When it comes to school, I am not a fan of being in a group that is not of my choosing. I have high standards for the quality of work I want my name associated with and the work ethic and ability to reach those standards. In previous lab classes, I was expected to collect data with a partner (of my choosing) but submit my own analysis. For my current biology lab, we were all assigned to groups of five then submit a single group report where we all receive the same mark. There are several problems with this scenario:
- I am the only person in the entire class who has taken a university-level science lab. It is very easy for the people in my group to want to jump right into the experiment without considering what we should be should be trying to find. With four people in the group, it is hard to keep track that everyone is performing their part correctly. As I said to my lab instructor, their data collection is a little "willy-nilly" for my liking. C'mon people, remember the scientific method!
- For the final report, "good enough" is not good enough. We submit our analysis at the end of lab and I feel like the some of the group member want to get the work done as quickly as possible to get out early.
- Not understanding what is truly important for the class. When working on a big group presentation, some of the group members were more worried about how we were going to dress and slide transitions. Yes making a good impression is important but fulfilling the requirements of the assignment is more so. I get the impression that more than one members of the group charmed their way through most classes.
- We have a group member who quit. Normally this wouldn't matter but it just so happened when he quit was the only week we have work to do outside of lab time. Each group has a presentation on a different eco-zone in Saskatchewan, the guy knew when we were meeting together and what he was supposed to work on and he just stops coming to class. We've sent multiple emails with no reply. One group member's attitude was "Oh well, let's not do that part." Another was "We can let him present his part if he shows up the day of the presentation." Neither are an option. I don't care if a group member quits, there is no excuse for incomplete work especially when there is enough time to complete it. Also, there is no way I am letting anyone take credit for work they had no part of.
- Guess who always does more work than anyone else? It is not fair but necessary if I want to be happy with the final product. Week to week everyone in the group gets the same mark but at least for the presentation we mark our group members' efforts.
Sorry this was so ranty and long. I can't sleep and have nothing better to do than rage on.
3 comments:
I totally understand your frustration! and I blame at least part of my drive to do the most work in order to make sure it's done properly on my oldest child syndrome... ;)
Do you work for the mark or to learn stuff? Can you do the entire lab yourself? What do you care about the rest of them.
And life is full of assigned lab partners. They are called the idiots you work with, usually. They will be recognized, promoted and paid for your hard work. All you can hope to do is out live the bastards.
I work to understand the concept that in turn should be reflected in my mark. I'm not allowed to do the work by myself because there are not enough materials.
Today was a classic example of my biggest complaint:
Our lab runs from 9-12 but we are allowed to leave when we are done. Today we had to identify the genus and class of several species. Around 11, one of the group members starts guessing the answers because he wants to leave. He figures by guess we bound to get some right but what's the point of our mark if we don't know how to classify. We had enough time to do the work, he just didn't want to do it.
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