Hi guys - wanted to c heck in to see how its going with all the teams. I don't see many teams all filled in on the mixed group page on the google groups. And there hasn't been much chatter here on the blog so thought i'd start some.
My groups is effectively down to 2.5 people. 2 haven't made it to the last 2 chats, haven't contributed any ideas, and haven't emailed (not even lame excuses). one of the five is doing kick-butt work - at all the chats, lots of ideas on teh blog, lots of ideas during the chat. The other sort of active person posted 4 pretty good ideas to the blog, missed one (of 3) chats. The half person is late to chats and missed the last one entirely even tho we scheduled it after he got off work, and he's only posted a couple of not very well thought out ideas but at least he posted something. I have emailed everybody in the group with expectations after the 2nd chat when 3.5 people didn't show up.
I know one team had someone drop out after the first couple of days because they realized they didn't have time to do the job justice - that's responsible (slow on the uptake about the project maybe, but responsible)
My response is to treat it like a job/paid internship. Fire the 2 who haven't contributed and see if their schools have alternates, although it is getting really late for them to start contributing ideas. Put the sort-of-responsive person on warning that he could be the next to go if he doesn't step up to the plate. Letting them continue is not fair to the 2 who have actually been doing some work. Their behavior is disrespectful to the other team members and wouldn't be tolerated for long in the work place.
ANybody else having this problem? Anybody have any ideas? It is up to us, the faculty in charge of the teams, to come up with a solution. So - what do you all think?
Kim
4 comments:
wow. i did feel like i was arm-wrestling sea turtles last weekend getting them all into one little old AOL IM chat at the same time, but we did finally pull it off. Even the one who was attending her grandpa's funeral pitched in on the blog and in the chat from grandpa's house.
I can't imagine the students not even emailing or voicemailing with bad excuses. I agree that they should be "fired."
As for the Google groups, I am about to send a project-wide email asking them to fill in their names on the appropriate page, so they are not late -- yet. See next post for related question on that from Darcy and me.
Although I was a bit frustrated with the lag time in responding to my emails, I have had 100% participation in the two Skype sessions. Now they are busy defining their five ideas for the mixed groups.
It seems that in the "real world" people drop out of commitments for various reasons. We should probably expect it here. Do we combine the smaller teams? Adding substitutes is difficult at this stage but not impossible as we are starting the design phase after the mixed groups have met.Fewer people may be an asset at the end when we are down to three teams. It is hard to manage a team with 10+ people.
I am confused about the mixed groups. Do we each meet with one?
Things have run fairly smoothly on my end, although 2 of the 5 team members have yet to make a Skype chat (time zone issue and another member in Ecuador trying to find an open Internet cafe at a late evening time). I did receive profuse apologies on both team members' parts, and they have been posting to the blog.
I actually received about 40 out of 50 initial ideas (posted to the blog), although more than half of them were pretty weak.
Perhaps, I'm overdoing it, but I find a friendly reminder posted to the blog (by me) about our upcoming Skype chat date/time or impending deadline for 50 ideas to be posted to the blog seems to rattle their cages and provide results.
As for the duffers, Kim, I agree--if they haven't snapped into action by now, it's probably unlikely in future. I'd be interested to know whether any of the 2.5 folks are from St. Mike's (as two of them are on your team).
My biggest concern is that Team 1 members are "doing the work," but not nearly at the intensity they were in Ithaca; also, the ideas are lacking in depth of research and inclusion of cutting edge tools (they they should be newly discovering in their research); they have interesting starting points, but there are large holes in the ideas. Each person is spearheading her/his idea at this point, will post a developed concept to our blog tomorrow, then we'll all chat at 9 p.m. on Skype. I'm hang'in in there!
Marybeth - good point about the lack of tech savvy or willingness to play around to get more savvy. That may be one of the reasons they have trouble coming up with ideas - they don't know what's out there to play with.
and as an update - no posts from 3 of my missing team members, no comments, no email.
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