Thursday, October 16, 2008
Opinion Piece - I hate group work!
The common denominator amongst all my teachers throughout my school career has been their obsession with the idea of group work and the ‘fact’ that when you get to university you are on your own. From my poodle-looking grade four teacher to my Mrs Trunchball-resembling Matric English teacher they all believed this idea, breathed this idea and brainwashed us with this idea. Their intention had been to scare us into working because if we couldn’t work well in a group then how could we possibly expect to survive university- working all on our own. However, they never knew that this made us want university work so much more. Except for the slackers, we all hated group work. Many of us still do. Well I particularly hate it, no despise it! And when I find myself doing group work in university I wonder how many other lies I was fed.
Knowing that this is an opinion that my friends and I feel strongly about, I decided that it would be the perfect opinion for my opinion piece. However when I went in search of fellow Journalism students who could back up my claim I found none who would back me up on paper. More accurately I could not find someone who had blogged about their hate of group work. I tried to coerce my friends into specifically blogging about this topic for my benefit but none would budge. Are you beginning to understand why group work does not work? People are unhelpful unless it’s for themselves and apparently splitting marks amongst the group does not count – it’s all or nothing. This is the society we live in.
This might explain why I am totally unsatisfied with receiving a shiny 52% for group work in the place of a mark, at least 10% higher that says Catherine’s personal work. When one is desperately trying to attain a much-wanted place in the Journalism two class, marks matter. This is my main objective and the reason that I strive for high marks. However another reason that some of my friends hate group work is the monetary value that firsts mean. When your parents are struggling to put you through university and you have pressure from home to get firsts in order to decrease your fees it is very frustrating to be put in a group with a spoilt-brat who actually doesn’t care whether they pass or not.
Some lecturers feel that this problem can be overcome by allowing students to self-select their groups. Now imagine that your best friend is a slacker but you are not. In this situation it causes tension to not choose to be in each other’s group but at the end of the assignment you are left feeling unsatisfied to be sharing your well-earned marks. This is bad but worse still is when you are not allowed to choose your own group. This is when you find yourself in the situation that my friend, a fellow Journalism student found herself in. She was so carefully chosen by her tutor to be in the same group as another male student in her tut. They would make a great combination, with some other students, to do the group work assignment of creating your own blog. Well let’s just say that it’s bad to have to share tuts with a guy who you lost your virginity to on one drunken night. However, it is horrible to have to work in the same group as him and to upload your photo comic late at night in the same room as the same gentleman who tore your heart out and now acts so coolly as if nothing happened.
There were some tension-filled moments with my friends when they had declined my request for them to blog about their hate of group work. It dawned on me however that the whole blog is a charming group work assignment and we can all read each other’s posts. It was beginning to make sense. I won’t blog about hating group work on my blog because I don’t want my group members to think that I don’t like working with them. Wait I guess it’s too late because I suppose that my opinion piece will be uploaded on my group’s blog for the world to see. Well, I do have some back up, it may not be from my fellow students but someone shares my opinion. I found a blog that shared my sentiments, but better yet, they give some tips on how to cope should you be so lucky to be assigned group work. Here it is, http://www.teachandlearn.ca/blog/2006/11/22/students-reflect-on-group-work/ and http://experienceyork.appsol.yorku.ca/wordpress/2007/04/02%E2%80%99s-5-group-work-pointers/.
Posted by Tough LOve at 2:11 PM