I make the argument that the world of work will often require them to work in groups, and now is a time to develop their people and self management skills. Also, doing it in groups takes less class time for presentations and less marking time for me 
My undergrads are the only ones I give group wirk to
That’s all well and fine in theory, but I’ve found that with most “group” activities they’ll all chatter about it, then one will do all the work with a bit of help, and one or two will do sweet fuck-all.
This is an interesting idea, although somewhere a poster was saying it is unfair to students with rundown houses (but Teams can give fake background). I might consider this rule also, but i wonder what others here think…
Discuss in your group. One group member will report back to the thread 
With both Teams and Google Meet you can give fake backgrounds. Poverty or an insane grandmother running around naked with a live fish in her mouth isn’t an excuse.
Yes, exactly. And I stress this to them in this project. The unit they are working on now is titles Solving Issues Through Group Discussions. Their job is to work on communication, research, division of labor, etc. And in the age of Covid they get experience doing this through online meetings.
I haven’t had that problem yet in Taiwan for class activities, but i try to give them challenges they can do which are fun and interesting and useful
Each member is required to present for equal time in my project. Nowhere to hide.
Apologies if this sounds cynical, but that is naive. As I said before. the ones with more social standing do nothing and get the grades, and one poor sucker does most of the work. There’s no way of proving it was a team effort, neither in class nor online.
Edit
Well, that is an option. But it can get tiresome and boring very quickly.
And yet you seem so convinced that the opposite is true
This might be true of the students in your classes, no doubt, but we have different students and likely some of us manage things differently from you which could explain why we see it differently…
For example, my undergrad course right now is a 4th year elective and happens to be something i know a lot about. I circulate and monitor their groupwork in class and I’m quite confident that most of them are contributing. The ones that don’t want to will wander off because they know i don’t sweat over a few lost causes when i can keep the majority productively engaged
Yes, that’s sweet. And it’s exactly what I do.
Much easier in class than online.
Good preparation for the future. You’ve accurately described my workplace!
Guy
Uneven levels of input happens but that is true in the work world too. This is part of the experience. I let them form their own groups. And by the time they reach my class they’ve been in school for three years and know each other well and know who is a slacker. If they want to let one in their group they know what to expect. They also get private feedback papers to assess their team members performance and they will rate some lower than others.
Yes, it does.
I did this for their two assignments, and definitely found the stringer and harder working students grouped together. They had the option to change groups for the different assignments and chose not to. I’ll probably continue, though some groups are definitely stronger
In class, i do different things to mix up the groups. This has a few advantages: can use group forming activities that involve content, or activities that are fun, or activities that make them move and wake them up, and helps prevent the complacency of sitting in the same place with the same people
Since this is a new course for me, i negotiated their assessments with them and gave this option. The response was overwhelmingly NO they didnt want to grade each other. But it is a good solution to the problem of useless group members
This happens in my class too and it shows in their presentations but as they all speak equally some do better than others. Also, just because a kid is less focused or whatever, doesn’t mean they shouldn’t get the experience of group work. Some are late bloomers.
Right, I change groups and partners every class through a random method so they don’t get used to one partner and some kids can’t fiind partners. For midterm and final projects I let them for their own groups.
One annoyance I have is the expectation of management and admin staff that I am computer literate. They are asking for me to send them a lot of information about my classes. For example, I have to send attendance reports (even though I take attendance the same as normal classes and post attendance on the university intranet as I always do). It’s not difficult, but yesterday one came through blank. They expect me to sort this issue out. I dunno. I downloaded it and that’s what Teams gave me. The attendance is on the university intranet.
Plus they want screen shots of the students in class. That old cultural lack of trust.
It’s not a big issue, just irritating.
That sort of B.S. drives me absolutely mad. You’re doing it on the school system and they want another record? Screen shots of the students? All they’d get from my classes is a bunch of little squares with their Chinese names. This is all little admins squirreling away a bunch of useless information just to try and look good to the MOE. Try conveniently forgetting it and see if they remind you.
I had to be a judge for a H.S. speech contest a few days ago. It got put online like everything else and the school was absolutely anal about repeatedly emailing me a bunch of information that they obviously ran from Chinese into Google translate, and calling me on my office extension to make sure I read it, subtly pressuring me to get it done days before the deadline and then demanding a bunch of documentation plus a comments video. Oy vey!