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As part of earning their career badges, my daughter’s troop participated in a discussion about how to prepare for the workplace. One of the topics the troop leader brought up was how doing school group projects can teach them how to work effectively in groups.
Wowee! These girls had nothing good to say about group projects.
“Since I’m the smart one, the other kids take advantage and let me do the work.”
“Johnny kept telling us he didn't have time to get together because he had ‘soccer practice’ or ‘family events’ on the weekend.” (She kept making the “air quotes” gestures with her hands.)
“Since the other kids wouldn't do the work, I had to do most of it. Well, I mean my mom had to do most of it.”
“I told the teacher about Sarah not doing her part, but it didn't help.”
“I didn't want to tell the teacher about the problems, because that would be snitching.”
“I kept telling her that she had to do her part, but she wouldn't listen.” (This after receiving advice to gently confront her recalcitrant classmate.)
I listened quietly to the animated comments of these fourth and fifth graders, and bit my tongue.
It has been argued that there are lessons about succeeding in the workplace to be learned from school group projects. However, as I grow older my focus increasingly becomes how best to use our limited time most efficiently. From that perspective, I would say spare my child the group projects in favor of more time spent on direct instruction of fundamental skills and content.
Additionally, these group projects often impart damaging lessons. Such as, don’t work so hard because you’ll not receive credit anyway. Or, let others (including mom) do your work. Or, the teacher doesn't care that the other kids are taking advantage of me. Or, these school assignments are a lot of BS so why should I care about them.
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32 comments:
Actually, they sound an awful lot like 'group projects' at work, except we're not kids, and Mom can't do it for us...
I have always hated group projects! I still remember the time in 5th grade (okay, I'm going to date myself here) when my advanced reading group had to do a filmstrip on Jonathon Livingston Seagull. Two boys hogged the production of the entire project, and then the teacher unfairly marked me down for lack of participation. Hello! I would have done more work if the other two hadn't monopolized the project. It is unrealistic to expect kids of that age (and shy ones at that) to be assertive and stand up to the kids with more clout and popularity.
Group projects are asinine.
When my fourth grader refused to work with another child on a group project, his teacher emailed me. He said, "C. is going to have to learn that in the real world he will need to learn to get along with others."
When I asked my son about his reluctance to work with this particular kid, he said the kid was lazy and talked all the time.
If you complain, you are being mean. I feel sorry for these kids having to be so PC all the time.
I agree with IG. I had a boss once who used to say "just do it" long beofore Nike. If you complained, then you weren't a team player. I stayed to finish the project and then I left.
Kids should be allowed to leave. That's the real world.
There are, arguably, two ways to form groups. One way is to mix abilities and the other is to seek homogeneous groupings. In the heterogeneous groups you get the worker-slug dichotomy. In the homogeneous grouping you get the breakfast club.
Both types have mechanisms at work that interfere with the workings of short term memory (which is not good at dealing with too many simultaneous things). Worker-slugs are all caught up in social conflict while the breakfast club is all caught up in socializing.
Maybe 1 in 5 will be a group where amazing interaction takes place. 4 in 5 are not doing the work! Presumably that magical 1 in 5 happenstance was the target of this particular silver bullet. Maybe in a classroom with a narrow standard deviation this can work.
I've experienced the 1 in 5 thing and it truly is magical but remained unconvinced that it's worth throwing 4 in 5 under the bus.
The key is the word 'working' in the phrase 'working in groups'. There are too many students who have decided that they can exert power by not working and consequently bring down someone else's grade and show blantant disrespect for the instructor. What happens as a result of this behavior in the real world of course depends on the relationship with the boss. There are plenty of nonproductive people who draw nice salaries.
My kid is lucky this year. The teachers are allowing the choice of working alone or in groups. The result is that the lazy and the violent are on their own. Last year my kid lost his A in one class because of a student who told everyone else that he was the best, took the materials home, and didn't show up again until the project was due...with only 30% done. The 30% 'earned' was split among all four...who were chastised because they didn't get the assigned partner's last name or phone number before he absconded. 'Course the teacher wasn't present before the due date either to help them resolve the problem.
I also want to add that in the real world, 1) people don't sit together and do the work, and 2)someone is in charge. You are told what to do and you go off and do your job. You have meetings to coordinate and discuss problems, but you don't do group work. Most importantly, someone has to be in charge. Paul's 1 in 5 success in grouping of equals may be wonderful when it works, but, as he says, you don't throw the rest under the bus.
A group of equals works best when the group is self-selected, but this is no guarantee. There are so many examples of company partnerships failing unless the two partners happen (usually not by design) to have their own area of expertise and control. My business started as a partnership, but it soon became quite clear that it would never last that way. I bought him out.
Schools have always had group projects. The problem is when this approach is used as the main vehicle of education. Kids have to learn how to work together, but a group of equals is not the common approach to solving problems in the real world. Schools apparently don't see the difference.
Perhaps that is why many teachers seem to fundamentally resent the role of the administration. Their resentment appears to be based on something more than a difference of views. It's a disagreement with the boss-worker model.
