working in groups: young students hate me

sstudent

I'm in the third (final) year of my course. It is a humanities course and a level 8 higher honors degree.

I am a good 4 years older than the others in the group. I had to take time out in between to pay for tuition fees. Now I'm back to finish and with a terrible group.

I take my work seriously, had 2:1s in first and second years.

5 out of 6 modules this year are 100% assessed on group work. So my degree depends on their participation.

One assessment was ruined by one girl who did no work and so I ended up stressed and stayed up all night doing her part, with her adding an inconsistent snippet at the end of the essay on the morning it had to be submitted. I was very annoyed with her and told her so, she became defensive and fought back at me saying I took control. She had nothing to give me in the first place!

There's another essay to be done and the students I'm grouped with have not got any idea what they're doing, but I feel I should keep my mouth shut as I am just fed up at this stage and can't wait for the year to be over.

I am finding group work incredibly difficult because these students do not care and/or are too concerned with themselves to care about the work at hand. I've taken to standing back and just letting this go

Are there any teachers/students on this site that might have some advice?

Fox McCloud

100% group work?! That doesnt sound very fair.. In group work I've found the stronger students tend to carry the weaker/lazier students so its really not a good overall assesment tool.

You have a few options, you could focus on being a good leader in the groups and getting everyone motivated and on side. May take alot of effort and work but leadership skills are invaluable so your winning at the end of the day.

You could take on the majority of the work yourself and go off and do the bulk of it... But then this risks someone ruining all your good work by throwing in your crap piece at the end and you get less marks. Its also very unfair that you would be essentially giving these guys your marks.

You could also have a chat with the lecturer about how the group work is going and how you find your academic ambition being held back by the students your working with. Then at least the lecturer will know to look out for your style of writing in the work and maybe take your extra work into consideration.

It really doesnt sound fair that after 3 years hard graft your hard work is diluted down to what is effectively the class average.

tenchi-fan

I worked in plenty of groups like that & sometimes I was blamed for not pulling my weight.

You should call a 15 minute group meeting. Have the project divided into 4 main topics you can each bull**** around, and ask people which piece they want to work on. If you have a feeling someone will let you down give them the easiest part to work on.

Everyone can go off on their own and email you their bit of the project. You could work on the intro and conclusion and the general flow overall.

A lot of people don't like the idea of splitting up a group project like that but I find it's the best way to get things done and as you have control over it at least you will be relatively happy with the end result even if it means you had to put in the most effort.

sstudent

hey again

I tried to take the leadership approach in the first project I mentioned and it was met with being called "controlling" by a lazy student who did not pull her weight in the first place. But I got her to admit in a chat that she had done no work , so I could show that to the lecturer.

In the second group now, one girl has decided to take an assertive approach by responding to my moving forward with the project, but she has shown in her ideas that she has not got a clue. She shows no understanding of the module aims and it is clear she has done no background research on the topic. It's rather frustrating that this is the second time this has happened, and worrying too that these people will graduate and boast a degree.

I think I might just drop a note by the lecturer in confidence at this stage, really.

daenerysstormborn3

I really feel for you. My poor boyfriend is in a similar situation in that there is a lot of group work involved in one of his classes this year and obviously they go towards his final mark. He has ended up on several occasions completing a whole assignment on his own.

He is a mature student and passing this course is really his last attempt as he won't be able to afford to do college again should this not work out. He was out of work for nearly 3 years before he went back to college.

He has had a word with his lecturer and his course coordinator but they have done nothing so far. He has heard that one of the guys on his "team" won't be coming back after Christmas and as horrible as it sounds he is delighted to be rid of him.

Good luck with your course, hope everything works out for you.

tenchi-fan

sstudent wrote: »

In the second group now, one girl has decided to take an assertive approach by responding to my moving forward with the project, but she has shown in her ideas that she has not got a clue. She shows no understanding of the module aims and it is clear she has done no background research on the topic.

