There is no I in a group. In an organization, we all have seen how the productivity of a group is much higher than what an individual can ever attain. Everybody brings a skill to a table and strengthen the groups.
However, I naively thought that this skill could have been easily leveraged to educational institutions. But from my experience over the past 1 semester, I can only safely conclude that I was mistaken.
There is no I in a group. So that means the free-rider, by his virtue of being in the right group can excel without even having to lift his finger. In an organization, the feedback and appraisal kept the free riding under check. But those rules don’t apply in education. What makes matter worse is that few faculty members insist on allocating the groups themselves, rather than give students the freedom to choose their partners (which are usually 6 in number).
So one of the biggest problem I face is “How can I ensure that my group performs to its fullest capabilities” what kind of incentive can I use for such a group?
5 replies on “Game theory and Team Work”
Why is that there is no appraisal/feedback in education? I thought the peer pressure take of the free raiders. After all their reputation is at stake, isn’t?
What if everybody in a group wants to be free raider? Have a initial feedback within your group member to figure out if any body is playing a role of free-raider? If yes then eliminate him. Keep doing this until the end of the project.
if the students had freedom of selecting the group members then what u say is true… free riders would be left without any group… but if the the profs allot the groups then u have no such freedom.
also usually most of the free riders r guys who appear to have the greatest potential and knowledge… so actually they were the guys who were initially much sort after.
anyways lets c how the second term fares
its a really tough question how to involve everyone. in my mba days we use to divide the work and fix a time before submission where we all will sit together and compile or for some ppl who enjoyed making ppt etc we will dump all our data and they will make the presentation. But once it happened that my team mate was so bad and the work that was done was pathetic to core that I decided if ever she is in my team i will make sure she is not assigned any work. you know people start realizing the rotten apples and so is teachers so may be in your coming sems you ppl will have more options of choosing your own teammates. there was a time when prof said i will make the team and we said no sir i think you should let us pick our own team this will lead in better results. in some cases we were granted the wish and in some we weren’t…
But keep posted abt your mba days 🙂
thanks for sharing your experience.. 🙂 lets c how the next term goes (it starts on 22nd)
I do not understand from where did the author Lauren Weisberger’s made a thought to write “The Devil Wears Prada”.
Is this about only a story or really it is the way billion dollar company operates. It looks to me that the authors show the truth to the world.