“How Do I Deal with a Slacker on a Group Project?”
Posted by Ellen Bremen on Apr 9, 2013 in Communicating with Professors, General, Interpersonal Communication | 35 comments
The sign knows everything about slackers. Arggggghhhh!!!!!!
(A one-line write-in from a student… Does this problem ever go away in life? No! The slacking group member is a plague! Students feel helpless and concerned about grades, and they may wonder when to bring a prof in on the problem. Here’s my take…)
Ellen,
How do you work with a group member who does not put in their work on a group project?
Student
***********************
I realize the student didn’t ask for all the advice I’m giving, but I’m giving it anyway. What do you say???
Student,
I so empathize! As a student, I couldn’t stand group work because I knew I would probably have to manage or do most of it so my own grade wouldn’t tank.
Can I be honest? Even as a professional, I still become a little anxious with group work. Let’s face it: Not everyone has the same work ethic. You can hope for everyone to step up, but as you are experiencing, some people don’t. This is a classic complaint for students. I have abandoned group work in my classes with any sort of high stakes, unless I am teaching a group communication course.
On to you: What do you do with that slacker in your group?
My first recommendation is don’t go to your prof immediately, but I will tell you in a minute when it is time to do that.
I bet your assignment is well underway. If the assignment was just starting–and since it has–this would be my strategy:
-Immediately take the lead (Not a dictatorial lead… just assertively take charge of making suggestions…) and ensure that every person ‘owns’ and recaps their deliverables, including a date for each deliverable (this can be a collaborative discussion–I’ll explain below);
-Build in enough time so if each person doesn’t meet the deadline, you can address the problem;
-Assign another group member in place to pick up unfinished work, if necessary.
-Assign yourself or a second person as “quality control” to make sure the work is completed on time and up to standards.
Bring your group together now and say that it’s time to “regroup.” You need all members there to re-establish everyone’s deliverables and the dates: “We agreed that Nyara would have X done by Monday evening and Mike would have X done by Wednesday, and I will update where we are on Thursday.”
Have a clear-cut plan of action if someone misses their deliverable with the majority of your group in agreement. Say, “Given that we only have a week (two weeks… whatever) to pull all this together, if one of us misses a deadline, they’ll get one reminder (because remember–you’ll be building in your dates with some buffer room!). Who will step in to take over that job?” Make sure that person is ready to move quickly.
Remember, too, that everyone needs to be in specific agreement about expected quality of work. Is everyone striving for an ‘A’? What does ‘A’ work look like? Underperforming can be as bad as not performing.
While you’re in the discussion about dates and work, have a mechanism so everyone knows what will happen if they don’t step up. I recommend a group evaluation, whether or not one was required. Say, “If someone needs to take over someone else’s work, I suggest we submit a group evaluation along with this project.”
I don’t suggest a huge intervention with the slacker. You can try one private conversation to be diplomatic: “The group is concerned about you. Is there something going on that is preventing you from getting this work done?” But the bottom line is, regardless of this person’s answer, the work needs to be done. If they have a genuine life issue, they need to work with the professor on that. If they are just slacking, then you won’t have time for empty promises and more delay.
More on the evaluation: Sometimes, group projects come with guidance for an initial group contract, self-evaluation of your performance, or peer-evaluation of the group performance. These tools are critical for establishing expectations and roles. If you are not explicitly told to turn in some sort of evaluation, I would turn one in anyway. A grade is at stake here. It is not fair for everyone to receive the same grade if only three of four people carried the work–unless everyone agrees to that, of course.
I may be in the minority on this thought, but in a short-term situation, like a class, you should not be forced to carry someone else’s weight at the expense of your grade. I totally get the argument that these projects prepare you for real life, but in business, someone not doing their share of the work would have harsh ramifications and you’d have longer to deal with the issue. Also, drama takes energy and time, and a quarter or semester is finite.
Make sure all group decisions are transparent–and this includes to the slacking group member. It is tempting to split off, talk behind that person’s back, and take over, but the slacker should know what’s going on. He/she may need to speak to events in the group with the prof.
