Group Projects and Presentations

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How do people deal with these? I have had to participate in group projects through work and now again in university.
At work individuals got evaluated as a group and individually.

However, for university, so far, the group gets evaluated as a whole, so if the group does poorly because others did not do their share of work on the project
others in the group run a risk of ending up with their overall mark lowering. This is not fair to us that actually do the work.

Group projects were horrible for me this past year. Others would turn it into a social affair and spend more time talking about their night out getting drunk then on the project.
They wouldn't get what they had to present for the group done and in many cases whole presentations were changed last minute, which gave me no time to prepare
for what I had to say.

The last project I was on everyone picked what part they would speak on. However, nobody was doing anything to prepare for it,
so I completed the whole project, set-up the presentation part (power-point) and sent it to everyone. They all agreed that they liked the layout and how it was worded.
We all said we would practise our parts and meet-up a couple days before the actual presentation and do a couple runs of the presentation to check timing.
Only one other person showed up, so we did it together.

In the end, only two of us were prepared and could answer questions from the lecturer and other students about the presentation.
I hate public speaking and put a lot of work practising for it, why cant others
But because of the other students lack of prep we all got marked horribly.

How do others deal with presentations and group work?


Staff

I wasn't sure where to put this, because group projects happen in work and school I didn't want to limit it to just one of those areas. If there is a better area please move it.

That were some bad groups. I've had problems with group work and presentations, but they were mainly related to my utter lack of social skills when I was put into a group of unknowns.

I've found that girls are generally more serious than boys in group work because they take studying more seriously (at least they do here). Try to find the most serious people and team up with them. This is generally helped by the fact that the least social people are the most serious and thus the most likely to be available for you. Try to find a good group and stick to it.

In a toxic group like you described, you might ask your professor to be placed in another group. In the given example, you and the other student who could answer questions (or the student who showed up for the preparation) could've complained about the others to the professor. There's no excuse for this kind of crap.

In extreme circumstances, you can ask the professor if you could do the work by yourself.

It's perfectly fair. Otherwise it would not be a Group Project. If the advanced knowledge of one person bringing the team down can be firmly lodged in each others heads, you'll be forced to work together as a team. The point of team/group projects (most of the time) is to improve participants "group thinking" or, plainly speaking, social skills. The 'unfairness' lies within the participants.

I'm always picked last and end up doing everything myself. It seems I'm too nice to deprive the other members of their credit. Fortunately the group work I've done so far hasn't included any presentations; that would be a nightmare.

VOMIT PUKE RUN HIDE CRY HATE GROSS YUCK.

That's really all I can say about them.

I usually just take charge and give people small tasks to do.

Err, yeah, that's not how it works in reality. If you're in a bad group, you spend your time doing stuff while the others just do nothing. That is not an inherent flaw of group work, but it is an inherent flaw of people, and you can't have group work without other people.

I really hate group work, much like hale_bopp, especially when I don't know who I'll be doing it with. But I must admit that I probably would never have developed the friendships I did at university. I met them all through group work.

I wish it was just one group. I am doing a joint honours programme, both have group projects the first two years. I was in 6 group projects this year alone.
I know part of it is a lack of social skills and my personality. Plus the fact that I am way older then most of the students and not from here.

However, I did, or so I had thought, team up with the more serious students and 5 of the groups were all female. Big mistake there.
I also think it has to do with the fact that at the beginning of the year we were all told that first year does not count towards our degrees. As long as we passed each module we would move along to the next year. In the groups there can be a mixture of counselling, psychology and education students because of the joint degree programme here. I was the only one in the seminar groups that wants to become a Psychologist, I love research.

One of the last group projects I was in was for psychology, the other students all planned on becoming counsellors.
A couple days before spring/Easter (not sure which it was, maybe a combo of both) break I had to remove myself from the group
and unfortunately report to the profs what the others were doing with the project. I hated to have to do it, but considering what they were doing with it, I could and would not
risk my education and my ability to say here if the actions of two members came down on all of us in the group. Before I went to the prof I met with the one other student that did
not know what was going on and informed them. They could not believe that the others were doing what they had told me. So we had an emergency group meeting, the others admitted it
and I told them there that I was removing myself from the group and would need to explain to the profs why. The other student wanted me to reconsider and see if we could salvage what had been done.
I took him aside and explained what I though could be the consequences due to the other members actions to him. Then I went and spoke to the profs. Then all hell broke loose and shortly after he withdrew as well, after speaking to the profs and explaining their side of it. The other two did not speak to the profs and went away for the holidays. Disciplinary actions were taken after they returned after the break.

I cannot have stuff like this happen this coming year, because it counts towards my degree and because it stresses me out way to much. Which can cause meltdowns, I don't need that either.



I should have mentioned that we also have to fill in project log reports, saying what we each did, when and how long it took us. As well as what individual is doing what for the project. These alone could help to assist in giving an individual mark and how a participant responds to the Q&A section of the presentation. Instead students are left having to feel the need to 'police' other students, this alone does not help 'group bonding'.



I have another year of them to do and maybe even in 3rd year. Thank you for being so visual in your thoughts on it.

*Side chat, hi your another one I recall from back when I was first here and active*



That worked for me in the past, but this past year it didn't. I felt like I was having to 'police' individuals and it wasn't getting done.



Oh that ain't happening, not so far. Maybe it will happen in a round about way, when I go postal on the next group, since I imagine chain gangs develop close relationships.

gahh.. sorry this one ended up so long

I don't get it, if you are giving them small tasks...ok, then give them meaningless but seemingly meaningful tasks.

Group projects = social interaction =

Group projects= the rest of the group socializes while I do all the work =

Then when it comes to Q&A for the presentation and you are one of the few that can answer the questions properly and the others cause the over all group mark to go down, what then?

I was always the student out without a group to be in.

Then you tell them what to say.

I really think you handled this very well, though I understand the amounts of stress related to this. I've often just ignored the crappier group members because I don't want to go through that kind of hassle.

The main advantage you're going to have next year is that everyone else will be more serious as well. The first year of uni is generally the least serious, and the weak are weeded out more each and every year, while everyone matures.



*giggles*

In my first group work at uni, we would do the homework together (that was basically all there was to it). We would spend inordinate amounts of time on it. In one of our afternoons, we disagreed quite vehemently on the correct answer. The other two people in my group pushed through their opinion despite my stubbornness. I turned out to be right. To this day, we remind each other of that (but we all think it's kind of funny. It's probably very good I didn't get actually angry there, though).

If it was just group work and no presentations it might be easier. But the presentations are hell. I need to be extremely prepared for them due to my learning differences.



Not here, you would be in a group, no way around it unless you have a damn good reason not to be in one.



It is not that simple, I wish it was. Each person in the group will be asked questions about the presentation topic, by any of the students, the lecturer/prof and any other individual that may be there to observe and evaluate. You might be able to tell the other members what to say during the presentation, but during Q&A there is no way of knowing how they will respond to the question.


Thank you, but I really had no choice but to do it that way.. what they were doing was way beyond simple stupidity. Near the end of the year many were weeding themselves out, switching to a single degree and other such ways.



Oh I haven't even got close to being angry... I really do not want to go postal.
I did receive a couple emails from members, once the marks came out with comments, apologising for not listening to me and their behaviour and hope that we could try to do projects together again this coming year. Haha.. yea right.. I will be very picky this coming year about group projects, as I can't have other individuals performance affect me.