Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Singing the group assignment blues....

Group assignments used to drive me nuts when I was at University. I'm such a self-sufficient and perfectionistic type that I hated having to depend on other people to get stuff done and see it not done to the (perhaps overly high) standard that I would have produced.

So the second assignment for the subject I am tutoring at Uni this semester involves an assignment done in pairs. They have to come up with a contract on who will do what, and then produce an essay about a client group that is commonly seen by Occupational Therapists.

Most of them came pretty well organised and with topic preferences sorted out. I was able to give them all their first or second choices so that was good.

But there are always the annoying few who don't have their act together. Two of them had paired up but nominated no topics and then disappeared at the end of the session without coming to see me to have a topic allocated (even though I asked them to wait until they had one before leaving). Now I'm cranky with them for not listening and want to give them one of the harder topics to do. Just so they get the message that paying attention to what I tell them is important. Funnily enough, tonight's session was about professional communication skills. Nice that they followed it up with a big fail on listening.

And one guy had no partner, no topics nominated and asked if he could do the assignment on his own. I felt some sympathy for him but umm....no. This is a group assignment, buddy. Unfortunately there were no other unpartnered people left for him to pair up with. So now I have to check in one of the other tute groups to see if there's any other spare people.

Other than the disorganised people, I'm really enjoying this new job. Most of the students are really keen and enthusiastic about the material and join in with the activities. The subject/unit co-ordinator is excellent. I've worked with her before so I knew she would be well organised. Tonight's topics and activities were fun and interesting.

I'll enjoy it while the fun lasts. Their first assignment is due in on Easter Sunday. Twenty one 1500 word essays will then need to be marked...I can see that being a lot less fun.

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