“I-quit illustration” by Fritz at hikingartist.com

The Fall semester started this week and a common thread appeared. In my first class, Databases and Information Systems, the professor went over a slide showing the breakdown of how each student would be graded. “30% of your grade will be dependent upon a group project,” he said. “If you do not like working in a group, this class probably isn’t for you.” This made me wonder if there was another databases course that didn’t require a group project. The answer, of course, is NO. The professors of my other two classes declared the same thing - almost a third of my grade will be tied to the success (or failure) of a group project.

The Push For Working in Groups

Currently, there is a giant push to teach people how to collaborate with others. In some cases, people are forced to work together because there are many benefits. By working in a group, a teammate can learn a great deal from their peers. They can accomplish bigger tasks in a group. And they will be more tolerant of diversity because they will all be working towards a common goal! Some companies have traded cubicles and offices for the open floor plan. No longer can someone hide behind cheap temporary walls - they must see and talk to the people around them!

The education industry also recognized the importance and benefits of learning to work with others. From an early age, students are placed into groups to complete some task together. Sometimes, it works very well. If a child does not understand a concept, their peer of the same age will use a different vocabulary set than the adult teacher to explain it to them. However, some children will not fair well in groups as social pressures make interacting with others awkward. Nonetheless, educators see this as good practice for the real world when students may need to work with others they do not know or like.

As a former high school English teacher, I pushed students into collaborating with each other for all sorts of writing projects, book reports, and end-of-unit assessments. Some groups did exceptionally well! Others were total disasters. I had done everything by the book (actually, by the books…there are tons of books out there on how to successfully design group projects and get students motivated and ready to work together), but no matter what I did, there would always be at least one group in peril.

The Collaboration Fallacy

Groups inevitably fall into a few categories:

• The Rockstars - Everyone in the group is equally motivated to complete the assignment and do it well. They innately know how to communicate with each other (usually because they are all friends already). Everyone knows how to do their part, and what they produce is top-notch!
• The Average Joes - Most people in the group are motivated to complete the assignment and want to do well. Their expectations are lower than the Rockstars. Some members may not fully know what to do or how to do it, so they contribute whatever they can that fits the bill. It’s usually pretty good, but not great.
• The Unbalanced Act - This group has a mix of people at horribly different skill sets and/or levels of motivation. There will inevitably be one person who wants to get the task done and ends up shouldering much of the work. This person may or may not be qualified to do that work. Others in the group may either not know what to do or how to complete their piece of the project. Their work may be abhorrent, forcing others in the group to re-do it. There may yet be other members who contribute nothing, either due to lack of motivation or simply being unqualified. Their more knowledgeable teammates don’t have the time or patience to teach them, so they just do that person’s work for them because it’s just easier.

Needless to say, I’ve fallen into the Unbalanced Act group too many times. I’ve been the zealous leader who does everything, the worker who slapped things together (which wasn’t good enough by another teammate’s standards), and I’ve been the one who contributed nothing because a zealous teammate didn’t want to teach me. They wanted it done “right” or “right away” and just completed my part, in some cases, doing it without telling me while I struggled to try to do it myself.

All of the benefits of collaboration have rarely occurred for me in school/college projects. I didn’t learn from my peers. Either I knew the most out of anyone in the group or my peers knew more, but didn’t have time to teach me what I needed to learn. “We” accomplished big tasks, but it was usually the work of one person, maybe two, in a group of four. I suppose it could be said that one person can accomplish a big task after all! And being more tolerant of others? Ha! If anything, working in a group teaches intolerance and resentment, unless the group falls into the Rockstar category with almost no diversity at all.

Group Project Dynamics Are Different in Industry

Group projects should be optional in educational settings. I consider grades to be the equivalent of a worker’s salary. Unlike the workplace, where one’s salary is generally not tied to the success of a project, a student’s grade (a representation of how much and how well that individual learned something) is tied to the success of the project.

Educators rarely want to deal with the problems that arise in groups. Part of learning to work with others is how to deal with these problems. Most educators see group strife as a “clash of personalities” rather than a clash of skill-sets and make groups work it out on their own. Sure, there are slackers. But many times, the people who can’t do their part simply don’t know how to do it and deadlines never allow that person to catch up and learn. Yet, once the educator knows the name of the “poor group member,” their grade will inevitably be negatively affected, even if their poor performance was due to lack of knowledge, the very thing the educator could have alleviated!

In the workplace, that same person would not see their pay reduced because they weren’t able to contribute to a project. Rarely would it lead to being fired. Most employers prefer remediataion - “Oh, you don’t know how to do that? Let me help you…” It is in the best interest of an employer to help their employees because they have already invested in them for the long-term. Educators, however, see students for a year or a semester, making it more difficult to provide the same support as an employer would to their employee.

Individual Projects Should Be An Option

If someone wants to work in a group, by all means, go ahead! But for those who wish to be graded on their own merit, who don’t want to fall into The Unbalanced Act groups, why not have a separate but equally challenging individual project? It doesn’t make them any less able to collaborate with others later when they’re in the workplace. Group projects are simply not a fair assessment of an individual’s abilities. They do not have all the benefits of those collaborative projects completed out in industry. Providing an alternative project that can be done independently allows students who know they learn best on their own to actually learn something, instead of possibly becoming a problem group member.