Group presentations in school/work....

[Cindy B]

Love them or hate them.?


In class, we have been in groups (professor selected) and we have an hour or longer to discuss a certain literary element.. with one being a recorder for the group, and each member of the group having a turn to speak. The whole group is graded on the skills of the presenter, so the presenter has to have an excellent grasp of the information.


Today, was the presentation day (these are a little like pop quizzes!).. We spent the time discussing and writing down the notes... and the speaker went up...

And DID NOT CITE THE NOTES! She had it in front of her, and made up stuff... The professor doesn't mind that we read from the notes (since we are doing it in class-- and the notes do need to be turned in!)... The group member was getting names wrong, setting wrong, conflict confused... ARGGHHH!


The other members of the group do have a chance to "help out " if they flounder... so of course I did..

 

[Saffron]

I HATE it! Absolutely hate it!

I often ask if we can opt out of group work. I'm turned down about 95% of the time.

I can't figure out which is worse: being in a group with a bunch of people who want the project to go their way (I'm one of them ), or being in a group where you pretty much single handedly do all the work.

I just hate it.

I had what happened to you, happen in a speech class. I worked for two weeks on a project that no one else seemed to care about. When it came time to present, one young woman wanted to do the presentation. She used information from an unreliable site that she looked up minutes before class. She completely ignored any effort her group mates had put into the project. I was so mad! I had to remain silent through the presentation, but debunked her junk during the Q&A session, which then made me look agressive or out of touch with the group/presentation.

Because our school promotes the idea of group work for students in the elementary classroom, our professors want us to do the majority of our work in groups. Ridiculous!

 

[Steve H.]

Until I started MBA school, I would have said I hate them, but I was lucky and found a group of some good people and have done most of my group projects with them. At this point, we know each other so well that we barely have to even meet to put together a group paper or presentation -- we just divy up the work and meet once or twice to finalize it.

 

[Cindy B]

Steve-- the MBA students I knew loved thier groups.. They knew the students wanted to be there, and gave their all during presentations, and not just WING IT!

Unfortunately this is only undergrad, so I have many 19-20 year olds that don't really care. (Some of which are in my group!) I have a few serious students in my group, so that does help.

I just hate seeing someone flounder around.. and getting graded on her ineptness.

 

[Talking Hands]

I hate group projects. There is always at least one person who doesn't carry their weight. I try to get a group of older students that are in school because they want to be and not the young kids that are there because Mom and Dad expect them to be there.
We have a second problem in that our students are all commuters and live as far north as West Palm Beach and as far south as the Florida Keys. Makes group work difficult. Most of it gets done via email and the internet.

 

[browneyes]

I can only remember 1 group project like that. And I loved it. Our group leader was SOOOOOOOOO OCD, she'd never let herself not do everything perfectly.

 

[Steve H.]

Originally posted by Cindy B
Steve-- the MBA students I knew loved thier groups.. They knew the students wanted to be there, and gave their all during presentations, and not just WING IT!

Unfortunately this is only undergrad, so I have many 19-20 year olds that don't really care. (Some of which are in my group!) I have a few serious students in my group, so that does help.

I just hate seeing someone flounder around.. and getting graded on her ineptness.

If your professor is good, he/she'll recognize a weak performer on a group and grade individuals in the group differently, so you're not penalized for a bad group member or two. If not, then talk to the professor about a group member not pulling their weight.

The good thing about group projects (which undergrads might not realize yet) is that it's very much similar to "the real world". Most of us will have to deal with group projects in work from time to time, and there's always difficult group members, slackers, bossy people, etc. -- just like on a group project in school.

 

[Cindy B]

Originally posted by Steve H.

The good thing about group projects (which undergrads might not realize yet) is that it's very much similar to "the real world". Most of us will have to deal with group projects in work from time to time, and there's always difficult group members, slackers, bossy people, etc. -- just like on a group project in school.

That is so true! There are always the slackers, and other categories in the work place.

During the Q & A for our group last night, I did bring up answers when the professor was questioning the presenter. I was able to "resusictate" her, by giving answers. Unfortunately, she is young, and has an urban feel to her.. a lot of her presentation was slang, and "y'know", and "all that", and the ultimate worse one.. "My bad!"

 

[Rajah]

Unless sections of the project are specifically assigned and you aren't graded based on someone else's work (or, more often, lack thereof), then I HATE HATEHATEHATEHATE them.

At work it's not quite so bad, because usually (here anyway) you do have specific parts of the whole and the manager knows who's doing which part.

 

[Pin Wizard]

HATE IT!!