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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]When any course in any field is graded on a curve, then grades become a zero sum game.  This sometimes makes it harder for students to collaborate.

MIT addresses this by having many core courses from the first 2 years only be offered as pass/fail.  This eliminates the zero-sum issue and encourages both collaboration and the creation of study groups.  More engineering programs might want to consider doing the same — at least for their core math, science, and engineering courses during the first 2 years of undergraduate engineering.
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Most engineering students are smart enough to realize that any bump down by the success of their 2-3 study groups partners is miniscule compared to how much better they do by working with others to learn the material more thoroughly.  I was a student at the top of my classes, and learned a ton by teaching content to my study group.  I still got an A, but I got a better A because I knew the material better.  There were also time when content didn't click for me and I learned things from my study group.  It was helpful emotionally too, when we had weeks with lots of exams and it was overwhelming.  You had friends right there with you.

Our professors always told us that engineering is a team sport.  Problem sets (which is how most learning is accomplished) were ungraded, so there was no real disadvantage to working with others.  Exams were tough and graded individually.  I don't this this is a real problem for engineering outside of highly competitive environments.[/quote]

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