You could let her think she is taking control, but at the team meeting say "actually I jotted down a few points".. if the rest of the team see you have some groundwork already done, and you suggest to the slackers that they take an easy part of the project and that you "don't mind doing" a larger bit, they will probably take your side because it means less work for them.

wylo

the group system is a joke, Ill put my hands up and say I was one of the lazy ones , but at least my group consisted 100% my mates who were equally as lazy, its far far worse if there is someone there who is trying to actually take it seriously (id be that person now lol). Id have respected that at the time.
We had a good mate who was seriously lazy but always 'vanished' around group project time, basically he was conveniently mates with these hard working college students who he sort of got on with, so he was always getting on their groups and doing nothing but getting the marks. The whole system is unfair.
Perhaps a system where when there is random people left they are assigned to groups of similar previous years results. Then again thatll never happen cause its acknowledging the problem,
Id contact the lecturer and ask to change groups, you're not friends with these people so therell be no love lost, they may be glad to see you gone as well so they can stick to their own "style",i.e. arsing around doing nothing until the night before and the panic kicks in.

I was in this situation for a minor module in uni at one stage. It was only in 2nd year and didn't mean that much to me, but I was getting 98-100 on all the assignments and the randomers in my group had no clue or interest. Any attempt at even arranging a time for us all to do the work together (had to be done together) was fobbed off. 4 of us in the group and on any given week only 1 of them would show up, sit there looking blank then leave again after I'd done it.
I didn't say anything to the lecturer which looking back now, I really should have done. I was furious at the time. We had to put "group a" or whatever on the assigments as well as the names of people in the groups, so I always made sure not to include the names of whomever hadn't shown up that week. Bit passive aggressive I suppose.

Anyway what I'm trying to say is, have a word with your lecturer about it.
Learning to work with difficult people is something you'll have to deal with in any professional situation after college as well so it might be a good opportunity to learn how to cope with that, and the lecturer might say that as well. Hopefully something can be resolved.

Emme

I agree, group work can be terrible. A lot of courses aimed at mature students and evening courses are heavily weighted in favour of group work. The argument for this is that you work in teams in the real world which is fair enough, but on the other hand it's a way for colleges to save themselves the hassle of teaching and it gives them less work to assess during the course.

Get people into groups and the strong people who might have more knowledge of the subject will pass information onto the weaker members in the process of carrying the group.

I did an honours degree at night and for 4 years worked in groups. 1st year was ok but the other 3 years were terrible, the groups didn't really get on and outside of college we'd barely speak to each other in the street. Once college finished I never spoke to any of them again. It was a business/IT course so a fair few of the class were self-serving business types or IT types who were very bright but worked best alone. Not a good mix.

In my experience lecturers, course directors etc. don't care. Unless the entire class is struggling (and even then that doesn't always make a difference) with the group scenario lecturers probably won't do anything.

Even so have a word with the course director and explain your concerns that so much of your degree depends on everyone else's participation. Explain that you had to take time out to earn your college fees and as such it's very important to you to get the degree. Your previous academic performance should back you up.

If you have a tutor try to get support from him or her, but if not you'll have to go it alone. Good luck.

Jenneke87

A friend of mine was in the same position. He delivered good work but his teammates were doing a terrible job. He notified the teacher and asked if their work could be jugded individually, which happend, resultin in him getting the grades he deserved. Maybe it's something you could do as well?

HavingCrack

Talk to your lecturer! It's the only way around this problem.

LilMrsDahamsta

A similar situation arose during my undergrad course, with several groups in the class having been stuck with one or more people who did nothing. In the end, those who were doing their bit went to the lecturer as a group, led by the class rep, and asked that the group submissions be accompanied by a detailed description of each student's input - including written work, and attending and contributing to group meetings. Each group member had to sign the description sheet as it was being handed in.

The introduction of the submission sheet actually solved most of the problem - once they could be identified most of the lazy people made a much better effort to contribute. Those who made little or no contribution failed the module, as the module aims included learning objectives regarding team work and they had clearly not complied with this.

sstudent

Hi all, thanks for the responses they are very very helpful.

