Assessing Collaborative Efforts
In this module, you watched two video programs in which George Siemens discussed strategies for assessing collaborative learning communities in the online environment, and for creating and maintaining successful online learning communities. Both instructors and learners must take responsibility for achieving this goal. Occasionally, you may run across a student who does not like to work in groups or collaborate with peers. He or she may even request to work on a project alone rather than in a cooperative group.
As an instructor, there are several issues to consider:
- How should participation in a collaborative learning community be assessed? How do the varying levels of skill and knowledge students bring to a course affect the instructor's "fair and equitable assessment" of learning?
- If a student does not want to network or collaborate in a learning community for an online course, what should the other members of the learning community do? What role should the instructor play? What impact would this have on his or her assessment plan?
I personally have been that person before that likes to work alone. So, I know how my students feel when it comes to something like this. I always feel that when giving a group projects, three grades should be given: individual work, group rating, and group grade together. Then that way if your group thinks you didn't do your part, you still have a way to pull your grade up.
ReplyDeleteAlso, for people who work alone on projects that were originally assigned to the group, I feel they should work on the whole project by themselves or choose to take part with the group.
Hello Allison,
DeleteIf the goal of groupwork is to participate in the group, and the student does not do enough of their part, is it worth giving them credit for their individual work?
I've seen my students in groupwork activities receive zero credit for submitting their solo part because the teacher did not see evidence of any group interaction. In this scenario, the institution setup a special discussion board for the group and the students are each expected to post in response to each other in building a team document. Rather than judging how much of a contribution, I think the instructor was just looking to see any kind of contribution.
Are there ways to encourage solo-workers to participate more in the group without infringing on their individuality?
Cheers - Shar
Allison,
ReplyDeleteI like how you said to give 3 grades for collaboration efforts. I like giving it as an individual and also as a group grade. I feel the group rating is a difficult one and that it would depend on the age level of the students. Sometimes if I have a student that does not want to work in a group, I will try to find a group that has the same work ethic as them. I have found that students that want to work alone have experienced groups that did not contribute as much as they did or not at all. Do you ever find this happening and do you feel this could cause the students not to want to work with someone?
Yes this is always the case, hence the 3 grades rule.
ReplyDelete