Autumn Lor
Staff Writer
Science Leadership Academy is known for their projects, but how much do you really know what goes on behind the scenes? Every student at SLA has been in a group project but has different stories with every project. Over time things can become easier but there are still challenges from time to time.
Teachers create the projects based on the subject in class what they think the students would like but the truth is, not everyone likes the project. Some teachers have more experience than others so they know what they should do. History Teacher Jason Todd creates multiple projects that keep the students busy but also presents the project in a fun way.
“Competition in projects is a perfect motivation to some students to get them to jump into the project,” Todd said with a passionate voice.
During my sophomore year, I’d have about 9 different projects in one class and none of them were the same to anyone else’s in my class. The reason for that is because teachers make their projects to be opened-ended and that allows projects to have different outcomes.
“Not only are projects opened-ended, they’re created to help students in the future,” Math Teacher Victor Hernandez reported.
Group projects aren’t always because of teachers, sometimes it’s about the partners. There are four types of students when it comes to group projects. The person who wants to control the group, the one who doesn’t do anything, the one who waits until the very last minute to do, and the one who gets everything done the first day.
In my experience, projects show a side of people that we may not like. Group projects had ripped apart some of my friendships because of two reasons; the need to be right and timing of the projects. For a group project to be great, everything has to have a layout and organized with ALL group members.
I’ve had projects where all my group members did was write their names, and I’ve been in projects where I felt like that too, it’s different because of how you group members cooperate with each other.
As for the stress — there are times where multiple teachers give projects the same day, but that doesn’t mean that they’re due the same day. I like how projects can be done with different due dates because then it’s less stressful to focus on all the projects at once. That’s something that not everyone realizes but it’s a good thing think about when doing projects. Another thing that everyone should do it not do it that last minute.
On the whole, I would prefer individual projects over group project. When you have individual projects, you can’t blame anyone but yourself, everything is done in your own way, and you don’t have to fight with everyone about how things should work. Group projects can be a good way to change up from time to time and students more creative ideas, but during my freshman year, I would have disagreed with this because I was lazy. I realize now that it’s better to be independent and learn to do things on your own.
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