I am going to try meet with this group and try to solve things as much as possible. I am so fed up and I'm sure my tone toward them shows this but I no longer care about what they think: they have so far shown very little ability to make an effort. I've worked in teams in the past, very successful teams in work and at college with my previous class before I left so I know that I am not entirely to blame here , as I had once thought.

I don't wish to let it slide. In the first project where the girl did nothing: I confronted her and she blamed me for being proactive and for taking control. I don't believe this will stand very long in any lecturer's eyes were it to be investigated.

I will see how it goes and if I don't see any good results after trying in a subtle way to direct them toward getting their part done, I might consider , as what one person has said here, to have everybody detail what they did in the project with the submission sheet and put the project in to the lecturer like that.

thanks again

LegacyUser

I had a group assignment last month. There were clear guidelines, which would have guaranteed a very high grade.

The groups were organised by the lecturers. My group consisted of three people who never showed up, one who wanted to ignore the prescribed format, three who followed him, and me.

We ended up with a decent enough mark, but it was still on the low side compared to most other groups in the class (for this assignment), and compared to all of our individual grades (in other assignments).

I would have happily done the entire assignment myself. I would gladly have taken control if the guideline ignoring gentleman hadn't been lucky enough to have his friends in the group to support him. The people who didn't show up did far less damage than the student who wouldn't play by the rules.

Younger or older, some people are idiots. I have no advice, really - just support and empathy.

Sleepy

My solution to this wasn't too popular with some of my classmates at the time but it got me the grades: I did most of the group projects in my undergrad course by myself.

The approach my group of friends took to our Post-Grad group work worked out better: 4 group projects involving the same group of 4. Each took their strongest subject and did that project for the group. Result: four 90% + projects.

parker kent

I had to do a lot of group work in my postgrad and I came to the conclusion they only work when people are divided up into "roles" as they would in a real life job situation. I had a disastrous Semester 1 which had the usual problems outlined above. The others in the group were friends and basically ignored any input from me. Learning my lesson, I was in a group the following semester with people who shared my vision on group projects.

Whilst we obviously had brainstorming sessions and shared ideas, we did manage to stick to the following system. So we divided ourselves into areas that we were strong at (the best writer focused on writing and editing the essay etc). For the sake of simplicity, I'll give a basic example of how we worked.

One person wrote the essay
Two people did the bulk of the research
One person chaired the meetings and oversaw everything i.e. Project Manager

OP if you could get your group members to agree to something like this, you could solve a few problems. You could get them all to do a "job" but still make sure that everything is still done properly.

If they don't play ball and start putting in more effort (whatever system you use to break up the work), then you have no choice but to speak to your lecturer/course director etc.

sstudent

Hi , thank you for the messages and the advice. I finally got the group together and told them that up until now it has been nearly impossible to make any progress with them. I said I wanted this to work for all our sakes.

It got them focused but they became very hostile with me, their emails became more and more snide and difficult to process. I really feel like I am the teacher here, or the tutor. They have now all pulled together but from the meeting we had earlier today there was a lot of "well we decided... we said on facebook that we'd..." etc.

It is very hard to deal with this type of situation. I don't even want to think about semester 2. I'm considering going to the chairperson to say that I cannot engage in group work any more, the age difference seems to be too huge in the group and that I would like to work alone for the semester.


Thanks again to everyone.

Fluorescence

The course co-ordinator probably won't allow you to work independently. Your group does sound ridiculously immature though, I feel your pain. Have a quiet word with your tutor or lecturer and ask to be transferred to another group.

parker kent

+1 to transferring to a different group

arsenallegend

ah the Younger students hating on the older students for wanting to pull their weight, its the only thing about college that really gets on my nerves a lot. A lot of people i asked on here i asked if that happens and they said it didn't but it has happened towards me and a few others in my class who are over 25.

As my tutor said to me about the younger students 18,19 to 21, is that its their first sense of freedom after the strictness of secordary school to do what they want and not be asked to do something. So they miss college and won't pull their weight on assignments and let the older students do it all. So what happened in my course is that five of the older students have done all the assignments together and in fact the younger students have complained about it .

