I am SOOOO MAD! - OT

[Nat Hyland]

Hi all

For all of our subjects last semester there was a component of group work. I think the university believes it is the best way to encourage and promote teamwork after we are employed. Well, I disagree, because not everyone has the same degree of commitment to the cause.

For two of my subjects I was in the same group of girls. One of the girls I knew fairly well and is a friend, the other two I didn't know so well, although one works where I used to work (as a carer). For one subject, the other two girls (apart from my friend Eunice) contributed NOTHING - and I mean NOTHING, and Eunice and I did all the work. Of course, the other two girls received a mark for the work.

When it came to submitting work for the other subject, and the other two girls STILL hadn't contributed anything (or not much more than the last subject) Eunice complained to me about us putting down their signatures as having contributed to the work, when really they hadn't. I told her that we should tell the lecturer, as we should have with the other subject, but Eunice wouldn't do it. Unfortunately she didn't say this until AFTER we had submitted the major part of the work (a portfolio of information, including an essay, on bipolar disorder)

So we went to the lecturer, and she asked Eunice and I to sign a declaration stating that we had done the work without contribution from the other two girls. We did this, and then the lecturer called us all into her office to discuss what we would do. She had said that the portfolio would have got 75% anyway, but could get more if we put a couple of other things in and fixed a couple of things up. It was decided that one of the other girls (Janine) would be responsible for adding the extra work, fixing the parts that had to be fixed, and then submitting the assingment. This was because she had contributed nothing so far.

We left it at that, and Janine was given a week to resubmit the assignment. The way we submit assignments is in "pidgeon-holes" which are boxes in the main building which are clearly labelled with the subject, code and lecturer for the subject. A couple of days after Janine was due to submit the assignment I sent her a text message and asked her if she had submitted it. She said yes, that everything was fine. So I thought nothing more of it until I still hadn't received a mark by the next week. Then last Monday I received two text messages - one from Eunice, and one from the other girl Ivy, asking how I went in the subject. I was at work when the text went through, so I didn't have a chance to look at the internet until the next day to see what the mark was. When I looked, I had an "L" next to that subject, meaning the mark was late. When I phoned the other girl (Ivy) that night and told her she said "Oh yeah, Janine told me that when she went to submit the assignment she accidentally put it in the wrong pidgeon-hole for a different subject"! Well, that made my blood boil, because the mark was already late, and I didn't know how long it would take for the assignment to be found and given to the right person (the uni was on holidays at the time).

Eunice phoned me very upset yesterday and said that she had only received 53% for the subject, and wanted to know what I had received. She said that by that mark, we must have only received 8% for the portfolio (as I said it was worth 40% of the overall mark). When I looked I found that I had only received 51%, and I soon realised what had happened. I told Eunice that I thought the portfolio hadn't yet been found, and because the marks had to be submitted by Friday, our marks had NOT included the portfolio, because it HADN'T BEEN FOUND! There is NO WAY we would have received only 8%, because we had already been told that we would have received 75% for the portfolio in its ORIGINAL state. Taking that into account, when the assignment is found, it should add another 30% (at least) to our overall mark, bringing it to 80-something per cent. Whether they will actually ALLOW our marks to be changed to include the portfolio is another matter.

We had considered compling the whole portfolio again, because we still had copies of everything, but it would have taken too long. So Eunice and I will be speaking to the lecturer tomorrow to see what we can do about the portfolio.

The stuff up with the portfolio just enforced my dislike of doing group work :(!

Nat.

[Lauren88]

((Nat)) :eek::mad: I know how you feel - a friend and I had a similar issue with two people on a group project we did - it's really frustrating how all your and Eunice's hard work has been undermined! I hope the lecturer is understanding and you don't have to resubmit it - let us know!

hugs - that is gutting! Do you have anything else that is group work? How big a part is this module of your degree? (I know it doesn't take away the frustration though :(

[Nat Hyland]

the only subject we had no group work for I received a distinction, two other subjects I got a credit for, and the other is the one I mentioned in my post.

I sent Janine a text message yesterday letting her know how angry I was about her being so careless. It's all very well making such a mistake when you are only submitting work for yourself, but when you are submitting it for other people, it's not good enough. It makes me wonder what sort of nurse she is going to be???

We had no group work second semester last year, and I got three distinctions and one credit. I think all those facts are saying something - my standards are a lot higher than some other people's. I DON'T WANT to just scrape through with a pass, I want to get the best mark I can get, so I put my heart and soul into my work. Unfortunately some people don't have that sort of commitment :( !

