I have had some good group experiences and some bad ones. The good experiences differ from the bad in two ways: group members know what they’re doing, and care about doing it. The former relates to both general knowledge (as you put it, knowing the right way to do things) and specific knowledge of one’s assignment, while the latter is basically motivation.
Of course, it’s easy to reflect on my past experiences and see, in retrospect, what shaped my feelings about them. However, that’s not quite at the point where it’s useful for predicting when future experiences will be good ones. Working in a group, especially with people you don’t know well, can lead to a lot of anxiety due to your uncertainty about the other people and how they will perform. Here’s how I’ve resolved this problem: figure out when I can trust the other people to know what they’re doing and care about doing it. If my priors for the group members indicate that I should trust them, I simply do, unless new events warrant a reevaluation of that trust. If they indicate that I shouldn’t, I assume that I will have to do all the work myself, and get going based on that. These can be mixed and matched, if I have different priors for different people. Coming to a working conclusion about the other people and then acting on it eliminates much of the anxiety from uncertainty.
One example of a great group experience was this past summer, when I did research at Fermilab. Because of the prominence of the laboratory, my priors for trusting my group members’ competence were high, and every day that trust was validated. Everyone had skilled backgrounds, knew the right ways to do things, and cared about the research.
In contrast, many such “group projects” in school were bad experiences. Year after year of these led me to develop the policy that if a person seemed unlikely to be invested and competent, I* would cut them out of the action or give them busywork whose importance was minimal (in those highly irritating cases where the teacher demanded that each person contribute or the grade would be lowered anyway). School group projects are generally important for the grade rather than their actual content, and therefore, I reasoned, getting the grade is also more important than achieving the “intended” semi-egalitarian group experience.
I suspect this is what led to the “new sort of problem” you described. It seems likely that when you missed the meeting and didn’t actively respond to the email communication, alarm bells went off for one or more of the other people in the group, especially if they didn’t know you well beforehand. I admit without embarrassment that I have done to other people the same thing that happened to you. Obviously you know you’re competent and invested, but that doesn’t mean others do. It’s unfortunate that you lost a group learning experience. However, for a project in which the outcome (the actual result and/or the grade) is most important, best practices dictate not taking chances on other members whose competence and investment seem uncertain.
To sum up: decide when and who you can trust, and go from there. Realize that the outcome is what’s important, and it’s not your responsibility to coax and prod every group member into a state of motivation and competence if they’re not already there; in the same way, it’s not others’ responsibility to do that for you.
*I recognize that you stated you’re not skilled at leading groups. To modify this advice for you (and other such people), I suggest that, if you come to that sort of realization about the person in the group and you’re not the appointed or apparent leader, bring it up to the person who is, in such a way that ey’ll hopefully take care of the problem.
Edit: I should have refreshed the page before submitting, as I now realize I repeated much of what other people posted before I finished writing mine. Oh well.
There are cases specifically intended not to follow that rule. For example, when my advisor takes on undergraduates for research projects and they haven’t done research before, he does coax and prod them, and he encourages the more experienced student members of the group to do the same. In that case, the result doesn’t matter so much; the project, at least initially, is meant to be an experience in which members can develop competency and motivation. Some amount of hand-holding will be necessary.
Often, teachers think they’re creating this same sort of environment by assigning group projects. However, the project is structured so that the grade is still the most important thing. For a student assigned such a project, it’s important for em to realize that ey has no moral obligation to go along with the teacher’s implied intention for the project. Developing that sort of mindset is then helpful down the road, when one is involved in other projects where the result is most important.
Please consider using “e” instead of “ey” or conjugating the “ey” as one would “they”. Spivak pronouns don’t annoy me but “mis”-conjugation does. This may not be worth the effort to you but there probably exist some others with the same foibles as me.
I didn’t. I learned the rule when I was left to my own devices and began to fail because nobody was prodding me (ie in university, fresh out of high school).
I think failing personally (rather than watching other people fail) is a far more powerful motivator.
Really? University was terrible for my work habits. I was used to having a constant stream of projects and assignments, and all of a sudden it was just midterms and finals. I went to all my anatomy classes and studied maybe a few hours total and pulled off an A+. Which was awesome, but now I expect school to be like that and I feel resentful when they give us assignments that actually need to be worked on outside of class.
(The fact that my academic courses in first year were all related to biology, the area where I had the most general knowledge already, made it a lot easier. In, say, physics, I would have had to study very hard for an A+).
studied maybe a few hours total and pulled off an A+
Yep—I did that at fist too. Mainly because I began in Maths—which I was really good at… that led to me getting lax and assuming that I didn’t have to do any work at all… Generally I found I got 90-100% in the subjects I was interested in… and barely scraped through on the ones I didn’t like… eventually I failed one—one that I knew was easy enough that I should have aced.
That woke me up and I started to try to change my habits… but because I’d basically been slacking for over a year by then—I was so out of the habit of actually working that I also resented it. I also didn’t have deadlines (except the mid-term/final one), and was living away from home—and there are SO MANY DISTRACTIONS at university… so it was a hard slog to learn to actually work. :P
I have had some good group experiences and some bad ones. The good experiences differ from the bad in two ways: group members know what they’re doing, and care about doing it. The former relates to both general knowledge (as you put it, knowing the right way to do things) and specific knowledge of one’s assignment, while the latter is basically motivation.
