<p>My son is a senior at a private high school. He has a class this semester (which is not Honors or AP) in which the teacher has randomly assigned students to small groups of four. Each class period, one of the students in the group is required to bring in a discussion question about a novel that they are reading for the group to discuss. If a student does not bring in their question on their assigned day, ** all of the students in the group get a zero for the grade for that day **. He explains that this is his policy because the students have to learn to live in the real world. </p>
<p>In 4 years, my son has never turned an assignment in late, yet he is being penalized for another student turning their assignment in late. He has completed a good number of group projects where he has had to either do the work of another student or redo the work of another student. But should he really have to do the assignment of another student in this case? Would the teacher even want him to, really? My son discussed this with the teacher today, and he won't budge on his policy. </p>
<p>What are your thoughts? We have conferences next week and I am planning on addressing this with the teacher. Do your schools have these kind of policies?</p>
<p>momlove - No, of course it’s not fair to the randomly selected students who end up grouped with the non-performing dope. But it is real world. And it wouldn’t hurt your S to start thinking about how he’d handle this sort of situation in college … because that’s the way group work is often scored there also. (Yes, we have first hand experience with this scenario.)</p>
<p>“that’s the way group work is often scored there also”
but colleges students are not graded on a DAILY basis! In college, students often are divided into groups and graded at the end of the term on their project. Your S’s teacher is trying to shove a form of cooperative learning down these students throats with this punitive micro-management based grading system, imho.The only thing this will teach these kids is that they ALL will learn to hate group work projects.</p>
<p>Group projects suck. No way around that. I am not a fan of group projects especially when they are randomly assigned. I have experienced having to redo work or do the whole project because someone in my group didn’t do everything. These situations only happen when I am in a group that was assigned rather than forming my own group. </p>
<p>Anyway, talk to the teacher. She doesn’t seem to have the grading policies correct. I don’t get her reasoning at all.</p>
<p>Daughter took AP physics last year and they had lab all the time that were done in groups. The teacher let the students pick partners by themselves in group of 4 to 6. His reason was that so the students can’t complain if a member didn’t perform.</p>
<p>I abhor this kind of thing. I especially hate that teachers say that’s how it is in the real world. In the real world, you are judged for your own performance. In college, you pass or fail based on how well you do on papers and exams. You pass the bar or medical boards or any kind of licensing exam based on your own knowledge. And besides…even if that is how it is in the real world, high school is not the real world and colleges are trying their hardest to judge individual applicants on the applicant’s merit. This kind of grading makes it impossible to assess the merit of an individual student.</p>
<p>No, it does not. However, there are many inequities in high school grades. For example, at my son’s hs, one English teacher gives only 2 or 3 As a semester, while another gives half the class As–for the same honors English class. Also, some students will be offered the opportunity to turn in extra credit, while others are not. One teacher even gave many extra points for students on the students’ birthdays which could be applied to raise any test grade. However, if the student has a summer birthday, they are SOL. In short, I completely disagree with this teacher’s approach, but it does not surprise me.</p>
<p>Well I think what one means by ‘real world’ is outside of SCHOOL…as in work. At work, its often largely interdependent, and so yes, you can and do often get strongly impacted by the performance of others. You only sometimes get to choose your project team, your boss, your subordinates but most of the time you do not. And it sucks.</p>
<p>I think judging students by group work WHEN it has the potential to be <em>group</em> work makes sense. Learning to work and deal with the challenges of interdependency is extremely valuable. It can still feel unfair, but it is valuable. In this case this task- as described- it has zero interdependency between group members so I don’t get it. </p>
<p>It would frustrate me, I’d probably complain too, but I wouldn’t expect an outcome. I would be curious though to ask and get an answer to the question of “why”. How does the teacher rationalize this? Does the teacher anticipate that students in the group will develop strategies to avoid the occurrence of a student not bringing an assignment in? </p>
<p>At the same time, I’d also let it go. Use it as opportunity to cope with things you can’t control. </p>