HavingCrack

OP, why won't you just go to the lecturer?? I wish people would stop painting younger students as somehow 'discriminating' against older ones. You find lazy people in all walks of life. When I've been in college the two students I found impossible to get any work out of were 30 and 45 respectively.

Going to your lecturer and saying your group won't do any work is the only way to solve this problem.

parker kent

HavingCrack wrote: »

OP, why won't you just go to the lecturer?? I wish people would stop painting younger students as somehow 'discriminating' against older ones. You find lazy people in all walks of life. When I've been in college the two students I found impossible to get any work out of were 30 and 45 respectively.

Going to your lecturer and saying your group won't do any work is the only way to solve this problem.

I think that more often than not, mature students put in more work than "regular" students. I spent 5 years in college and that nearly always proved to be the case. I put in a reasonable amount of work but I still lagged behind many of the mature students. Of course there are exceptions, but I think people are speaking from that experience. It is far more likely for an 18, 19, 20 year old to be immature about doing coursework than somebody over 23.

Regardless, most people have advised the OP to talk to the lecturer if attempts to talk to the group fail. Doing group work is meant to test peoples abilities to work together, so running to the lecturer straight away would not be in the spirit of groupwork. But going to the lecturer after numerous efforts to change things is different.

On a sidenote, there should be greater attempts to formalize groupwork. People should learn to take on roles in groups. Too often it just becomes people dividing the word count up amongst the group members and getting weird copy and paste essays/projects. Which nearly always means an essay that is worse than a good essay done by one person. If people actually used each others strengths, then group work could be useful.

Wompa1

parker kent wrote: »

I think that more often than not, mature students put in more work than "regular" students. I spent 5 years in college and that nearly always proved to be the case

When I was in college our main project was group work. There were 2 mature students in the class. 1 who only submitted 4 pictures she had taken to be included in the project and even that was too late to be included, she also didn't show up for the presentation of the project. Her attendance was usually ok for the year but when it came to the project she really phoned it in.

Another project with the mature student ended up with him claiming he was doing all the work. Problem being this work he was doing was all done from his home while the rest of the group worked together in the college. He was a law onto himself, he even stole materials from another group from a previous year to include in his project and refused to change it when the group asked.

Group work in college isn't indicative of a real work scenario in my opinion and should not be the premise on one of the largest if not like in this case all of your marks

tenchi-fan

Wompa1 wrote: »

Group work in college isn't indicative of a real work scenario in my opinion and should not be the premise on one of the largest if not like in this case all of your marks

Course it shouldn't.. lecturers just think it's prestigious when their course is close to 100% continuous assessment.. they're just too lazy to grade individual projects.

parker kent

Wompa1 wrote: »

When I was in college our main project was group work. There were 2 mature students in the class. 1 who only submitted 4 pictures she had taken to be included in the project and even that was too late to be included, she also didn't show up for the presentation of the project. Her attendance was usually ok for the year but when it came to the project she really phoned it in.

Another project with the mature student ended up with him claiming he was doing all the work. Problem being this work he was doing was all done from his home while the rest of the group worked together in the college. He was a law onto himself, he even stole materials from another group from a previous year to include in his project and refused to change it when the group asked.

Group work in college isn't indicative of a real work scenario in my opinion and should not be the premise on one of the largest if not like in this case all of your marks

I did not say that in every single group in the history of college that mature students always put in more work. All I said is that it is more likely. And it is more likely that somebody who is more likely to be mentally mature will put in more effort. Also many mature students know they are studying an area that they are interested in which is not always the case with younger students. Your individual stories do not change the majority. They are also examples of a failure in group dynamics. Which most of my post was about.

You are also describing the issues that I mentioned. I am saying that group work should be changed. It will not mirror the workplace in the majority of subjects, but group work can be changed so that it is not merely an essay written between a group. There are alternative forms of projects (Again I am not saying that all group work is essay based, but the majority are). Also the basics of dividing work between members and group dynamics will apply in the working world too. Getting along with others and debating issues can transfer to any job.