Group Assignments

Hello all, I am wanting to ask about how you all feel about completing group assignments in a distance learning class. I personally do not like them. I found this out when I tried taking an online biology class through the University of Maryland, College Park. Maybe it is me being a crying baby, but the instructor was a nuts. In a 10 week class he wanted us to do 10 individual papers (one a week) and then ten group assignments (one each week). So all together, we had 20 assignments due in 10 weeks. Let me tell you all, these papers were a minimum of 4 pages and maximum of 6 pages (not including a bibliography) in both the individual and group assignments. However there is more, the individual papers were 25% of our grade while the group assignments were another 25% percent (50% total for both the individual and group assignments together). All this work and it was only 50% of our grade. The other half of our grade was a final exam which was about 3 hours long. To boot, an I am not joking, we were going through a CHAPTER A DAY of reading material in biology. We were expected retain this information for taking the final exam. I dropped out of this class and am looking elsewhere for another program. I went to Moutain State Universities website and found their Master's degree program in interdisciplinary studies:
http://www.mountainstate.edu/majors/onlinecatalogs/graduate/programs/IDS.aspx.
This mentioned program is a self-designed major. I asked the director of this program if major in biology/life sciences can be designed. I was told it was possible. All I basically want to do is copy the curriculum from University of Maryland, College Park's
Master of Life Science program and apply it to Mountain State University. I know the program at the University of Maryland is not meant for one to become a professional biologist. It is meant to increase one's knowledge for biology as it is meant for school teachers. I am wanting to use this knowledge to increase my understanding of human health and biology as it relates to public health education. Anyhow, I dont like depending on other individuals (i.e. group projects) when my grade is on the line. This why I liked Mountain State University's program. No group projects and a slower pace to learn the material. Maybe I am a big wuss, but I dont want a master's degree in a discipline if I am going to learn very little (that is if i graduated from the program). I mean a chapter a day in the natural sciences? One is not going to retain a lot of information folks. I just like to work alone without all the group projects and studies (another reason for leaving the university of maryland). I like to earn my grades individually pass or fail. I know not all distance learning group projects are not this extreme at all universities. I feel the professor I had expected a little too much. Anyhow, have any of you had bad experiences with group projects via distance learning?

 

Hi Robert,

I completed my MBA through Baker College Online and I had only one class that required group work. Personally, I did not like it either.

There were only about 12 students in the entire class and the instructor divided us into 3 groups of 4. The problem arose because we were required to do a research paper as a team which is quite a challenge through distance. Also, all 4 of us had different writing styles and so that caused a bit of conflict, finally in the end, everyone was afraid to edit anyone's writing. It was not fun at all. It think group work is good in a classroom setting, but online, it is hard.

UOP I believe has every class a group project. I knew someone who was in the master's program and she complained often of "lazy team members" which I am sure would really hinder the entire process. In my group, we had 4 very enthusiastic team members and so we had so much information in the end, putting it together in a paper was a challenge.

 

Yuck!

I cannot imagine being in an online class that requires this type of learning experience. For that matter, I wouldn't like it if it were a B&M experience either. Maybe that's why I resumed my I.T. studies instead of continuing my education in the counseling field. Being too wrapped up with other people is way far out of my comfort zone.

 

In the online courses I teach, we don't have group work. Sometimes I wish we did, others I'm thankful we don't.

Putting online group work in context with my other experiences with group work as a student and teacher:

When I taught in Japan, group work went very well, because students had had many years of experience and they had internalized the high value the culture places on group cooperation.

When I've been part of a group, say in developing and grading entrance exams, training played an important part in the group's success.

Teaching in the US, I found that self-selecting groups did better than assigned groups, and voluntary groups did better than prescribed groups.

In my own study groups, I've learned a great deal from my peers, but I've also found that dealing with a single person unwilling to curb individuality for the sake of the group's success could consume more of the group's time and energy than the rest of the project.

