element of the 21st century workplace. It would be very strange to undergo 12 years of education without being exposed to this fundamental aspect of work and social interaction.

^

This

Less work for the teacher. If you have a class of 30, would you rather grade 30 assignments or 10? Also it allows them to waste class time by forcing you to get into your groups to talk about it.

Great post. It's clear you take your job seriously and are good at it. I hope you pat yourself on the back today. Keep up the good work. Very inspiring.

Today's youth have almost no interpersonal skills. So much time is spent online that actually talking to another human or working together are nearly foreign concepts. Throw 10 high school kids into a room with no directions given and every one will pull out a phone and text someone else, not talk to the person next to them. It's sad and disturbing. Kudos to those teachers who are making are utes learn how to work together and be functioning members of society.

113 wrote:

I do some sort of "group project" literally every single day of my career. Most of the people I know are in similar situations. Coordinating and cooperating with people is difficult, but it can also be rewarding. Regardless, it's an integral element of the 21st century workplace. It would be very strange to undergo 12 years of education without being exposed to this fundamental aspect of work and social interaction.

This.

Ultimately, the technical skills and academic facts/theory you lean in school are going to be ubiquitous within your discipline. Unless you are a legitimate genius, the main thing that will set you apart as a young professional is your ability to coordinate groups and communicate effectively.

Everyone in my field has a basic K-College education. Not everyone in my field can organize all the moving pieces of a complex closing that involves contractors, architects, equity providers, lenders, and multiple attorneys. If I tell an employer that I learned to use Excel in college and that I am a good financial modeler, he's going to say "Great. I have 120 applications from people who can say the same thing." If I tell an employer that I have the proven management skills necessary to close a deal, he's going to ask me when I can start.

If you don't learn to work well within a group atmosphere while you're in school, you aren't going to be effective in most professions.

To the OP:

I used to feel the same way as you when I was in school. As others have pointed out, with very few exceptions work is about group projects.

So, don't just get used to it. Get good at it.

If you simply "hate it", remember that there are plenty of folks who hate learning the multiplication tables or hate learning how to write. That doesn't make it a good idea to avoid learning these things.

ban group projects now! wrote:

My teacher makes every f*cking assignment and activity into a group project. Every one. For no reason. 99% of our time is spent coordinating the group instead of actually accomplishing or learning anything. I can understand if it's a business class and the purpose of the assignment is to teach you to collaborate, but when he the subject being studied has nothing to do with collaboration, why do stupid fcking teachers make things into group projects? Just to be as nutty and irrational as possible?

Sounds just like the corporate world. Meetings about meetings, etc...

Pretty much any job you'll ever have will require you to work with others, often under non-optimal circumstances. Anyone can work with a bunch of smart driven people, but that isn't the real world.

I hated group projects in school. Had a very dim view of them.

But the reality is that they effectively prep you for life in corporate America where you'll be collaborating with dumbsh**s on a daily basis.

math teacher/weed smoker wrote:

Obviously the teacher needs to take an active role in creating, planning, and implementing the group work. When done well, it works. I don't give a lot of home work, but on group work days I have my students take a survey for home work and design questions to give me the most revealing feedback. Adjusting based on that feedback is crucial. I think feedback is essential to creating effective group work, so if the teacher isn't taking feedback, something is wrong. To students who don't like group work, be honest but constructive with your feedback.

This was a good post and I found in my classes that group work was beneficial because I worked hard to make it that way. Here's the thing, to the people who think group work is simply putting all the work on the smart kids while the others toil away, those teachers are doing it wrong. Unfortunately, there are a lot of teachers who do group work wrong because it's an easy way to make time pass. The teachers who take an active role in creating, planning, and implementing the group work, like math teacher/weed smoker wrote, tend to have very successful experiences with group work. It took me a few years as a teacher to master that. Teachers should still be focused on the individual growth of each student during group work, and a lot of times that's not the case. Group work itself is not a problem. The implementation by many teachers is.

If you can't work with a group you are destined to be unsuccessful. I define success as making more money than you can ever spend.

When you collaborate on a project at work, the time is set aside to do this.

Group projects in college were so frustrating because everyone had a different schedule, especially at the commuter school i attended. Instructors should know this.

sbeefyk1 wrote:

If you can't work with a group you are destined to be unsuccessful. I define success as making more money than you can ever spend.

Then nobody can ever be successful, group work excellence or no group work excellence.

To reduce the amount of time the teacher spends grading and reviewing said project

One of the best things about group projects is you have to work with people that are not of your choosing - just like life. A friend of mine had an engineering class at Cornell where the professor put all the control freaks in one group and made them work together.

How ironic! That is life. Sounds like Pringle failed the group project. Indeed, you need to work together on things, people are forgetting how to do that. You can be a lone wolf as a plumber.

Group projects suck, I hated them, but in life you realize working together is one of the most valuable tools you will ever attain. Public or private sector-great skill. And probably will decide the fate of all of us in the near future. Individualism will ultimately take us all down before wrecking the environment.

ie suck it up.

They are less work for the teacher. That’s 90% of it