Your prof will read between the lines that you’re looking for fairness, and if he/she has questions, you’ll hear them. You don’t have to say “…so you FAIL the slacker’s ass and we all get A’s!”
I can’t emphasize enough not to waste your time with drama. Keep everything ‘business’ as much as you can. The slacker will learn soon enough that working this way just doesn’t work. Hopefully your prof will make things equitable.
Good luck and let me know if I can help further!
Ellen
What advice do you have? Colleagues, how do you mitigate these types of situations?
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As usual Ellen, this is a fantastic post about a prominent issue in learning. I have experimented with all kinds of grouping to eradicate this issue, but there are just some students who don’t care and others who will dominate. Like you, I was the over achiever in my groups and anxiously wouldn’t trust others with my grades hanging in their hands. It wasn’t until much later in life that i realized that group work is far more than learning about the subject matter in the project but rather a communications and team work activity that requires a whole other skill set. You give great advice. May use some in my classes
Thank you, Starr!
I feel really guilty for stopping group work altogether. I found that it was just a huge misery-fest and it wasn’t really teaching students anything. If I teach a full class on group comm, that would be another story. Then at least we could get into the communication issues and the dynamics on a deeper level.
I just can’t blame students at all. There was a time, once upon a time, that I was asked to take over a committee. It was a big committee, too, and another person would have co-chaired with me. Sadly, I knew that the person slated was kind of a slacker based on other committees on which we’d served together. I ended up declining that particular year. I just didn’t need to carry the load or for my own reputation to sink.
I appreciate you commenting… as usual. We’re in the trenches together
.
Ellen
Thank you for tackling this difficult topic with concrete strategies and sage advice for a common sense, problem-solving approach to group work. I also pulled back from group work in my classes because of the same “misery fest” effect (what a perfect description). I remember thinking that I was tired of my college class turing into a middle school mud-slinging mess. I teach college and academic skills so now I teach group work only in the context of helping the students learn about group work. We introduce a very small project, like making a poster — one of my favorites is based on your wonderful book “Say This Not That to Your College Professor” — and then we walk the students through their experience to try to help them discover strategies to deal with their challenges. The slacker is the number one problem my students encounter, so I will be sharing your great advice with them this quarter! Thanks, Ellen.
Hi, Robin!
It is such a hard decision to make, isn’t it? I really tried to keep small group projects going, but in the context of 10 weeks, it was difficult. I also realized that they didn’t really fit with public speaking. The time that I was trying to use them with peer editing, if a slacker was in the mix, that could be very harmful to other students’ work in that they could fall behind.
I am so excited about your students using #STNT for their projects. It seemed to TOTALLY work, as far as I could tell!!! The outcome was incredible and, I hope, long-lasting!
Ellen
I could see that group projects would be beneficial if the students’ grades weren’t tied to them. It is unfair to ask the students who really care about their GPAs to throw their lots in with students that do not care.
wsdfgh
Through the years this has become a prominent issue for me. Being a little above my peers academically, they would expect me to carry out the tasks, as if I was superman. So even after dividing up the tasks at hand I would still have to do a little more than the rest of my group members. When confronting said “slackers” I heard many excuses and I have never been able to change one person’s work ethic. So the most valuable piece of advice that I can attest to is that an intervention won’t solve any problems.
Mohammad,
It is awesome to hear a student’s perspective on this and I can see how you would be the automatic leader. You are very astute in that an intervention doesn’t typically change a person’s work ethic. Unfortunately, that person is going into the assignment with the work ethic they already brought to the table. The only person who will change that is the person, themselves.
Thank you so much for your comment!
Ellen
Hi Ellen,
I came across this post and couldn’t resist commenting. I am also a professor of communication studies, and one of the courses I teach is Group Discussion and Problem Solving. Needless to say, I don’t have the easy out of not doing group projects in that course. Group projects are also called for in the course requirements for some of my other classes, and I’m well aware of the frustration that both students and faculty feel about them. But I do wish that the answer wasn’t so often just “don’t do group projects,” but instead, to do them fairly.
