I will be starting my bachelors in a few months at UOP and was wondering how the team learning concept works. So far I have heard mixed results and was wondering if any current students or alumni could shed a little light on the subject and talk about their experience with team learning at UOP. From what I understand team learning is supposed help you get prepared for real world challenges because most people work in groups or teams and it is usually a group or team effort. This all sounds good but I have also heard that your grade is dependent on others pulling their own weight on the group assignments, which does make sense since everyone in the group is supposed to be involved. I must admit that I am a little weary about this because I put a lot of time and effort into keeping my grades high, and the thought of someone else dragging my GPA down concerns me.

  Also how is the transition from going to 2 nine week courses to 1 five week course at a time, to me it sounds much easier. I have been taking two classes at a time now for a couple of years and the thought of one class at a time sounds like a breeze to me.

Careful, accelerated courses are no joke.  I had 1 six week course at a time for my MBA program and it was all I could handle.  In fact, at times I had to go to unreasonable lengths to finish my homework in time. 

I second the notion that accelerated courses are not to be taken lightly.  Going from two nine-week courses at a time to two five-week courses taken in a row sounds like the same amount of work.

As for team learning, I'm not a big fan of this.  I've never bought into the explanation that it's supposed to mirror a real world working experience.  At many jobs the things you do are primarily on an individual basis.  Even when you work in groups, your supervisor will be in a much better position to decide who's not pulling his or her weight than a university course instructor is with a group of students who submit a joint project.  In fact, I've always sort of suspected that some colleges rely on this model more because it's easier for an instructor to grade five group projects than twenty individual assignments....

-=Steve=-

---

B.S., Info Sys, Charter Oak State College
M.A., Educational Tech Leadership, George Washington University
Doctor of Health Education, A.T. Still University, in progress

It can be a matter of personal preference, but odds are you will always have at least one lousy team member. My husband has had team projects in every class for AIU, and without exception, he has had to deal with dead weight teammates and others unwilling or unable to lead.

The difference between "real world" teams and online team learning is that the environments, roles, and attitudes of the team members are totally different. I enjoy work team projects at work, but hate team learning. Either they are not used much on the grad level, or my school is an exception, but thankfully no "team learning" has darkened my path so far!

 

|K|