University students cannot avoid team projects. According to several students from different departments, students do an average of 4-5 team projects each semester. The main purport of the team project is to enhance teamwork and improve communication skills. Students build the teams themselves and allocate duties fairly among the team members to complete before the deadline and after that, when the due day comes, all the members gather the work that they had done. They are then supposed to analyze and discuss the problems and put the project together. Finally, they revise the work and practice for the presentation day.

This is how the team project is supposed to be handled, and it is the correct approach for the team project. But unfortunately this is not what happens. The duties are not equally divided, and members who put in the most effort in the team projects, do most of the work. The work leans to one side. Out of the 5 members, only about 2 or 3 members work hard on the project. In the worst case scenario, only one person does every part of the team project and the other members just want to be ‘free riders’.

However, the main purport of the team project which is to enhance teamwork and communication skills does not work well. In fact, this is the reality. There are several types of members being criticized from others. And the review has categorized those members into 5 types.

-Members who just work on their exams
They do not give any particular assistance to their team members when they are making power points and building the content of the project and spending time on scripts. They just stick to their midterm/final exams. They think that getting a good grade on an exam is much better than getting a good grade for the group presentation. Worse still, even though it is obvious that they didn’t participate in the group project, they are still credited to have done something because they ask other members to include them in the hours or double check the final revision. When we are given the time to evaluate all the member’s work and to give them a grade, those who just concentrated on their own work, such as exams and individual reports, just pretend that they participated in the group project so that they can get a good grade for the group presentation.

-Members who always breaks the appointments
Time management with the rest of the team is one of the most important parts of the team project. Everyone should be responsible for the promises that they make. While working on a team project, the most effective way is to divide the work. If someone promised to upload something or to finish their part by that day, then they should do it. The rest of the members did their own part on time, and they don’t have a lot of time either. They also have many assignments to do. They just put the team project as their first priority because it is a “Team Project” and not just an individual assignment.

-Members who think that they are the leaders of the team.
There are no different positions of the members. They are all equal and on the same level. Of course one of the members can lead the team if they do not judge the other members’ work. Sometimes, when one member tries to judge all the rest of the members’ work, for example, saying “that opinion is good” or “that is not high enough quality,” seems the members are just participating without preparing anything, and just pretending to work hard by expressing their own opinions or ideas.

-Members who keep opposing the other members’ ideas or opinions.
 There is always one person who disagrees with rest of the team members. These people do not have their own opinions or ideas but keep being negative about the other members. Of course, there can be conflict between members, because all the members have different perspectives, but one of the purports is to try and cooperate with each other to make a better result. But if one person only keeps criticizing and opposing the others’ thoughts and opinions, when all the rest of the members agree, then the team project cannot go forward.

-Members who do not attend the team meetings
 There are numerous reasons why these students don’t attend the meetings. It is not enough that when these members miss the meeting without any notice, they try to get themselves off the hook by saying just one short sentence: “I’m sorry”. Those who keep missing the meeting cannot follow what is going on in the team project; so they usually tell the rest of the members that they will just do anything that they are assigned to do. The other members, however, cannot assign them anything because they fear the lack of motivation might result in a bad situation. 

Lee Jung-Kwon(Reporter)

gazgaz1213@kookmin.ac.kr