Should schools encourage group work?

Schools and Universities have begun to place a major emphasis on groups and teamwork.

Advantages:

1) you learn to work with other people and it prepares you for the "real world", where you will be working in a division or a department under a leader.

2) group work, if done properly, can bring about quicker results where people can specialize at what they do best and work to reach a certain goal. One person is not burdened with a large task.

3) Promotes team spirit

Disadvantages:

1) Difficulties in coordination and communication (especially with large groups).

2) Some people may not perform their tasks efficiently.

3) The group is evaluated as a whole, so there are those who do absolutely nothing and free-ride off the work of a few people.

Here are some questions:

Have you worked in Groups/teams before?

If Yes, what is the largest group of people you have worked with?

Do you think group work should be encouraged? Why or why not?

What are the best ways to get a group to work efficiently?

 

T. do u no what your topic reminds me of?

The apprentice, its all about working in teams, but in the end, your doing it all for yourself

Hey that reminds me of this advertisement..did anyone see. About "Doritos". There are 3 guys eating doritos looking out of conference room window and seeing construction workers working as team and then saying wow it's good to work as a team, cool etc. etc. and then this lady is working on her laptop and says ok work done.. and they all clap and say wow good "we" did it!! and that lady was like "we"

so you can imagine "team work" but on a serious note i'll come back later.

Saying this from personal experience, i don't think it is at all favourable to have group assignments.There are 2 sorts of groups, some which u are given a choice to choose yourself. When this is done, one always tends to pair up with friends, and its always more fun and less work when it actually comes to the project.

As for the groups your teacher assigns for u (ie,when u have to do with the people she chooses) , there are a different set of problems alltogether. You might not get along with the other group members for instance. Communication/meeting up/talking with ease is what will lack, while u can always be yourself and say whatever u want to with friends. Also certain people tend to work well only when teamed up with certain people, and the teacher may not understand that.

Another major problem in these group things is that the person whoz giving u the project always tends to make the strongest and most responsible member of the group the "leader" so to ay, and the others are sleeping, while one person ends up doing all the work, and the others get the credit for that. Happens to me all the time. Im the only one working in the group, just because my teacher thinks im responsible and i dont want to let her down

Coming to your questions:

Have you worked in Groups/teams before? Yep, loads of times

If Yes, what is the largest group of people you have worked with?  About 7-8 ppl.

Do you think group work should be encouraged? Why or why not? NO...have given my reasons above

What are the best ways to get a group to work efficiently? Nothing! Honestly i think most of the time its hopeless. Its either one person acts responsible and does all the work,and the others get the marks they didnt work hard for, or none of the group members act responsible and lose the marks alltogether..

-Eisha

Group is an excellent way to work and learn, have fun all at the same time. It enhances your social skills, diplomacy skills, brings the best out in you and you learn to share information instead of keeping to your self.

It also enhances your leadership skills, also you learn to work under a leader.

All of these come very usefull in your adult working life when you very often may be a part of a team.

Yes i may not have worked too much in group in school , but at the post graduation level we worked in group , sometimes in pairs. At work i've always been a member of a team, we were 7 sales people. We all had seperate responsibilities , but we worked to acheive sales targets, marketing plans, brand development together.

As a teacher i shared my classroom with my other 2 teachers. So basically working in a group is a on going thing.

Eisha- Firstly sweetie as a group leader you must ensure the others in your team put in equal amount of effort. This can be done by delegating some research, or the presentation to your other group members.
Also remember once you work you will have to get along well with strangers, often with a member of the team you don't like very much. Thats life!! You can't always have friends around you . One needs to just get along and be able to do work with the best of their abilities.

i dont know never been in that position
i think team work is a gud idea though

 Yup. And then put the blame on the leader.  

Eisha, I totally understand where you're coming from. I've also been in the same situation more times than I would have liked.

The larger the group, the more difficult it becomes. My worst has been a group of 10 as of yet where I had to do MORE research because 4 of the members did something totally wrong and would NOT fix it despite my repeated follow-ups...

But, I am optimistic that in the long run it will help out as I get to work with all kinds of... er... eclectic characters.

Anyway, I still feel that large groups should not be encouraged at the school level. Working in pairs or threes is fine.