can anyone help me with words of advice for DD please....

[whizzmum]

Hi, words of wisdom needed from MNs please... my DD (year 8) has got herself in a right state worrying... has a project to do for geography in a group of4 of which she is the "leader" - has been getting together information needed from all 3 others in the group so that she can piece it altogether. One of the other children is great, helping out, informatino given, etc. but the other 2 don't want to know or just give any old bits of work to be included. My DD's friend said that her mum thinks these 2 are always put with 2 sensible children in the hope that they will get it done?! How can I reassure her that she can only do so much (you can lead a horse to water.......) She is worried because they will get a group mark. I know these things are done for teamwork but sometimes I wonder..... she doesn't want to say anything about the other 2 for fear of getting them in trouble. Thank you.

DS had this problem, 2 worked & 2 were coasting/carried. I suggested that on every slide they showed (Powerpoint presentation) they had a small cresdit at the bottom of who made/contributed it.

DS put the whole thing together as IT is his thing, but some of them only gave a few lines for the bits they were doing, whereas him & one 0ther did pages. When the 2 slackers saw the "credits" they got quite annoyed. One of them even produced some extra.

They teacher got to see who had really done the work as well.

Thanks, Milliways - well done your son! That's a good idea.

ds1 has this all the time. It doesn't seem to bother him very much, but it annoys the hell out of me. When he spends hours creating a 12-page powerpoint with animation and sound, I quietly ask "so what is everybody else doing?"

He has gradually started to realise this, and more and more now the 'hard workers' will choose to be in a group together and create an amazing collaborative project, rather than each carry the can for a lazy group. But obviously they don't always get to choose their group.

Just be aware that by this stage in the year the teachers will be well aware who has put in the effort and who hasn't.

I think learning to work in groups, trying to learn to inspire and motivate others, to delegate, and make sure everyone is responsible and accountable are actually very important skills, and of far more value than much of what they learn in school!

My daughter has this all the time. Mainly because she is prepared to put in amazing numbers of ours which others aren't to make up for them. The groups tend to change and some are better than others. Once she has collated everything she makes sure any holes are filled herself. She sees it that whatever the grade she gets, she was the leader and she still learned the most and no one can take that away from her. One day she will have to do work on her own and all the credit will be hers and she will have learned how to do effective presentations through her study now. Its also good real world experience.

Teachers do notice those that work well in groups as she is always being recognised for it.

Personally it wouldn't bother me at all but I like the previous poster powerpoint credits.

Thanks, Roisin - I always value your advice! and thanks, Kez for your points, also. It's ironic, but can't remember doing any of this teamwork thing at school (a long distant memory now)! and I used to be a team manager!!!

I don't remember teamwork stuff either; I think education has changed a lot. It is trying to educate for the real world. I think it's great for those good at teamwork as it gives them confidence and they can learn how to deal with those that don't try through delegation and motivational skills.

I spoke to my dauhghter about this thread this morning as she is in the middle of a music project. She tells me she's not the leader this time and was voted by the group to do the presentation despite being a good musician. I asked her how it was going and she said that she was doing well with the presentation, so a couple of others decided they now know what to do (she had done research and a survey) so they'll take that over and she can play! She finds it really amusing because the others I mention are both generally in higher sets. Of course it's not a stress to her because she can play the piece anyway. I was very proud of her attitude.

When I was at Uni (I was a very mature student!) a group of us oldies had to do a project. None of the others were interested so I, with help from a friend who was not even in our group, did the entire thing.

When I presented it, it received good feedback and one of our lecturers suggested I write it up seriously and he would present it to one of his major research groups to be used as a basis for further research, the others suddenly wanted the data and to write it up themselves to get the marks for it.

I did indeed give them the data, but unfortunately rather too late for them to write it up well enough for it to be included in their 'portfolios'. Oh dear

I think the idea of putting credits on each piece is a great one.