Why Group Work Doesn't Always Work

Right now, I'm really fed up with group work. We do a lot of group work in CAP; it's part of the program. I suppose that the reason that we do so much group work is that CAP is a communications based program and it's important to learn to work with others. The thing is, group work doesn't often work out all that well.

First of all, often times, teachers will tell students that they are allowed to form their own groups, but that they should work with people who they don't usually work with or someone who is interested in doing a similar idea, as opposed to their friends. Anyone who has ever been a student can tell you that that doesn't actually happen. As soon as a teacher says that students are allowed to pick their own groups, students start looking around, making eye contact with their friends, with that subtle head cock and nod that means, "lets work together". The second part of the teacher's statement either completely goes unheard, or is met with an eye roll and then ignored. Teachers notice  patterns of student behavior in their classrooms, so I'd be surprised if they didn't notice this; however, this never seems to change.

Fine. I'm not saying that I want teachers to assign groups for every project. But I don't understand the point of making the statement if both teachers and students know that it isn't actually going to effect the makeup of the groups. I'm also not saying that I don't like working with my friends. I enjoy it as much as anyone else. But if the whole point of group work is to learn to work with diverse and different groups of people, it doesn't really make sense to always work with the same group when given the opportunity.  Also, if this is the goal of the teachers, it doesn't make sense that they allow this dynamic to exist unaddresed. 

Another big issue that I have with group work is the distribution of work within the group, which is very rarely equal. Often, one member of the group will wind up doing most or all of the work on a group project. I think that most of us have probably been in both the position of the person doing all of the work and the person doing very little work at one point or another.  Being in the position of the former is extremely frustrating. The whole point of a group project is that the teacher is asking students to do something that is not meant to be done alone, either because it's too big to do alone or because students are meant to learn something from each other. Teachers base the amount of time given to do a project on the assumption that the work load will be shared between students.When one student has to do all of the work, the project loses a lot of it's meaning. In addition, the project becomes an unfair burden on that student's time. For example, in a group of three, the student who does most of the work often winds up spending three times the amount of time expected of one student because they have to carry the burden of their peers work as well. 

 I'm also not saying that this always happens. Sometimes groups are very well balanced. From what I've observed, on of the reasons that friends consistently work together is that work gets distributed more fairly among friends, or if one person winds up with all the work, it is more because they are willing to do it and less because no one else is. 

In CAP, we all have a lot of work right now. The work load is pretty overwhelming as it is. So when you have to do not only the work assigned to you, but also the work of others in a group, it's just ridiculous. I think that ultimately, we all benefit when everyone does their fair share.