As you say, real-life groups have consequences for shirkers, and I believe that college projects should, as well. But faculty also need to be on the lookout for behavior that makes a student feel alienated and unwelcome in a group, which can result in withdrawal and lack of participation as defense mechanisms. Often a very assertive person, or a dominant pair (especially if they are already friends) can take over a group and try to steer it in the direction they want, leaving others to go along with the agenda, fight for control, or just withdraw — and people with certain personality types, communication challenges, or personal history may find the last option to be the least painful one.
I wish more faculty would take the time (and it IS time-consuming) to do guided group projects, where the group work is monitored and students have help negotiating the process of full participation and consensus decision making. More than just punishing slackers with low grades, it would help all students realize that taking the time to get everyone’s input and making sure the process is inclusive is a worthwhile set of skills to learn.
Telling someone that they have a bad worth ethic is, indeed, unlikely to change things. But if a class is at all designed to teach some life skills, as well as academic content, then there is value in the effort to teach students better habits and to encourage their full participation by creating a truly cooperative and welcoming environment in the student group. Can you put yourself in the place of a student with low self-esteem who finds herself in a group with a self-proclaimed “academic superman” like Mohammad, who expects that his ideas and work will be superior? Teachers who put emphasis solely on the results, rather than the process, are doing as much of a disservice to their shy or easily intimidated students as to the ones who will dominate the process and then loudly complain that they “had” to do more than their fair share.
Sorry for ranting. It’s just that I see these same assumptions throughout academia, and it frustrates me that we aren’t more creative in addressing this issue.
Hi, Julia,
I really appreciated your comment. I wrote that post a while ago, so I had to go back and see what I advised!
I actually taught Group Communication at my last college for four years and, ironically, I’m likely set to teach it again in the coming school year. While I abandoned graded group projects in my other Comm courses, I did this more because I’m now on the quarter system, rather than semester system, and I teach hybrid/online courses right now. Because I see my students just once per week, I would rather embark on group experiences in the classroom, and ones that aren’t longitudinal. If students do group work online, it is mostly peer editing, and it is not graded. This was a tough decision to make, but I definitely found that losing those five weeks in a term affected the execution and management of quality experiences, particularly when they weren’t integral to the course.
I completely agree with you that the process is important and students should not alienate a non-performer. I also agree that faculty should play an integral role in teaching students about proper ways to handle this situation and even the psychology behind it.
In my post, I tried to keep my recommendations less emotional (typically my nature!) and more focused on reiteration of the tasks at hand. I find that prolonged “processing” to try to make a non-performer change their behaviors doesn’t usually work and creates more drama than the group is prepared to handle. I’ll qualify this by saying that in a dedicated group comm course, of course, these dynamics are precisely what students are there to figure out. However, I truly believe that the non-performer is going to work through his/her own journey and reach their own conclusion, based on potential consequences. As we both know, sometimes reconciliation of behavior doesn’t come until far beyond the course end date.
I do put myself in a non-performing students’ shoes and empathize with the self-esteem hit that goes along with their behavior. I face these issues, myself, as a very slow runner (I’ve come in dead last twice in races!), who often feels “inferior” to those faster than me–which would be a large part of the running population
. But, again, I know that any self-motivating or self-defeating journey has to be mine. Similar to a non-performer, all the encouragement in the world only works if the person is truly ready to receive it.
There are so many variations of non-performance, as we both know, from the student who is struggling, to the student who is squashed by a high performer (or a series of them, as you mentioned), to the student who just doesn’t care. I will definitely be more thoughtful of the “why” behind non-performance after this exchange. And I hope faculty will look more at the larger lesson. I need to revisit that idea, myself.
Thank you so much,
Ellen
I am experiencing this exact same thing in my group for an online class I am enrolled in currently. We are a group of 6 with a big group presentation and paper due in a couple of weeks. So far, 4 of the 6 have communicated.
Two members seemed to have dropped off the face of the planet and the other two members only pop in once every week to say something like “Looks like we’re on the right track!” One member gave a list of all the reasons why they can’t communicate with us on a regular basis (once a day).
Meanwhile, myself and another girl are doing all of the work. This is a Group Communication class and is being taken online. When projects are due, I like to get rolling on them as soon as possible. A lot of our assignments are geared toward brainstorming and group communication. Save for the communication that has been going on between myself and the other active participant in the group, communication has had a big breakdown. I wish I knew why.
