Rethinking an Old Paradigm




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6 Responses to Rethinking an Old Paradigm

  1. Gracie Rowland says:

    I believe that teamwork is a vital and necessary part of every successful person’s life. Nothing can be achieved alone. Life is not a race but a hike, and everyone needs someone to hike with. The American education system almost completely disregards a student’s need to develop the ability to work well with others. I don’t love group work. It can be difficult at times. But I recognize the need for it. I realize that more can be achieved together if everyone works cohesively. As long as individual accountability is maintained, I believe that learning to complete projects with others should play an integral part in our education system.

  2. Alexandria Kerr says:

    By now it is practically common knowledge that the US education system if quite flawed. For instance, many people (including myself) believe that our education system is much more focused on memorization of facts opposed to actually absorbing the knowledge. From a young age we are taught to read and then immediately spit out facts without learning why we need to know these things. However, I do not believe the solution to the problems with the education system is to implement a group project grading system. I believe that implementation of a system like this would have consequences such as: decreased independence and decreased individuality. Having students always be in a group will cause them to become dependent on one another; at first this may not seem that bad, but this could cause students to not be able to solve problems for themselves. Students also may lose a sense of individuality with this system because they would not be able to make their own decisions due to having to constantly needing to reach a group consensus. I believe that occasional group projects are fine, but always being in a group is not.

  3. Ethan Hill says:

    Most scenarios in the modern workplace include at least some teamwork-based task. Because of this I think teaching should be more group based than it is in current schools today. Although, we should not discredit individual learning as it teaches critical thinking when in pressured environments. Overall, we should focus more on team based education while not disregarding individual learning all together.

  4. Samantha says:

    Almost all of the 21st-century workplace depends on teamwork. It may not be direct, but the marketers for a company still work in a team with the manual laborers to make a company run smoothly. The major downside to grading on the result of group work is that there is nothing to tell how much each person contributed. Also, there is a concern that people will get blended, just like they are with the current school system. Ideally, the school system should be designed to let people reach their full potential in the area of their passion. However, making everything focused on group work removes the individuality of students. In addition, competition is a major driving factor in school, without individualization, there is no competition. I believe there should be a balance of group work and individual work. It could improve education as a whole though in the aspect that it will prepare students for the real world. They’ll learn to work together with people, providing with social skills that they may need in the future. I feel like if group work was the center of education, the grading would become more like a participation grade, rather than an accurate grade. It will all become more lackadaisical and laid back. This could seriously negatively impact the quality of education that students receive.

  5. Tejus Kotikalapudi says:

    No public workplace puts the workload entirely on one person in this century. There is a reason employers look for diversity when making a team in the workplace. Often, it is hard for one to put themselves in another person’s shoe and get a new perspective on an idea so diversity of thought is important. When an educator grades based on group work, it encourages students to share their ideas without fear of someone else “stealing” his or her ideas. In addition to increasing the quality of work in the classroom overall, it would also encourage a better social environment. However, school can not focus entirely on group work because solo work is integral to making a person a critical thinker that can formulate his or her own thoughts. If solo work was phased out at young ages, the diversity of thought that makes group work so effective would not be present. The most effective compromise would be to introduce a more group work oriented curriculum as students get older to acclimate them to the workforce but still give them time when they’re young to form their own academic personality.

  6. Shelby Tisdale says:

    Success in life, in school, and in the workplace comes down to individual work ethic and ability. While learning to work well with others is indisputably a valuable skill, assessing student progress based on group work would be a flawed approach to America’s educational system. The modern workplace is a place of balance; it is composed of unique and diverse individuals supplementing one another’s strengths and counteracting one another’s weaknesses. Group projects lack this balance; students who are more proficient at the subject at hand end up taking on the burden of completing the task while other students profit. In order to accommodate individual needs and push each student to fulfill his or her potential, America needs to adopt an approach of individually-paced learning. Students should be given remedial attention in areas in which they are struggling and should be challenged further when they demonstrate mastery at a given subject or skill. The educational environment should be celebratory of individuality and a place where trial and error is addressed as a necessary part of growth, eliminating a focus on the negativity of labels of success and failure. A student’s success in school is indicative of individual initiative, which defines success in the workplace and in life. Assessing proficiency solely on group activities would be inequitable and detrimental to the learning process and students’ futures regarding social interaction in the workplace.

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