I'd hazard a guess that many of the predictors of success may be absent in a lot of online group work:

Many of the students may have little experience or appreciation of group work. There may be little or no training ahead of time. The groups may be arbitrarily assigned. Those working together may not know each other beforehand. And distance learning may attract students who prefer to play a lone hand.

Here is a good little article comparing successful and unsuccessful working groups:


How to Design Small Decision Making Groups

http://www.intuitor.com/statistics/SmallGroups.html

Bill

 

Group projects are an evil form of academic communism. It steals from those rich in brainpower and redistributes to the lazy free rider type that lets George do it. Group projects should be abolished!

 

Sadly, my experience in the corporate world is that "teamwork" usually is some collectivist form inflicted upon the poor sods expected to do the work. The actual workers carry the rest until comes the Randian shrug and the business goes down the crapper.

 

Although I tend to agree With you Ted! The reality is that groups are more and more common place in the corporate world. I was recently saw a Jack Welch at Fairfield Univeristy who of course was trying to peddle his new book. In any case he was asked about graduate education and his response was that at GE they were estonished to find that the only top B-school that had group work where the students also evaluated each other was Tuck(Dartmouth College).

I do have group work in my current classes and I honestly would perfer not to. I don't mind it as much as I thought I would! Then again so far(knock on wood) I have been on some excellent teams!

 

Agree 110%. Terrible, wretched things that prove nothing about one's own ability to handle a topic!

But maybe that is the liberterian coming out in me!

 

DL makes group projects particularly rough, but I fully support them in computer science education. When most real-life projects are group, why not teach them the same way?

That said, they can be a pain. My worst one was a 7-member group, with one member based in Saudi Arabia, making virtual meetings very difficult to arrange. To make matters worse, we had one member who had the perfectionist mentality, so meetings tended to last twice as long as they should have. But you know what? This models real life. You need to learn to deal with difficult situations and difficult personalities. Learning to be efficient in meetings is a good skill to have.

 

Group Work

Yes indeed.

I remember doing group projects in some of my undergraduate courses. As always...there were the "doers" and the "slackers." Work accomplished or the quality of the work was usually a result of a select few as opposed to the whole.

 

For what it's worth, group projects were what drove my wife away from UOP in a "run don't walk" fashion. Of the five classes she took, EVERY one of them fell into the group dynamic of "2 doers, 3 free riders", regardless of class composition and without intervention or concern by the Professor.

When she would complain, she was told "if you don't like it, transfer". When she did just that (B&M school in San Antonio, Univ. of the Incarnate Word), UOP hounded her for months to come back, regardless of instructions to stop calling.

Anyone else have such overwhelmingly negative experiences with this school?

 

I have varying experiences with group assignments. At UoP, we had our "International Group" (named because I was the only local person in the group and five out of seven people were born in other countries). We did pretty well - although three of us picked up the slack most of the time - and one team member was only marginal. Still - we made some lifelong friendships and got along pretty good. I think I learned more from the group than I did with the instructors. Another good thing about our UoP group was that if you were not good in one area, other group members would take on that task. Programming has never been my bag - and luckily we had a great dB programmer in our group which took on that task.

At CSUDH, I am in two groups right now. One is fantastic. Assignments are done by mid-week so we actually have a weekend to ourselves. The other group - blows chunks. The one time I waited for a response without taking the initiative, the other two answered "what are we going to do" on Saturday morning. I choose to take the initiative on other assignments. Two I finished myself because I didn't wish to wait.

Personally - I don't give a rats crap how busy anyone is. I work 60 hours a week plus commute time in my own job - have a wife and family to take care of. Concerts to attend with my son and daughter - etc. Still, I took on school and that is also a priority. If you can't get your stuff done, then please drop out of the program (no excuses).

That is my experiences with groups - again, very mixed,.

 

Group Work

I think the group work in schools and college doesn't do that much to help people prepare for group work "in the real world." I'd love to do a study on people who have worked together like this all throughout school, and a group that never does any group work in school, and see how they all "adjust" to team work on a real job. I'll bet there would be little difference in either case.

