> It is a terrible thing that our educational system favors so much individualism, even when most important work
Do you recall doing group projects in school ever? I do. They're poorly designed by faculty, most of whom have little experience other than working alone all day in front of a class of 30.
Individuals are graded as a group, so the group average quality affects your individual grade. And with little way of enforcing norms, the group average effort also affects your individual grade. A clever shirker will reveal themselves early enough to motivate their teammates into covering their missing contribution.
There's techniques to mitigate this, but I'd say 1 in 10 faculty cares about this, 2 in 10 heard that group work is critical to industry and the other 8 just figure grading 6 group projects is easier than grading 30.
> Do you recall doing group projects in school ever? I do. They're poorly designed by faculty, most of whom have little experience other than working alone all day in front of a class of 30.
And they are poorly executed by students because they don't really have anything like a job at stake.
I don't do group classes when I teach. There is no way for me as the "manager" to actually impact the group dynamics. So, grading 6 groups is WAY harder than 30 individuals.
However, I make sure that assignments build on one another. By the end of the semester, practically every student curses themselves for how crappy the code they wrote at the beginning of the semester was.
Nothing drives home why you should write better code than being both the producer and consumer of crappy code.
Good points, but there's some value in learning the averaging effect that much. About the crucial importance of choosing good teammates. About the limitations of the individual in overcoming a bad team.
Do you recall doing group projects in school ever? I do. They're poorly designed by faculty, most of whom have little experience other than working alone all day in front of a class of 30.
Individuals are graded as a group, so the group average quality affects your individual grade. And with little way of enforcing norms, the group average effort also affects your individual grade. A clever shirker will reveal themselves early enough to motivate their teammates into covering their missing contribution.
There's techniques to mitigate this, but I'd say 1 in 10 faculty cares about this, 2 in 10 heard that group work is critical to industry and the other 8 just figure grading 6 group projects is easier than grading 30.