Nat.

[Suecr]

That stinks. I am in school now as well, and they have strict rules that if there is a group project, everybody's role has to be clearly defined before the proposal is accepted. If someones role is not being filled, them the TA or instruter gets notified immediatley and they are dismissed from the project. I tend to avoid them at all costs if possible. Anyway, sorry this happened to you!

[Nat Hyland]

what ACTUALLY happened was: When Janine went to hand in the portfolio (which was in a 2 ring binder with all the articles and pampelets and other materials that were part of the portfolio) it wouldn't fit through the slot in the lecturer's pidgeon hole, so she TOOK THEM OUT AND JUST SUBMITTED OUR WRITTEN ASSIGNMENT :mad::eek:! That made it even worse, because these other materials were the MAJOR part of the assignment! Janine KNEW that, so I don't know why she didn't just submit the assignment into the office instead of trying to put it in the pidgeon hole when it didn't fit. I'm sure we weren't the only group that had that problem. Janine made the excuse that she was depressed because she had failed all her exams. Well, now she has made the rest of us depressed too! The tutor marking the assignment has been able to contact her and ask her to submit all the material she removed from the portfolio and MAYBE he can twist things a bit so we can get our mark changed.

To make matters worse ANOTHER group assignment I had to submit, I did the whole introduction for, plus another section. I did the introduction before we had actually got into groups. According to what the lecturer said in our lecture yesterday, I had done EXACTLY what should have been done. Anyway, for this assignment, one girl was given the responsiblity of compling it (again!). When I gave her my introduction she said I shouldn't have bothered because someone else had been allocated to that, so I gather she didn't use any of it in the final assignment. I didn't get to see the final product before she submitted it. We found out yesterday that we had only got 59% :(! The other girl who had submitted it was happy with the pass, but I was devastated, because I KNEW I'd put more work into it than that!

I am seriously depressed about all of this, and am considering quitting the course, if this is what it is going to be like for the next year and a half :(! I don't think I can stand the stress!

I am going today too to speak to one of the lecturers about my clinical placement at the hospital (she was the co-ordinator of the clinicals) and the behaviour of my preceptor. I might also ask her about the assignment. On a happier note, I saw my other preceptor when I was here on Monday. She is taking one of our prac classes, which will be nice!

I woke up at 2am this morning and couldn't go back to sleep because of all of this. As I said, if this is how it is going to be for the next 18 months, I don't know if it's worth the stress!

Nat.

[HydroVicki]

This saga kind of puts me in mind of how things go in the "real" world a lot of times. :( How sad. :(

Maybe the people who make it a requirement to work in groups for these school projects are trying to make you learn how you'll have to deal with such people in the "real" world after you're out of school.....

Vicki

[Nat Hyland]

The good news is: I had a phone call yesterday from the lecturer marking our portfolio, and after Janine finally submitted the rest of the stuff, he said we would be given 70% for our porfolio :)! Only Eunice and I were to be given the extra marks though, Janine and Ivy were not going to have their marks changed. Sure beats 8%, which was what we would have got otherwise :rolleyes:. So now I have received 83% for the subject instead of 53% :). That's how it should have been in the first place, and although it took a bit of effort, justice has been done.

On the other had, we hand our first tutorial for mental health yesterday and guess what? AGAIN there's group work :mad:! THIS TIME instead of giving a presentation to the class, we have to VIDEOTAPE it (in our own time) and submit a DVD. Well, that's all very well for people who have access to a DVD camera, but it's pretty difficult if you don't. BUT the worst part of this was, that when we were asked to get into groups no one really moved from where they were sitting, and I started discussing with Eunice, who was sitting next to me, what we would do. When the tutor eventually came in, she basically just assigned groups of three (and there was one of four) according to how we were sitting, meaning that I ended up not having a group! There was one student who was not in the tute, and I was asked to work with him. Well, I don't even know him, have never met him, so how am I supposed to work with him. To top it off, he is a black African, who I KNOW most people don't like (there are MANY black Africans in that part of Melbourne, Eunice included).

I don't know why one of the group with four students couldn't work with me and this other student who wasn't there. It was meant to be groups of three anyway. So I have already started this semester behind the 8-ball without even doing anything to cause it :( ! I'm angry with Eunice for not speaking up, which is what she does when she knows she's done the wrong thing - when she thinks she's right, you can't stop her from talking - or should I say screaming :rolleyes:.

I am already stressed about this :(!

Nat.