jmcquown wrote:

Awwww, you have my sympathy. I worked with a guy attending the U of M in
Memphis and a number of his classes had that "team approach" crap. There
were always only one or two people, him being one of them, who did any of
the real work. And he also worked full time and was raising 2 kids. It's a
stupid way to assign classwork in any setting except perhaps Kindergarten.

I disagree with your last statement. I do agree with what you said prior to
that, about it always ending up being one or two people who shoulder most
of the work for the group. I had that experience in college, too - being
one of the people who shouldered more than my share!

But I think that people do need to learn to work in teams, especially if
they're studying for a field where people work in teams all the time on the
job.

The problem isn't the concept of team work, it's that most instructors who
assign team projects don't know how to grade people fairly. They don't know
how to set up projects so that all the individuals within each team are
accountable for doing their part. It's not necessarily the instructors'
fault, either - maybe this is just an underdeveloped aspect of teaching.
Or maybe most teachers don't have the time it would take, to meet with the
teams regularly as the projects develop, find out and then track what each
individual is contributing, and grade each student accordingly. I'm saying
this because I don't want to dump on teachers - some teachers are bad, of
course, but many do the best they can, and a lot can still fall through the
cracks.

In my computer science classes where I had team projects (most of the big,
final projects were team efforts), the instructor would just have everyone
form their own teams, give the assignment, and then not discuss it with the
students (or the teams) individually until it was time to hand in the work.
The teams would then all get the same grade, allowing coasters to get the
same grade as the people who worked hard. In the real world, a manager would
know what each person on their team is doing and hold each individual
accountable for their part in the whole. Why shouldn't classes be taught
in the same way?

Joyce