I noticed this problem with a comment our principal made to me. She said that she had discussions with some of the lower grade teachers and they were resisting the idea that some kids in our full-inclusion classrooms need more differentiation of material. (i.e. some kids are ready for so much more). My first thought was: "Who is in charge here?" This came up when we talked with her about why our son left the public schools after the first grade.
One school committee members said, upon hearing who our son's first grade teacher was, "She should have retired long ago." Again, who is in charge here? The people in charge have no control over the product. With a group of equals, no one wants to (or can) solve difficult problems, especially when it comes to direction, assumptions, and equality of work.
Apparently, many teachers can't understand the advantages of the boss-worker model. They don't even like it when it comes to the teacher-student relationship, even though the teacher has so much more knowledge, skills, and understanding. This is definitely not the real world model.
A project of equals is extremely uncommon in the real world, but this is how many educators view reality. They expect kids to figure out how to get it to work. The Girl Scouts figured it out, but not what the teachers expected.
Steve,
I disagree somewhat; in my experience a group of equals spells disaster, as everybody has a different vision of a project, and thinks they should be in charge. In my experience, successful projects are groups of specialists, each with a clearly defined set of responsibilities which he is accountable for. Responsibilities & accountability don't necessarily mean a clear chain of command, though they often walk hand-in-hand.
Regardless, it's clearly unreasonable to expect those two conditions in the case of school-aged children. Even if you could expect specialized skills/knowledge to emerge among kids who are still learning the fundamentals, and the leader has no power to hold anyone accountable for anything, and no experience in learning how to balance the skillsets of the team members. In the end, the 'leader' winds up being the smart kid who actually cares about his grade, and lets everybody else sign their names to his work in order to keep the peace.
Last, I can almost understand how academics wouldn't understand the dynamics of project teams in the real world, but don't these people watch reality television? Jeez. One season of Top Chef would teach them everything they ever needed to know about the subject.
"in my experience a group of equals spells disaster, as everybody has a different vision of a project, and thinks they should be in charge."
But I agree with this 100%. I will say, however, that I've run into many technical primma donnas who seem to be able to interfere with other peoples' areas of expertise. This usually happens in review meetings or technical walk-throughs. It takes a strong leader (who has the authority) to squash those bugs.
My wife is struggling with being a technical project leader without the administrative authority. She has to assign work, but she can't enforce it. Some of the other workers resent it because she is not higher on the organization chart. There are a lot of dynamics that go on and it always surprises me how many are willing to stab others in the back. Teachers are dreaming if they think that having kids work in groups will solve this problem. Most of the problem people could work well in groups if they wanted to. They just don't want to.
-- in my experience a group of equals spells disaster, as everybody has a different vision of a project, and thinks they should be in charge.
That is a disaster, but there's no excuse for it. Group projects work when a person or people spend time investing it creating a vision, and getting everyone else to buy into that vision. It's not easy, and it takes time. You water seeds and wait for them to grow. If you don't do that, of course they don't work. But it is simply not that hard to create a corporate culture that has few a**es at it--and if they aren't present, then there is really no problem.
This of course has nothing to do with group projects in school. Group projects in K-12 school aren't for group building skills. They are for socialization, because teachers think the kids should do things like this to have "fun" because learning should be "fun".
(Group projects in college are a different problem, with different goals in the first place.)
Having just come back from "Sports Orientation Night" at the BOYS SCHOOL C. will be attending in the fall, I have the answer.
The answer is:
BOYS SCHOOLS
Boys schools for boys.
Boys schools for girls.
You don't hear a WORD about "projects," "assessment," "enhancing," or "facilitating" at a BOYS SCHOOL.
That's not quite true.
I'm pretty sure the Athletic Director did use the term "enhance" at one point.
No man should use the term "enhance."
Or "assist."
Here in Irvington, with declining enrollments for as far as the eye can see, we are hiring an extra math teacher at the middle school & two lunchroom aides to allow teachers to "assist" students over lunch.
I wonder how many of the problems kids have with group projects is because teachers have been told to use group work, but have never been taught themselves about what to do about kids in the group project who refuse to do the work.
Catherine -- in sports, "assist" is a noun; it means something almost important as a goal.
in sports, "assist" is a noun
Good point!
It is NEVER a noun in K-12.
It is a verb.
In my town it means that families are responsible for student learning & achievement.
The teacher assists, facilitates, and enhances.
If the student fails to learn, the problem lies with the student and/or the family.
Tracy
Good question.
I need finally to nail down the research on...peer-teaching, I think it is.
I have absolutely seen that two kids working together can be fantastically productive.
However, that situation isn't a project. It's a study partnership.
I think I've mentioned that a friend of mine who subs in CA told me she used to get to jobs early because she was nervous. She'd allow herself time to read the lesson plan carefully.
Now she goes to subbing jobs & finds the entire week blocked out for "work on project."
The entry for Monday will say, "begin group project."
Then there is an arrow extending from Monday all the way through Friday with the words "work on project" over it.
Nice work if you can get it.
The other problem with projects is the massive amount of driving parents have to do.
