Group work stinks

[#1rnstudent]

Hi everyone

I am in my 1st semester of school. Is there supposed to be a lot of group work in nursing school? Noone in my groups will doing anything. I have 3 projects right now, all group work, and a ton more work that I have to do on my own for regular classes etc. I don't have time to do all of the work involved for these projects as well as my regular homework. I could not pick who I got stuck with. Their laziness affects my grade. What am I gonna do? Will group work ever end? I hate it! I wish my fellow students would open a book. I wish they wanted to be a nurse as much as I do. I don't understand why they stay in this nursing program if they don't want to be nurses. that is what nursing school is supposed to lead to - being a nurse! HELP PLEASE!!!

[Marie_LPN, RN, LPN, RN]

Originally posted by RNKittyKat

My partner in one of my classes is on the opposite end of the learning scale as me. But what she lacks in academic ability, she makes up for in heart and effort.

.

The lady that sits next to me is like this. She's 54, the last time she had been in school was age 14, so she's been struggling with adjustment. I try to help her as much as possible, if i find some cool info on the net, i print her a copy too, if i come up with an idea for remembering something, i tell her. Recently i shrunk our assesstment papers down 50% so they were pocket size and i made her copies too. She said this helped a lot with remembering what was included with an assessment. And she's a hardworkers, and i always appreciate that.

[GratefulHeart]

I'm with you...and I haven't even begun nursing school yet! However, I have experienced the same in my pre-req courses.

What has worked for me when there's apathy in the group, is to take charge of outlining the project, and then because I've at least put that much labor in (by that time no one else has shown any interest in doing so), I go ahead and choose the part of the project I want to do. I ask them if they want to go ahead with this outline, and if they indicate yes, I pass around a sheet and have them sign up for what they want to be responsible for, and we as a group set up deadlines to have the work done. Then I email the instructor with our project outline along with who's responsible for doing/writing what. That way when it comes down to presentation day or submission time, the instructor can figure out pretty easily who's dropped the ball. BTW, they can usually figure that out anyway. If you're known as a student who takes initiative and puts forth effort, the instructors know, and if you're a slacker they know that too.

I've only used this method as a last resort and always try first to engage the others in planning the project together as a group. By the time I've suggested the project outline I've put together, the others in the group have been very willing to accept and run with it. I haven't had any one fight me in the planning stages, but it still doesn't stop people from letting the group down.