Two words will always inspire fear within me: Group project. I have chills even writing this. As an MA student who has been in the game for four years now, every time I am asked to complete an assignment seemingly designed to confuse and terrify me, I have no idea where to begin. From blog posts to group posters, I’m sure many of you have fallen victim to the “fun” assessments which are increasingly cropping up and gradually displacing the essay format.
Often shoehorned into the curriculum as midterms, with little to no guidance given on how to complete them successfully, whenever I am faced with recording a video essay or working with people on a project who have no interest in speaking to me, I question the motivations behind these types of assessments. Everybody I know finds them extremely stressful, resulting in lower grades (surprise, surprise), which I know our lecturers do not want to see. I understand that they are designed to force us to work outside of our comfort zones, but I struggle to see the benefit when all it seems to cause is unnecessary stress. Maybe this is because I find comfort in the classic research, write, edit method that the essay allows for, but I don’t see how recording a podcast should count for seventy per cent of my grade. I don’t want to record it, and I’m sure that whoever is marking it doesn’t want to see me stuttering and struggling to articulate myself as well as I typically can. If lecturers want to encourage us to step outside of our comfort zones and collaborate, I propose that they begin implementing a peer review system, which has all the benefits and none of the stress associated with these projects.
This is where students are paired up and given space to evaluate and comment on each other’s work. Through this, we could exercise our critical thinking and social skills, which is what I believe they are attempting to encourage through these unconventional means of assessment. This would be invaluable to our professional growth while also allowing us to get the sleep we all need, rather than lying awake stressing over assignments we struggle to complete to a high standard.