Basically, the problem persisted the whole semester. The two good members of the team did not have a lot of formal authority, and appeals to the instructor to grade the members of the team separately were rejected. This caused a lot of tension within the team, and we considered just working on the projects the two of us, because relying on the others was causing problems. They were late and their work was sub-standard, leaving us to scramble to clean things up, with little time to spare.

Other students influenced my views on the subject. The first thing that I realized when talking to other classmates is that our group was notably unlucky, that most of the students in the course had a high level of motivation. This actually strengthened my resolve to transcend the situation. Without formal authority, we simply did the best work we could and made sure that the instructor was aware of what was going on. Sometimes that is all you can do. We learned that in future situations we need to be proactive to avoid these problems. While in school this can just mean choosing your own team members, there is a more important lesson to be learned in that when you are in the real world looking for a job, it pays to study the companies that you are looking to work for. It is much easier to perform well when you are surrounded by other good, motivated people with high skill levels and energy. I think that this long-run lesson is more important than the short-run lesson by far, because it will prevent me from facing this type of adverse situation when it really counts.

I think that my feelings in this situation were mostly frustration, but eventually myself and the other...

Teamwork can be challenging and sometimes you really are forced to work with people that you probably do not want to work with. But it does not matter- the job is what matters. So by the end of the semester I learned to have some perspective about matters like this.
I did learn that while I have functional strengths and talent, I still need to work on my leadership and motivation skills. One day I will have a situation like this while in the workforce and I will need to be able to handle it more effectively than I am perhaps capable now as a student. To me, this means finding ways to tap into motivation for people who have none. It also means taking a proactive approach to ensure that any team I am putting together is full of good people who do not need somebody constantly watching them to do their jobs.

If I was another person involved in the episode I would probably feel the same. The perspective of the underperforming team members might be different, but I am not trying to understand why people would slack and take a bad attitude. I am only seeking to ensure that the job gets done. I think in future I might work harder from the outset to build team spirit and motivation but if that does not work, then I might be better off being tougher with the recalcitrant team members. That is probably how I would approach it in the future, but truthfully I have a lot of work do to in learning about this area of management so I'm sure by the team the situation arises again I will have a better response.