Once again, homework is predicated on parents having money, cars, and good organizational abilities themselves.
That's something we haven't talked about!
There have been more than one occasion on which C's grades feel because my own organizational "skills" (the quotation marks are necessary) weren't up to the task of getting me through a book & him through middle school.
And we don't even have that many projects!!!
I must say: my own district is not insane with projects.
All except for some of the Spanish teachers. C. and his friends have spent hours of their lives creating shlocky menus and, once, a scotch taped paper "suitcase" filled with clothes in Spanish.
I also want to add that in the real world, 1) people don't sit together and do the work, and 2)someone is in charge.
THIS IS WHAT GETS TO ME!!!!
HOW MANY PROJECTS ARE EVER CREATED BY PEOPLE SITTING TOGETHER IN THE SAME ROOM FOR HOURS ON END????
Offhand, the only real-world group work I can think of is construction work (which includes set building in theater, etc.)
I've written my last 3 books as the 2nd author. By definition these books are group projects in the sense of partnered projects.
Even as the 2nd author, I spend the vast portion of my time working alone.
There are also just plain projects, not necessarily group projects that are inane. My daughter had to read Lord of the Flies for her English class. She actually enjoyed the book and got a lot out of it. The teacher gave the students a choice. They could select from a list of projects they could do, but if they didn't pick one, they had to take a test. Choices included designing a Lord of the Flies T-shirt that you would sell at a book fair. Others were more ludicrous than that. We found this assignment at the bottom of my daughter's back pack and thought perhaps she had forgotten to turn something in (not that we would have cried over it). My daughter said she hadn't forgotten. She opted to take the test rather than do any of the projects. "Don't you get it?" she told us. "The teacher sucks."
We get it.
It's not a project! It's "alternative assessment" for all those kids who can't pass tests.
Partially right anon. It's also a way of including subjective grading so one can select honors course members to include and exclude certain students. This produces a subset of students with low grades and high SAT/ACT scores.
>HOW MANY PROJECTS ARE EVER CREATED BY PEOPLE SITTING TOGETHER IN THE SAME ROOM FOR HOURS ON END????
Manufacturing. Some of the older non-automated industries utilize a great bit of teamwork to manage the line. Like school, the job responsibilities are defined and unlike school, training is required. I've seen some fantastic teamwork on lines I've been the process engineer on when the manager has been effective.
I'm reading a wonderful little book called The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch
http://download.srv.cs.cmu.edu/~pausch/
I'm a high school math teacher who hasn't, up to this point, seen much value in group projects, but the importance that he places on them in his classes and with research teams has really made me think and re-evaluate my ideas.
"...but the importance that he places on them in his classes and with research teams has really made me think and re-evaluate my ideas."
Yes, but we're talking about Carnegie Mellon students here. In his lecture he talks about their ETC 2-year master's program that is all project-based, because "they already have four years of reading books". Their undergrad project course also assumes that they have the skills to do something. Don't get me wrong. I think what they are doing is great - at that level. But when our high school talks about senior projects and portfolios, it just makes me want to puke. They have absolutely no clue. None whatsoever. They can't even begin to conceive of what goes on in the project course at Carnegie Mellon or any other top-level engineering college. They couldn't get it right even if they wanted to.
As a SIGGRAPH member for 32 years, and having well-worn copies of Newman and Sproull and Foley and van Dam on my shelf behind me, I really enjoyed his lecture. Notice that the top colleges are not the ones with the best PR. They are the ones with the best people doing the most work. The right people make all of the difference in the world.
I noticed that their project course continually mixed up the groups. At the end of each project, the students rated each other. This was published (and posted, apparently) in bar chart form. You didn't want to be the lowest bar on the chart.
When asked why he was so successful, he said to call him in his office at 10pm on any Friday night and he will tell them. It's a great lecture. Well worth the hour and a quarter.
By the way, I would be more impressed if their Alice project focused on algebra, rather than programming. My son can easily program his NXT robot. Math is a completely diferent beast, and much more important.
Speaking of CMU, you might be interested in reading this C-MITES
newsletter (page 1 lead article continues on p.5):
http://www.cmu.edu/cmites/pdfs/ns07.pdf
or several of the newsletters:
http://www.cmu.edu/cmites/news.html
Hypatia
Great links Hypatia!
However, from the first link:
"It’s relatively easy to make changes in a school program on an individual level. For example, a parent might ask for extra enrichment within the regular classroom. If the regular classroom teacher is willing to do the extra work, this is a simple option. It’s also fairly easy to move a student from one classroom to another to accelerate him or her in mathematics."
Easy? They only recently allowed this in our school, and that's only in the upper grades. It's also not quite that easy. You have to have some external source of testing results. For our son, we had th JH-CTY SCAT results and the ERB test results. He also had to take a test given by the school. But, just a couple of years ago, this would have been impossible.
I find it interesting that C-MITES, and many other TAG/GATE groups, do not get directly involved with advocacy. They give very good advice about how to approach schools, but they don't offer any help, even as a professional source. It's all up to parents to figure out how to navigate these waters. We know how difficult that can be.
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