Group items tagged

"Main | My Life As An Annoying Sociologist or How I learned to Love Talking About Race » Grading Group Work Effectively DateSunday, December 11, 2011 at 8:23PM Students hate group projects because… wait for it… students hate students. That's right, students hate one another, but only when their fates are intertwined. Weak excuses, blown meetings, unrealistic expectations, and ridiculous requests for hand holding from students[1], these are the things that we as teachers deal with on a regular basis, but students are not accustomed to this side of their compatriots. But here's the strange part, while students may hate group work and freeloading students, they will almost never do anything about it. For the longest time I'd have my students evaluate one another after a project using a 1 to 10 point rating scale. Then after a few semesters of getting nearly all 10s most of the time I came to my senses. I mean, even students who passionately complained about their group mates, would give straight 10s to their freeloading peers. To negatively impact a classmate's grade is apparently akin to snitching for many students. So how do you hold students accountable for their contributions and promote a good collaborative process? A well designed assessment helps. Below I describe the assessment I use in my classes which you can download here. 1. Rank Your Peers Asking students to rate each other doesn't work because giving a 10 to a freeloading student doesn't harm anyone. However, if you ask students to rank each group member in order of their contribution you can force students to be more honest. I've found students struggle with ranking students in the middle (i.e. who should be 3rd and who should be 4th), but ranking the most valueable contribtuion and the least is relatively easy. So keep that in mind when reviewing student's assessments 2. I Statements Sometimes the distance between the greatest contribution and the smallest is really not that va