Group Work

This weekend, I have heard at least two stories about schools and group work. First, I think it is very important for students to work together.  They need these skills for their futures.  Secondly, I am certain I messed this up early on in my teaching career.  However, I do have a few opinions and ideas.

Story 1:  Middle School (not sure which content)
A group of students was to complete a project (not sure if it was all in school or in/out of school), but one child in the group refused to do his part.  The whole group got a 77 or something like that.  The other parts were fine, but because this one child would not do his part, the whole group received a lower grade.
1.  Everyone who worked was punished for the actions of one.
2. Everone else in the group worked just fine together, but this one person purposely made a decision to not work and pull his weight.
3. The child who did not work was rewarded.  He got credit (a 77 and not a 0) for work he didn't do.
The teacher should have handled this differently.  Yes, students need to work together, but this was not fair or equal.

Story 2: Upper Elementary School (various subjects)
Each week, teachers are assigning projects, rotating which content is covered, for students to do in groups.  Of all the examples I heard, students were assigned a partner, and work is completed outside of school.  The work is assigned toward the end of one week and due early the following week.  It is the students' responsibility to exchange numbers and addresses.  It is the students' and parents' responsibilities to make arrangements to get the students together.  These pairings do not have students together who live near one another and does not take into consideration families' busy weekends.  I have no idea how groups are graded or exactly what these projects are.  I do know that families do not feel comfortable telling the teachers their children will not participate in outside group projects. Because of one pairing, one parent told her child to just do the project so that her grade was not impacted by the other student not working.

Teachers need to teach students their expectations for group work--what roles to take and how to complete them.  This needs to be done through group work in class.  Grades should reflect the work completed and the willingness to work together.  I used to give my students a specific behavior to work on and for me to grade.  I gave each group a 100s chart with multiples of 5.  Every time I had to correct the group, I took off 5 points (You could also do this by 2s.)  The students worked on one behavior each time.  There was a grade for the behavior and a grade for the assignment.  I also had my students complete a reflection form for their group work.  This allowed them to tell me things I may have missed when working with another group.  They could even assign a grade to each group member, but they had to support their rational. They loved it.

We have to find ways to teach group work but not punish students when someone else struggles with the expectations.