In college everyone obviously has very different schedules and a lot of different activities they are involved in that take up time outside of class. Having a group project sometimes can cause a lot of stress with everyone having open time slots at different points during the day. It is possible to make it work though! One great way to keep in contact with your group is through a thread on facebook, because let's face it- everyone has a facebook and probably checks it more often than their actual email address. Also you may just need to meet with your group even if one or two people can't come. Its really not a big deal if that happens because the work will get done whether or not that extra person is there or not. Then the next time you plan to meet, make sure that the person who couldn't come last time is able to come. As long as everyone comes to a majority of the meetings you will always be able to get a lot of work done, and really sometimes its more productive to have smaller groups meet to work on the project because too many people can just get in the way if there are only small things to get done.
It is extremely important to make a schedule and a list of what each person is responsible for and when they need to have it done by. If no one knows what they need to work on outside of the group meetings than one of two things will happen- either nothing will get done at all or one person will end up doing the entire project which is not fair. Having set jobs for people were ensure that everything that needs to get done for the project will happen in a timely manner. Although roup projects may be stressful, you can definately accomplish everything that needs to happen to finish them as long as you are organized and stick to your plan.
This post is so true...funny, usually group projects are so difficult to coordinate schedules and agree about ideas, but our project seems to be going so smoothly! Probably because of our facebook thread :)
ReplyDeleteI generally do not like group projects because there is usually the feel that certain people do more work then others. I like your suggestions because they are ways to keep everyone involved (Facebook, specific responsibilities, etc). As someone who recently missed a group meeting I love the suggestion that the person who missed should definitely make it to the next meeting. It is tough when working with a group because everyone's schedules do not always match up, but everyone likely wants the group to succeed and so everyone should make an effort to be at meetings and communicate as much as they can.
ReplyDeleteI cannot tell you how many times my friends have complained to me this semester about group projects. While we can't deny that it is difficult to find a time to meet that suits everyone's schedule, I feel like one of the biggest problems encountered in student projects is that not everyone makes an equal contribution. Another thing that always irritated me about group projects is that sometimes everyone has completely different ideas about where they see the project going. Sometimes the old saying "if you want something done right, do it yourself" really does stand true. Procrastinators are also pretty annoying.
ReplyDeleteHowever, our group is clearly awesome, because we've managed to not have to deal with any of these problems. Just sayin' :)
hahahaha I wonder what ever inspired you to write this lovely post! I totally agree with all the excellent points you brought up. Especially about communication and ways to accomplish it. Communication is crucial to a group assignment (which I think our group definitely has!!!) =)
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