I feel perfectly comfortable in a support role but will step forward in a leadership role without an issue. That is the case here. I am the group leader.
I tried to contact people via email (I have no other ways to contact them) but received no reply.
To be perfectly blunt, these group projects stress me out. Especially online when there is no face to face contact with the other people.
In summary, great article! I think i’m going to have to take your advice about contacting the professor at the end of the project.
Right now it feels like the two of us are busting our humps to get assignments done while the other four are happily turning in our hard work to get full credit.
Ellen,
Thank you so very much for this! I’m having the same issue right now. The project is due today. Out of 5 people 2 of us worked on the project, I had emailed the others with the response of “I had no idea we had a group project due.” The other student and I, finished and I typed the essay. Now I’m not sure to do with their names. I also emailed the professor with what had happened. Do I keep their names on the report? Or take them off? I still have no word from the professor on what to do. I really don’t want to throw anyone under the “bus” but we had no help AT ALL. Can you PLEASE tell me what I should do?
Hi Ellen,
I see, this article was written a while back, yet still I’m hoping that perhaps you can still be an ear to my experience as a student.
For starters I ‘love’ your suggestions for handling this situation. The ideas of keeping emotions out of it, keeping the professor out of it (as much as possible), documenting duties, creating times and acting in complete transparency are all on-point and also valuable life skills.
That being said, as a BA Business student in a public college, taking night some night courses, this is what I’m seeing: 1) 99% of the students have full-time jobs 2)Some of those 99% have projects pertaining to their job 3)Some of us have young children 4)It seems some professors have ‘tunnel vision’, oblivious to the fact, there’s a good chance that students have other classes with group projects as well.
Remembering my past, I can recall a time (before I had kids & when mommy/daddy were still holding my hand) where group projects sounded ‘fun’; meeting up at a coffee shop for hours was doable. Now-a-days with social media overload, group members will neglect in answering texts or emails and in class not say a word, acting like nothing ever happened. I guess this is ‘normal’ to some people.
My question to you, as a professor is: Do professors ever consider the possibility that a student can end up having group projects for 3 different courses, in addition to a full-time job and personal responsibilities?
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Hi, I wanted to add in here, I have done several successful student group projects with various roles being taken up and a sense of collective rather than individual purpose. The most recent online group project has seen me go from a group member to a group leader to something of a group autocrat bc the invitational consensus style did not increase participation one bit. Even the high participation member went into a sulk and stopped working on the project. In the end, someone had to resurrect the project, otherwise the way it was going, we would never have submitted on time. These are dilemmas. I do take some offence at the idea of dedicated hard working students (superior, such as Mohammed mentioned) being considered as autocrats, to enjoy learning and getting good marks and bringing everyone along for the ride in roughly equal ways is wonderful. I like good marks but I am not superior, although a person with low self esteem might be threatened. Lets say, education and learning is a skill, and we are talking skills not ego. This one I did was the worst ever in terms of group laziness and inertia, but we all get the same mark, they were not reliable or consistent and who suffers, all of us. Group mind = collaboration, individual work as a group = potential for ego and disregard, domination. Big difference.
Thank you for this article, Ellen:
I am currently in this dreaded situation, and unfortunately, after several prompts and open communication, the slacker is still slacking. There are only three people in the group so it is falling on me to pick up the additional work. Truthfully, I don’t mind too much because I want to maintain my GPA.
Where I am running into some problems is the authorship aspect of the work. It is clearly not this person’s work, yet their name will be on the project. Is this an ethical issue? Could there be a risk of academic misconduct should anyone compare the “group’s” essay to the slacker’s previous works? What if the slacker puts it into their academic portfolio, or tries to take credit for the essay in some other way down the road?
I intend to continue on as a scholarly author so it is particularly relevant to me, and bothers me greatly. I’m not sure what to do about it.
Any thoughts would be appreciated.
Best,
Liz
Hi, Liz,
How frustrating! These group problems can be neverending!