Of course, it’s easy to reflect on my past experiences and see, in retrospect, what shaped my feelings about them. However, that’s not quite at the point where it’s useful for predicting when future experiences will be good ones. Working in a group, especially with people you don’t know well, can lead to a lot of anxiety due to your uncertainty about the other people and how they will perform. Here’s how I’ve resolved this problem: figure out when I can trust the other people to know what they’re doing and care about doing it. If my priors for the group members indicate that I should trust them, I simply do, unless new events warrant a reevaluation of that trust. If they indicate that I shouldn’t, I assume that I will have to do all the work myself, and get going based on that. These can be mixed and matched, if I have different priors for different people. Coming to a working conclusion about the other people and then acting on it eliminates much of the anxiety from uncertainty.
One example of a great group experience was this past summer, when I did research at Fermilab. Because of the prominence of the laboratory, my priors for trusting my group members’ competence were high, and every day that trust was validated. Everyone had skilled backgrounds, knew the right ways to do things, and cared about the research.
In contrast, many such “group projects” in school were bad experiences. Year after year of these led me to develop the policy that if a person seemed unlikely to be invested and competent, I* would cut them out of the action or give them busywork whose importance was minimal (in those highly irritating cases where the teacher demanded that each person contribute or the grade would be lowered anyway). School group projects are generally important for the grade rather than their actual content, and therefore, I reasoned, getting the grade is also more important than achieving the “intended” semi-egalitarian group experience.
I suspect this is what led to the “new sort of problem” you described. It seems likely that when you missed the meeting and didn’t actively respond to the email communication, alarm bells went off for one or more of the other people in the group, especially if they didn’t know you well beforehand. I admit without embarrassment that I have done to other people the same thing that happened to you. Obviously you know you’re competent and invested, but that doesn’t mean others do. It’s unfortunate that you lost a group learning experience. However, for a project in which the outcome (the actual result and/or the grade) is most important, best practices dictate not taking chances on other members whose competence and investment seem uncertain.
To sum up: decide when and who you can trust, and go from there. Realize that the outcome is what’s important, and it’s not your responsibility to coax and prod every group member into a state of motivation and competence if they’re not already there; in the same way, it’s not others’ responsibility to do that for you.
*I recognize that you stated you’re not skilled at leading groups. To modify this advice for you (and other such people), I suggest that, if you come to that sort of realization about the person in the group and you’re not the appointed or apparent leader, bring it up to the person who is, in such a way that ey’ll hopefully take care of the problem.
Edit: I should have refreshed the page before submitting, as I now realize I repeated much of what other people posted before I finished writing mine. Oh well.
.
There are cases specifically intended not to follow that rule. For example, when my advisor takes on undergraduates for research projects and they haven’t done research before, he does coax and prod them, and he encourages the more experienced student members of the group to do the same. In that case, the result doesn’t matter so much; the project, at least initially, is meant to be an experience in which members can develop competency and motivation. Some amount of hand-holding will be necessary.
Often, teachers think they’re creating this same sort of environment by assigning group projects. However, the project is structured so that the grade is still the most important thing. For a student assigned such a project, it’s important for em to realize that ey has no moral obligation to go along with the teacher’s implied intention for the project. Developing that sort of mindset is then helpful down the road, when one is involved in other projects where the result is most important.
Please consider using “e” instead of “ey” or conjugating the “ey” as one would “they”. Spivak pronouns don’t annoy me but “mis”-conjugation does. This may not be worth the effort to you but there probably exist some others with the same foibles as me.
thanks.
Spivak pronouns are intended to be conjugated with singular third person verbs.
I didn’t. I learned the rule when I was left to my own devices and began to fail because nobody was prodding me (ie in university, fresh out of high school).
I think failing personally (rather than watching other people fail) is a far more powerful motivator.
Really? University was terrible for my work habits. I was used to having a constant stream of projects and assignments, and all of a sudden it was just midterms and finals. I went to all my anatomy classes and studied maybe a few hours total and pulled off an A+. Which was awesome, but now I expect school to be like that and I feel resentful when they give us assignments that actually need to be worked on outside of class.
(The fact that my academic courses in first year were all related to biology, the area where I had the most general knowledge already, made it a lot easier. In, say, physics, I would have had to study very hard for an A+).
Yep—I did that at fist too. Mainly because I began in Maths—which I was really good at… that led to me getting lax and assuming that I didn’t have to do any work at all… Generally I found I got 90-100% in the subjects I was interested in… and barely scraped through on the ones I didn’t like… eventually I failed one—one that I knew was easy enough that I should have aced.
That woke me up and I started to try to change my habits… but because I’d basically been slacking for over a year by then—I was so out of the habit of actually working that I also resented it. I also didn’t have deadlines (except the mid-term/final one), and was living away from home—and there are SO MANY DISTRACTIONS at university… so it was a hard slog to learn to actually work. :P
But eventually I did…