<p>In the big scheme of things when it comes to a transcript, tons and tons and well tons of things are due to things outside one’s control: like grading curves, whose in your class, a missed bus, a bad or unfair teacher, choice of courses, and on and on and on. In the big scheme of things- when one factors in how much real difference this could possibly make to ones grade, let alone overall GPA, let alone life- it does not matter. </p>
<p>People and systems are not perfect and it’s a fantastic lesson to learn to just deal.</p>
<p>I’ve heard quite a lot of teachers using this explanation. I do respect their skills, but I’m not always convinced that their talents, training and experience are really qualifying them to make a sound judgment on how it is “to live in the real world”. On top of that there is no such thing as a precise definition for “how it is to live in the real world”.</p>
<p>I am currently in a situation where I am working as a team for my job, and one of my teammates HAS information that I need, she is the only way to get it, and she just will not bother to give it to me. Not only will the entire group get in trouble of the project is not completed-- including my entire company and a group we are working with, but I will be in particular trouble since my assignment is the one that isn’t getting done until my team member gives me the info I need.</p>
<p>Another hater here! But to play devil’s advocate - is the teacher trying to get the group to put internal pressure on each member? Would this get the other members to get on the case of the student is supposed to bring in the question? Would this have the members preparing a question just to cover in case the designated student either forgets, is absent or doesn’t bring in a question?</p>
<p>As others have said, unfortunately group work counts in the real world. And you can still have slackers there. But if the group is supposed to make a sales, marketing, or whatever presentation and a member of the group fails to perform, the client is not going to care that “one member” of the group was at fault. The client will move on to the next successful presentation.</p>
If this was a public school teacher, I would say that he hardly understands the “real world,” because in schools teachers aren’t judged for their performance, once they get tenure. And all are paid equally. While that’s the “real world” of education, it isn’t for most Americans.</p>
<p>This is a private school, though, so this school isn’t hamstrung by union demands. If other parents complain with you, perhaps this teacher will change his ways. Or get a job elsewhere.</p>
<p>Yes, it seems unfair to me. One of my sons went through this too. The teacher said to think of the situation as being on a basketball team. If one player on your team messes up, it effects the whole team. I think the comparison is rather silly, and by using the word silly, I am being generous.</p>
<p>I think it is a useful exercise to prepare kids for college. Colleges do this kind of thing all the time. ( Group projects where kids are assigned teams or required to select teams before they know anybody in the class and the grade is a group grade) I know because my son has been through this several times. And he usually has some slackers on his team! Completion of these projects is a struggle for him and he hates them but his leadership and communication skills have improved.</p>
<p>I teach high school kids. I often assign group projects, but I am certain to ask the students in the groups to specify what their individual role was in the project. I also tell them that I grade them individually, because of the very problem to which you refer. Often the entire group does get the same grade, but that is because they know they all have to work equally, even if their individual jobs are spelled out as being different. It is totally unfair for all the kids in one group to get the same grade, good or bad. When the project turns out well, and only one student did the bulk of the work, and the grade is an “A,” for instance, that is just as unfair, and kids know that.</p>
<p>momlove, I don’t necessarily agree with everyone getting a zero for the day, but your son did elevate it and the teacher said no. I suspect that a zero for one day will have very, very negligible impact on the class grade. Most often homework is 10% of the final grade and one zero on one homework day won’t change anything. I do suspect the teacher is also trying to “teach” kids to self-monitor and self-influence their teams, which is what will happen in college group projects and real-world team projects. I wouldn’t get too upset about it. What did your son’s team do about the team member who didn’t produce? What does your son think the other team members should do going forward so it doesn’t happen again? Perhaps they need to send reminders to each other?</p>
<p>The point of team projects should be to learn about working collaboratively. Punitive grading seems harsh. I would be upset about this, too. Franglish does it right! </p>
<p>My college sophomore son had a group project last semester in which the students were asked to evaluate each other using a very specific rubric (simply saying “he didn’t do his share of the work” was not enough). One person did basically nothing, but his grade probably reflected that because the others evaluated his non-efforts.</p>