I completely agree that there is an ethical issue if you do the slacker’s work and they still get credit. This is particularly inflammatory if the work could become peer reviewed/scholarly, as you noted.
Have you talked to the professor about the situation? This is a time that a prof really should be involved, particularly since you have such a small group. I would also submit a note with the final version mentioning the issue. Your professor should hopefully guide you on this ahead of time.
Finally, if you have open communication with the slacker, then it is perfectly reasonable to tell them that ethically, you won’t submit a work with their name on it because this would be misconstruing their role.
I wish you luck! Let me know if I can help further.
Ellen
Hi Liz, its a while since I made my comment in June 2015 but I was interested to read your situation too. One thing I would consider is to allocate the slacker a particular section of the writing as their contribution, however keep it as a nominal exercise only, and continue with the standard of authorship that you prefer. What I am saying is that group projects can go for the lowest common denominator, an average middle ground or for a sound and rigorous professional work. What about doing an internal peer review of the slackers input using other group members? Reminds me of Vygotskys approach to learning, a persons maturity is measured not by what they can achieve alone but what they can achieve in collaboration. Could you discuss listing authors by their contribution, quantity and quality? These are such difficult situations to deal with and the person who got the sulks in our group still has’nt got over it. For any professors or lecturers out there, you seem to be marking on content or product not process, so why have group projects if people are not rewarded for effective participation. Tokenism maybe.
Completely agree with you, Dee. I stopped group work a long time ago because I felt that the problems overwhelmed the process and in my classroom environment, I hadn’t found a way to deal with it effectively in the quarter system. I need to revisit it again and try to replicate what would happen in the workplace. Easier said than done. Ellen
Thx for your reply Ellen and I do apologise if I sounded abrupt re asking professors to think about how they allocate marks as you clearly wrote earlier about group work and its potential to be a misery fest which is exactly what I experienced in my most recent group project last year. I now roughly group people into two major categories, individual approach to life and community minded. It seems to be a reasonable way of finding who I can work with and Ive noticed it spans all kinds of endeavour from studies, projects and even dance classes etc. Cheers and thank you for writing on such an important topic. Dee
Hello,
I am going through this as we speak. It’s a fourth year class and we’ve had weeks to do the work. The tasks were divided up between researchers, writer, and presenters. As such, not everyone had to everything- just their tasks. I’m a presenter and for some reason I have absolutely nothing concrete to go off of. Myself and the other presenter have now been forced to do most of the work. I emailed constantly over the weekend (Easter weekend) asking for them to get it done so we could do our parts. Two people emailed back out of a group of 8, but again, only myself and the other presenter actually did anything. So two nights before the presentation that is worth a quarter of my grade I emailed the group and called them all out. I told them this was a fourth year class and that nothing had been done. I told them copying and pasting from articles or websites without any clear citations was not doing work. I told them like it was and that I wasn’t putting up with it. Lo and behold I got emails back very quickly and all full of excuses.
Needless to say, I’m in my second undergrad and I believe significantly graded group work is pointless. My first degree was in Communications and I still think that. I don’t care what the curriculum says, professors shouldn’t put group work that is worth more than 10% on the syllabus.
Great article and I have to admit that I agree with most of it. The only thing I would say is when it get to the point I am at then diplomatically talking to someone does nothing. I won’t call out individuals in front of everyone, but I will call out the group as a whole. That’s more real-life than speaking to them individually.
I’m going through it too right now!… and it’s for the Capstone Project (The big One for a Bachelor Degree)
The team member responsible for the financial part has done nothing. He has come up with excuses, family issues, the whole nine yards. I called him Friday, called him out and asked him on what day he will have his part done… and if he didn’t get it done I told him I would disregard him as a team member because he’s not dependable and causing strife fort he team. He said “yesterday” (Sunday) he’d have it done. He texted me Saturday night at 11:56 pm saying to call him, so I can help. No way! Nevermind that he spent last week in DisneyWorld celebrating his daughter’s B-day, but the weak before that the excuse was that his daughter had been discovered to have 7 cysts (or something like that). It’s just too much… and is none of my (our) business but his lack of work is.
