life skills
team effort
How to Survive Your
Group Project
By Cortlin Chavis
It’s never easy. The teacher labels the project
“group work” and your stomach sinks.
She puts you in assigned groups and you don’t
end up with a single friend—or—she lets you
choose and that just happens to be the class
you don’t talk to anyone in.
Either way, there are now more people to
please and more ideas to consider.
10 |
Fall 2017
So, why have group work in the first place?
I asked the teacher I’m closest to, my mom, and she said that she
uses group work so her students can realize who has leadership
roles, how to compromise and negotiate, and other skills needed
later in life. My AP U.S. History teacher would use it as a tool to
guide us in to new and difficult assignments; instead of us strug-
gling individually, we could ask one another things we weren’t
clear on.
Everyone is different when it comes to school
work, but there are about five different personality
types I’ve noticed in any group project team:
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