When a professor assigns a group project, most every student in the class will inevitably release a groan of disgust, but for some, this is a major relief, because it means that they aren’t required to do anything.
I overheard a conversation between some friends the other day where this situation became a reality. My friends were assigned a group project, so they all planned to meet about a week later to come up with a plan to get it done.
One group member would not respond to text messages, emails and failed to do any of the work, so with hours left to turn in the paper, the slacking student went to Wikipedia, copied and pasted a few paragraphs and submitted it to the group to turn it to the professor.
Luckily, my friends had a suspicion that this was going to be the case, so they Googled his work and found his Wikipedia site. The rest of the group then took turns rewriting his section so they wouldn’t get busted for plagiarism and potentially expelled.
After the stress of the deadline was over and the paper was submitted, the group had a copy of what the slacking student wanted to turn in, and they explained his behavior and lack of contribution to the professor. Unfortunately though, because they did not turn in the plagiarized document, the professor could not prove that the student had plagiarized, but if they had turned it in, the entire group would have failed the course.
Therefore, the guy that did nothing on the major term project received the same A that everyone else did.
This is precisely why most students cannot stand a group project. There are always three or four students that do all the work while one or two students piggyback their way to the finish line.
I think group projects can be beneficial, and there are some valuable skills about teamwork that can be learned from them, but if a professor is going to require one, I believe they must implement a peer evaluation system.
For the case of my friends, such a system was not in place, and the slacking student got the same grade as everyone else.
So please, professors, for the sake of all of us who are juggling school, work and life’s difficulties, put a peer evaluation system in place. Students, for the sake of those who do care about their life and their grades, don’t be the slacker.