I’m ready to call him out tomorrow in class, in front of the group, and tell the profressor he’s her problem now. They say group projects are good because they reflect real life experiences… well in real life, I think from an owners perspective… I would fire him!
What’s your two cents on what I should (shouldn’t not) mention tmrw in class?
Gee, bringing back memories… the trouble calling out people who are irresponsible can be that they turn themselves into victim and you into the aggressor. Then it can start a whole chain of reactions that divert the situation from what it really is, a lack of committment to the group. I would try to hand it over to the prof and also how the prof has dealt with these issues in the past.
After my involvement in a group project at Masters level a friend said she noticed a change for the worse in me that occurred when I was doing the group project. It’s a long recovery, LOL! Good luck but be careful so you don’t end up being the baddie. A ploy used by passive aggressive types & difficult to deal with.
I think you’re right about how it can play out and spot-on about me possibly being passive aggressive.
Our team dynamic is interesting because the slackers best friend (in real life) is also on the team and is pissed off at his buddy (but not personally because this doesn’t surprise him)
I’ve also had classes with the slacker before and have been in groups with him in past, where he performed awesome… so I know he’s got it in him. His best friend tells me he goes through phases, and this one happens to be during the most important project of the degree progrm.
Since I’m pretty well acquainted with the slacker I’ve been open with him on how I feel and that to me, this seems out of character for him compared to past experiences… it doesn’t make sense to me and that I’m concerned (for my grade) that he’s saying one thing and doing another.
Before this point, the professor had to call the student out herself, because he missed a bunch of classes.
About a week ago, I emailed the professor asking for advice on how to handle the event of the student not doing the work.. Her reply was for us (the group) to be prepared to do the work.
That’s when I thought “and then what? What about the presentaion that’s in front of the Dean and other judges?
My opinion is that the professor is ultimately responsible for dealing with a non-performing student and if a team concedes to ‘fire’ a member, they should be able to, in order to release themself of the problem..
Thanks for the feeback and the chance to vent (which does good to lessen the impact of the aggressive part LOL)
Hi, again,
I see that more was posted about this situation, so I’ll respond here, too. I didn’t realize you talked to the professor. Say that you need clarity: “Professor, you said that the group should be prepared to do the work. I need more specifics: What should we do about the presentation in front of the Dean and judges? (And then state your EXACT concerns)?” I would also ask how your grade is going to be impacted, as well as the rest of the group. The slacker failing is between him/her and the professor. Unfortunately, out of academic privacy laws, you won’t be privy to that information.
Keep posted and stay strong!
Ellen
Hi, Tosh,
Oh goodness! There must be something in the water regarding group work right now! I am sorry you are going through this experience.
Here’s what I would do: It sounds like the professor may not be aware of the full situation–or of the situation at all? I would NOT call this person out publicly in class. I was observing someone’s class once (to write up a post-tenure report) and this happened in real time. A whole group called someone out for non-performance; it stopped the entire class. The professor immediately got involved and had to first calm the tensions before she could actually do anything else. And, as you can imagine, that took time. It was only then that she could actually work to solve the problem. Therefore, I would go to the professor privately. You have texts and, I assume, other written proof of what’s going on, and this person’s overall grade is likely going to be affected anyway (if they aren’t performing in the group, they probably aren’t performing well in class either).
Go to the professor privately. YOU don’t want to become the problem to solve because you’ve gotten angry in class, which is often what happens–even when the anger is justified. Document everything that’s going on, and as I told Katrina, who also posted early this morning, turn in an evaluation of the group, even if your professor didn’t ask for it. If the grade isn’t 100% equitable, you can take the situation higher.
Report back and let us know how things went! Take a deep breath. You’ll be able to work this out! And I agree with you: Real life would mean this person is fired.
Ellen
Hi, Katrina,
You are so right… There are just times that calling the person out isn’t going to do anything. Those behaviors are already ingrained in the person and they likely know that they aren’t performing.
Have you talked to the professor about this? It sounds like you are definitely at that point.
I would also turn in an evaluation of the group project along with whatever paperwork is already required. The input of those who have been doing the work should weigh heavily when your prof is figuring out the grade for the non-performers.
