canadiancow

I'm thinking about having some better-than-marker-on-sticker name tags done up for April 2 2018 AC 739 YYZ-SFO in-flight do

I don't know what a good style is. Stickers tend to work well because they go on anything, whereas a clip doesn't work as well on a t-shirt. Pin-backed tags can make holes, etc. I guess a lanyard could work too?

Any suggestions?

Yhztraveller

nothing says classy like bright, FT yellow t-shirts and these!

Jumper Jack

If only group project grades are allocated by the amount of work each member had done, LOL.

songsc

jc94

smallmj

Sometimes group projects are about getting the job done, not getting recognition for your share. Carrying the dead-weight is also a valuable real-world skill.

jc94

smallmj

In my program, the muppets all disappeared during 3rd year - even with group work. Part of that was that the rest of us wouldn't work with them, so they ended up in a group together. It helped that we had the choice to work in groups of our own choice or solo. I can't imagine having to work with them in an assigned group.

jc94

smallmj

I never had assigned groups in University, though my wife did in the M.Ed. course she took last fall. She was lucky, since there was one really useless person in the class.

My daughter described a group she worked with in a High School art course in an interesting way last week. She was the ideas person, another girl was really good at cutting things out for a collage, and the third was moral support.

canadiancow

That seems to suggest quality over quantity. I've worked with two types of people that break this assumption:

1. Negative productivity. I had to spend 30 minutes explaining to someone how to do a task I knew would take me 4 hours, but given that I was intimately familiar with the codebase, and he was brand new (to the codebase, not to software/Java/Android/the company), I knew it would take him longer. He spent 4 days, and did it in such a bad way I had to rip it out and rewrite it. I probably spent 6 hours in total on this, for work that would have taken me 4 hours without the other guy. Technically he did 4 days and I did 6 hours. But the end result was the same as if he hadn't been there and I'd spent 4 hours on it. How would you fill out your contribution table?

2. What do you do when you can work 10x faster with equal or better quality? They stay up late, putting in 80 hours, and I do it in a day. It sure looks like I'm not working as hard (because I'm not), but the tasks were evenly split.

I remember one course at UW. Group projects. For the first project, I worked with a guy I didn't really know. I ended up doing 90% of the work. Whatever. For the second project, I just didn't talk to him. I worked on it all myself, submitted it early (with just one name), and then the night before it was due, he messaged me and asked when we were going to work on it. I said I'd already finished and submitted it. He was not happy at all. But 6 months later I received an email from him apologizing about the whole situation. So some people do learn.

In middle school, there was a project where I did virtually none of the work. I felt bad enough about it that it never happened again.

knotseh

Jack - i'm excited for you to get into the workforce! Watch your views change as you become jaded from all the amazing people everywhere

hehe..... i know exactly how you feel. I guess you could say as long as they get the job done? But then you had to re-do it again.....
I'm not a manager...yet....but as a manager, I always wonder what they do in these sorta situations? Most of the time - i've seen them do nothing.....

I wish more people would learn...

jaysona

flyquiet

I do that. It is not impossible. I don't ask students to "rate" each other, but I ask them what each member of the group did. Group members should not be duplicating the exact same contribution and differences are expected, and some people rate different kinds of contributions as "less", simply because they don't know what goes into it. However, I tend to find the the students who cannot describe what others did are also the same people who are described by others as "didn't do much" and I do give them lower marks on the group project.
Groupwork is so important - as others have said, learning how to peer-motivate someone is a skill you will need to use much more (not less) in the wage-slave world. "Just" getting dinged on a project because someone let you down is trivial compared to getting laid off because your product is discontinued or not getting your annual bonus because a colleague F'd up.
I would also add that in one class where I did it all, I also was much better prepared for the exam because I had done everything, not just parts of it. It's not always a downside to being the person that does more.

jc94

If someone does such a bad job that I have to do the entire thing again I rank it as they did 0%. If they do an okay job, I'll be more lenient. But only up to the point I'm not spending > 4h reviewing and fixing their code.

This is a key point, and I've been in conversations about hours where we basically said we don't care that x works more hours than y because x is less efficient than y. x tends to be paid less until their learn to be more efficient.
If someone is new (to the project) they should not have to work stay late, the work should be split. Personally when I split work I take complexity and hours into account. Recently I had 65 small tasks and only one other person free so I took 35 and gave them 30 because I was able to get it done faster.

It's not just doing 90% of the work. It's being the person to compile everything and getting 80% of the work 2-3 days before it's due and then getting some of it 10pm the night before it's due and finding it was so bad I had to re-do it overnight or the entire project would have gotten a lower grade affecting me directly. Given this happened more than once, they clearly did not learn. My only somewhat harsh thought here is how they'd be in for a rude awakening at many companies. I give everyone a chance and I'll protect good employees as much as I can, but my patience has limits. I define good as one who tries hard, I've had good employees who struggled but at least they weren't lazy.

I feel asking the group to submit, as part of the final project a list declaring the work everyone did totalling 600% and signed by all team members is a completely useless approach as no-one with a brain is going to sign off < 100%. The approach you describe is more work, but better.
So I blame lazy professors. While an argument could be made that they were trying to emulate the real world be having everything contribute knowing people would do different amounts I just don't buy that being realistic or comparable. Besides in work it's normally exceedingly obvious whom the good and bad performers are.

Yes happy 3.141592654 day. Sadly that's by memory. #nerd