Every semester seems to have at least one. Offering minuscule learning opportunity for the hefty price of a lot of stress, the general theory of the group project is to encourage collaborative and social learning. Working against this theory is the pattern that most group assignments done at the post-secondary level end up stifling any opportunity for an individual to truly learn or gain insight into how to work with other people. Instead, this individual is left with new knowledge of the best collaborative social media websites, and is given intel on how to talk about a subject that one has minimal emotional attachment to.
Take a moment to think of all the great, long-lasting friendships you have gained from group projects. Frankly, I cannot think of any. Am I simply just a cold person? Probably. But, I maintain that the group project does not help this. Professors assign group projects as if they are giving every student a great opportunity to work with their peers, but this philosophy tends to only stand true when every person in that class has classmates who they socialize with in their personal life. Usually, the first flood of group project stress comes with the attempts at coordinating phone numbers and emails while in lecture. That initial stressful coordination sets the tone for haphazard attempts at collaborative learning.
Assuming that you are not an individual who simply avoids participating when forced into a group project, you probably will contribute something to the group project that is familiar to you. For example, I just finished a group project in which I contributed the written work for the assignment. I chose to contribute this aspect because I knew I could write something easily and quickly. I did not want to let my group down by trying something new and the stress of coordinating with other people did not encourage me to flex my academic muscles, especially when my portion of the project is reliant on my group members completing their contributions in a timely manner.
Unless you are fortunate enough to work on a project with a group of individuals who all live on campus, you most likely will resort to communicating via social media. This inevitably creates a disjointed project that might get a good grade, but definitely will not be the bearer of pride. The group project leaves each member with a distant feeling of ownership. This distance makes your group project go into the pile of information buried in the back of your brain consisting of useless homework assignments, and when you should be going into the dentist again.
With most job positions requiring an individual to be able to communicate ideas and work with other people, the group project should be playing a valuable role in a post-secondary school education. I propose a revolution in the execution of the group project in which collaborative learning can be focused on more within the classroom (or lecture hall) rather than impeding in the already busy life of the student.
This type of group project would abolish the horrid and cliché roles of one student being the “slacker” and the other student being the “leader”. Ownership to both the work being done and the collaborative relationships being formed would deepen with each class, and this would promote the appreciation for the different skills that each person has to offer by giving a less stressful, more consistent opportunity for the students to interact.