Also, I haven’t done graded group work in years. I struggle with this because on one hand, it is real world experience. But as you said, it is hard to truly make things equitable.
For right now, deal with the immediate: Get the prof involved and make sure something is in writing about who did the work and who didn’t.
I wish you well! Report back on how this played out.
Ellen
Boy did I get thrown for a loop!
After listening to the feedback I heard here, I decided to “stand down” on my stance towards the slacker. I could see how I would end up looking like the bad guy, because I would be the one expressing feelings of ‘anger’ which would probably shift focus from the actual issue at hand.
Anyhow, we had our mock presentation on Tuesday and it didn’t go bad at all. The slacker’s friend pulled some stuff together for him at the last momement (powerpoint slides filled with so much financial data that a microscope was needed to see it lol) and we got through it.
The slackers friend and I decided just to go ahead and do his section the right way, so we got together at Starbucks yesterday and knocked it out, but…..
On Thursday, I had a final presentation for another class and 3 of 5 members didn’t have their stuff! BOY, I DIDN’T SEE THIS ONE COMING AT ALL !!!
One member is totally AWOL, as in suddenly not answering messages or coming to any of her classes. Another, (her suppossed friend) is like (with mouth open like Homer Simpson) “Uhhh, which part was I supposed to do” (Thanks for not answering our messages either, for the past 2 weeks buddy)
The last guy is my buddy. Just the night before he assured me he’ll have his part done. Did he? Nope. So the two, who did show up for class, blamed our not being able to present, all on the one girl who went missing.
Ironically, the professor is the same I have for the other class with the slacker.
She lectured our group on how, “in the real business world”, despite our teammember falling short, we would be expected to present something. I kindly reminded her, in the real business world I would have fired these slackers from the get. There’s actually one professor who lets her students do just that. The group majority can fire slackers, leaving them on their own do start a project all by themselves. Now this, is a reasonable approach to group projects. (Except for my buddy.. he’s not a slacker. He makes A LOT of money doing ecommerce and actually helped me with my business, and I know he put that first last night. He’s just seeking a college diploma to make his girlfriend’s mom happy and would be happy skipping along with a ‘C’).
So here I am, on a Saturday morning, ranting on Ellen’s site… in sight of total strangers and about to do someone elses work (two peoples work), with a smirk on my face (huh) as I type this sentence.
What’s that saying?… Oh yeah…
“Life is Good”
I’ve gotten to the point where if a group project comes up and one of my partners isn’t pulling their weight I immediately go to the professor to get them regrouped. Playing nice is great and all, but it’s happened so many times that the excuses no longer get to me. At the end of the day they don’t care what grade they get but I do, and their trusting that I care so much that I’ll pull the weight without question. I only give one warning when it comes to group work but if they can’t pull together they’re not sticking around. No second, third or fourth chances.
Enjoyed every bit of your blog. Want more.
I’m in 6th grade and at the end of my math class this year, I was partnered with a kid to do a sort of science project to get ready for next years science class. The problem is, is that this person has done absolutely no work. What I do on this occasion is finish the project and get it done, and then email the professor or teacher(whatever you’d like to call it). In this email, I state that I did the majority or all of the work, and if my partner does not do well in the presentation, I ask the professor if they could possibly not count their part of the presentation as a group grade. This seems to work for me, and I have quite a lot of fun annoying the “slackers and gamers” that don’t do their work by getting them detention because they didn’t do their work! If you are using a program like google docs, slides, or any other program that you can check the revision history on, take a screenshot of it or just simply show it to the professor and tell them that they simply did not do any work. I usually don’t have to do this, because professors and teachers usually know who the slackers are and they usually believe me, so it should most likely work for most other people as well.
Many thanks Donnie! My partner and i undoubtedly decide on typically the destinazione files. Well-formed key terms and also explanations should still be an element of virtually any site for that causes you actually be aware, although with luck , men and women study not necessarily focus on them towards the bar involving some other WEB OPTIMIZATION enhancements.
Firstly, if the professor is not closely monitoring each individual’s contribution, then the professor is being lazy and you shouldn’t have taken his/her class. If possible, give the professor a really bad review-evaluation.
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