Of course, I don't have much evidence to back this up, but I know back in the 70's we didn't do much group work in high school. My brothers never went to college and yet, somehow, some way, they all make a decent living and some of them have to do "team work" on the job and one is a manager of a "team." All five of them work in very modern settings and they have adjusted to the technology requirements and team work expectations.

The truth is, people learn what is expected in the "real job" when they are on the job. Some may not work well with the team, but I doubt forcing them into group work in school or college (especially online college) would have helped improve this situation. It is an idea society now pushes, that "sounds good" but I don't think there is much evidence that it is such a good thing.

As an online instructor myself, whenever possible, I avoid giving any group projects (I don't always have a choice in this).

I did have to work with a study team in my Master's program. It worked out fairly well because I worked with the same team (two men that taught the same high school subjects that I did) throughout the entire program. I could get them to do their parts, but I did more work than either of them because I wanted to be the leader so I could make sure everything was done and done right. We were supposed to be a "live" group but we lived two hours away from each other and got special permission to work together over the Internet instead of in a live setting. Still, we did meet up "live" several times. This situation was far better than a typical "online group" where you put students together that don't know each other and have them do an assignment together. In my program, I think group participation was about 10% of the grade.

I would "run" from any program that places a high percentage of the grade on group work. It isn't fair and it is not a good learning experience. In real life, sometimes slackers get away with benefiting from other's work but more often, it doesn't last forever. Either they get fired, or their team members will somehow get the slacker off their team. It is just different when you are getting paid, versus working toward earning college credits.

I get a little tired of people saying, "This is what people must do in real life." It is not. I don't care whether your profession is teaching or computer science or anything in between, whatever you learned in college, you found out "how it really works" when you were on the job.

I say down with group work in online courses!

 

Robert: I had similar experiences at IU - Kelley with group learning. Previously I took two classes online within their MS – Strategic Management program. The majority of the work was group based. My teams were made up of Fortune 100 company sponsored fresh out of undergraduate school students. I am an entrepreneur in my mid 40s and own a small company. We collaborated late at night, after midnight, and weekends.

Eventually I decided to make a school change even though IU - Kelley is so highly thought of. The crazy hours required by the team approach was creating problems at home and the office. In addition, it was very hard to measure my performance in a team environment.

I think that IU – Kelley offers a very good distance program, it just wasn’t a good fit for me. Eventually I transferred my two courses to the Regis University distance MBA program. So far the work is individual based and is better suited for my schedule and learning style. I am now halfway through the program and will graduate in August of 2006. -Kevin

 

Tschneider, if I may ask, as a Baker College MBA holder, what are your thoughts on the program? I'm toying with the idea of the Computer Information Systems – Master of Business Administration program. Thanks!

 

Yes, working in groups are a part of "real life", however I do not like having my GPA riding (partially) on others. I would like to determine my own fate thank you very much!

I agree with Ted - Down with Group coursework!

- Tom

 

Yikes!

The Bio course sounds like an absolute nightmare! What kind of a sadist was running THAT show?

Although, come to think of it, sometimes an accelerated version of a regular term can have that kind of madcap pace.

 

Of couse, and this is a frequent complaint about UoP so it's not like they don't know the problem exists. Certainly sounds like a policy based strictly on $$$$$, with the professors likely being told not to intervene. In your 2:3 ratio, if UoP flunks the slackers they lose 3 tuitions. If they give all five equal credit for the work even though only 2 are doing the bulk of it then UoP gets 5 tuitions.


Best wishes to your wife in her new college,
Kit

 

Yep, just like many companies who allow piggy-backing, its a college's way of trying to acclimate you to the concept of leeches.
Instead of colleges kicking out the bums they want to show you how everything can transcend your personal ideas and contributions to the point of either giving you a B on a paper; or with a company, a pocket knike at christmas time! Its your copy/patent rights along with your free agent status they want to abolish. Screw'em give you ideas free of charge to the competion, if need be before surrendering!