The last half of this semester I have had three group projects, two in one class and one in another. The last of my projects is getting emailed to the professor for that class today.
I have never liked group projects. They bring out two personality types that would otherwise have much less of an impact on others. One type is the slacker and the other is the control freak. I am the most bothered when I become the slacker or the control freak for the project.
In the class where I had one project due I was more of a control freak. I picked up more than my share of the responsibilities largely because I felt the most comfortable taking on the responsibilities myself. In my other class, I have been the slacker of the group. This is because everyone else seems to have a clearer understanding of what the professor is looking for in the projects. A good chunk of the content I have contributed has already been edited away, so that diminishes my motivation to provide much more content than is required for me to count as a contributor. As of late I have taken the role of editing for grammar, spelling, and punctuation, since I know that no one can disagree with me about my contributions there.
It doesn't escape me that being overly passive or overly aggressive in a group project is a bad thing. Groups should be structured to encourage the greatest quantity and quality input from each person involved. I care about this less now than I did a few weeks ago, though. Right now I just want the semester to be over.
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3 comments:
I am sure you did great. I am also glad that you are done at least for a couple of weeks.
I was never the "control freak". Usually I would just go with the flow.
You forgot the person who has all the ideas (somewhat the control freak) but who doesn't do ANY of the work.
I am probably more often the controller or do everything person...just lately I've tried waiting until someone else steps up, so maybe I'm changing roles.
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