euu typedd*:
blog
(Monday, July 9, 2007-)
+7/09/2007 06:44:00 PM]*
# -
for some reason, time was passing so slowly today, maybe because we were unknowingly dismissed early for lunch and despite staying back in class to ask mr pradeep about some IS stuff and going down to the canteen later then everybody else, we were still had a lot of time to chit chat in the canteen after slowly eating. and one thing I am really starting to hate especially in this class is the paranoia of a few individuals who want to have that slight advantage and avoid certain people in the class from joining their group and pulling all their scores down, form groups as early as 3 weeks in advance even before the details of the project is given out. I mean that just takes the whole fun and joy out of doing the project, its more important that you actually learn something from a particular project because you put in effort into it and at the same time not overdoing the requirements of the projects, and only by doing so will you reap the most out of the project assignment and learn the most out of it. if your group has dead weights who do not contribute and may even hinder the progress that you try to make by questioning our decisions and information without actually doing any form of research or understanding the assignment himself, then that just means that he will not benefit from any of the project and even if he does get the marks for the project without contributing anything towards it, he will eventually be at the losing end one day.
Another aspect of project work that I think a lot of groups lack is the aspect of group dynamics. even if you are able to gather a group of the most competent and best people suited for the project together, without group dynamics, the groups is as useless and inefficient or even more, as a group of totally uneducated people who have never been exposed to anything like that before but can work together like a well oiled set of clogs.
it is pretty stupid to wholly delegate one task solely to one person and divide the workload so clearly that there is almost no interaction or discussions between any of the group members other then the orders given by the supposed "group leader" to the rest of the group members. At the end the end result will be like a quilt, like lots of different colored, texture, material, patterned, cloth being sewed together by the "group leader" who will do the "summery" which is supposed to be the hardest of any of the task and itself is able to make up his share of the workload.
I have seen many cases where there is supposedly a dream team, or nearly complete dream team getting totally trashed by another group that does not have much supposed intellect or knowledge however has good team sprit. This compared with the "dream team" which does not have any team sprit and clearly allocates a specific job for each person. it not that that is not good, its just that each person should at the most be given a part to oversee, however does not do the whole part by himself, instead having plenty of group discussions to debate and evaluate the best course of action to take, brainstorm for ideas and come to a general consensus on a particular part of the project, be it ideas, solutions and even what information to use/present in the final report.
The kasiusm of this aspect of the school, or at least my class, needs to seriously be stamped out, forming groups in advance is ok sometimes, but with moderation and not something like 3 weeks in advance. if this is not done soon, everyone will only stand to lose in the long run and nobody or only the few who understands and embrace the sprit of itai-doshin, many in body, one in mind, will be able to fully reap the full benefits of doing any project with any group given to him. And not just be able to get high grades for it, but learn nothing much in the end.
the story ends like this;
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