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At my university marks and course content was divided up between exams and group projects. Individuals would optimize their own scores by focusing on exam teste

At my university marks and course content was divided up between exams and group projects. Individuals would optimize their own scores by focusing on exam tested content and hoping someone else in the group would carry them. People who wanted top marks always had to carry the entire group as the other members knew they could get away with not contributing and holding the grade hostage. It was a fucking nightmare, and if you complained then you were not a team player. Instead of dealing with a stressful discovery process where people promise to deliver work but fail to at the last minute I would just let the group know upfront that I’ll be carrying them. A lot of people graduated that probably shouldn’t have and I’ve been resentful of group work ever since. This was a top tier university so I’d hate to think that other universities are somehow even less rigerous.

irrational 3y ago
Whenever I taught a course with group work, I would have the students give all the other students in the group a score each week. All the scores had to add up to 100. They had no problem giving any student not participating a zero. There was a formula we would run the scores through to give each student a final score that was a percentage of the total score for the project and their group participation scores. It worked quite well to give those who worked the hardest the most points and those who didn’t do any work zero points.
- cjbgkagh 3y ago
  They tried that, it turned into this metagame with reprisals where others would work together and gang up on you so it would end up being many against one. Basically step one was to find the sucker, step two is make it stick. If you had a rep for good grades then you were de facto the sucker. You could tank the group and hope to fair better in a reshuffle but it was a lemon market and the replacements would be just as bad and now everyone knows you have given your previous team members poor scores. People quickly learned to never do that. So part of the optimization was to present lecturers with what they want to see with only minor deviations between individual rankings, effectively a voting ring. Presenting a false projection of reality in order to metagame politics was accidentally good training for real world work - but it really sucks having to do the work of 4 people. I’m sure if the lecturers cared they could have managed it properly but they didn’t I don’t know of any who did.
  - irrational 3y ago
    I should point out that I only taught online course. The students lived all over the world and never met in person.
baq 3y ago
This whole discussion is about that you should expect and embrace this experience because while it’s possible to not end up in an organization like that, it… doesn’t happen often. This is the rare case where uni grading and real life are actually in sync.

irrational 3y ago

Whenever I taught a course with group work, I would have the students give all the other students in the group a score each week. All the scores had to add up to 100. They had no problem giving any student not participating a zero. There was a formula we would run the scores through to give each student a final score that was a percentage of the total score for the project and their group participation scores. It worked quite well to give those who worked the hardest the most points and those who didn’t do any work zero points.

cjbgkagh 3y ago
They tried that, it turned into this metagame with reprisals where others would work together and gang up on you so it would end up being many against one. Basically step one was to find the sucker, step two is make it stick. If you had a rep for good grades then you were de facto the sucker. You could tank the group and hope to fair better in a reshuffle but it was a lemon market and the replacements would be just as bad and now everyone knows you have given your previous team members poor scores. People quickly learned to never do that. So part of the optimization was to present lecturers with what they want to see with only minor deviations between individual rankings, effectively a voting ring. Presenting a false projection of reality in order to metagame politics was accidentally good training for real world work - but it really sucks having to do the work of 4 people. I’m sure if the lecturers cared they could have managed it properly but they didn’t I don’t know of any who did.
- irrational 3y ago
  I should point out that I only taught online course. The students lived all over the world and never met in person.

baq 3y ago

This whole discussion is about that you should expect and embrace this experience because while it’s possible to not end up in an organization like that, it… doesn’t happen often. This is the rare case where uni grading and real life are actually in sync.