{"id":147,"date":"2011-12-12T02:23:03","date_gmt":"2011-12-12T02:23:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/2011\/12\/12\/grading-group-work-effectively\/"},"modified":"2015-08-25T17:28:02","modified_gmt":"2015-08-25T17:28:02","slug":"grading-group-work-effectively","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/2011\/12\/12\/grading-group-work-effectively\/","title":{"rendered":"Grading Group Work Effectively"},"content":{"rendered":"

Students hate group projects because\u2026 wait for it\u2026 students hate students. That\u2019s 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]<\/a>, 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. <\/p>\n

But here\u2019s 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\u2019d 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\u2019s grade is apparently akin to snitching for many students.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>.<\/p>\n

1. Rank Your Peers<\/h3>\n

Asking students to rate each other doesn\u2019t work because giving a 10 to a freeloading student doesn\u2019t 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\u2019ve 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\u2019s assessments<\/p>\n

2. I Statements<\/h3>\n

Sometimes the distance between the greatest contribution and the smallest is really not that vast. If everyone worked their tails off, then the top ranked student and the lowest ranked student are artificially separated.<\/p>\n

To get an idea of what everyone contributed I ask my students to write a brief description of their contributions to the group. I tell them to use \u201cI statements\u201d to describe what they contributed. For example \u201cI designed and wrote the entire survey and then got 15 people to complete it.\u201d For students who didn\u2019t do much of anything it will be really hard here to \u201cfake the funk\u201d without lying. <\/p>\n

I statements are handy here, because if you ask students to describe the contributions of others they are much more likely to see them inaccurately or at the very least subjectively. Furthermore, if the group went south and everyone dislikes everyone else, asking them to talk only about themselves side steps any complianing about their peers that they would like to do. I want to know what happend in their group, but when grading hearing about in-fighting isn\u2019t really helpful.<\/p>\n

3. I Deserve – because –<\/h3>\n

I finish up the assessment by asking them to grade their contribution on a A-F scale and then to persuade me why they deserve this grade. I tell them that if they do a poor job of persuading me, then they will almost certainly not receive the grade they feel they are due. I\u2019ve found that students are much more likely to be honest here if they have to back it up. It\u2019s easy to say, \u201cI deserve an A\u201d, but it\u2019s hard to back it up if you didn\u2019t do anything deserving. <\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/h3>\n

I don\u2019t assign points to any single component of the assessment because I don\u2019t want to comit to a single element of the it more than any other. Each piece of this assessment helps me get a picture of the overall contribution of each student. If you are looking for a non-subjective way to assess your students contribution, then this isn\u2019t the approach for you. However, if you really want to hold students accountable and reward students for their efforts, then this is the way to go.<\/p>\n

Lastly, I highly recommend reviewing this evaluation at the begining of your group project. Let the students know how they will be assessed and hopefully the promise of accountability will spring them into action and facilitate good collaboration.<\/p>\n

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  1. \n

    You may read this and think, \u201cwow this guy really doesn\u2019t like students,\u201d or worse, \u201cthis guy must work with some of the most awful students in the world.\u201d Niether is the case. I have the privilege of working with hundreds of students a semester and it should surprise no one that out of this large number, a few students have a bad semester or act in way that doesn\u2019t reflect their true character as a student. I work with excellent students, but they are human too and have off days just like we all do.  \u21a9<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Students hate group projects because\u2026 wait for it\u2026 students hate students. That\u2019s 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]<\/a>, 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. <\/p>\n

    But here\u2019s 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\u2019d 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\u2019s grade is apparently akin to snitching for many students.<\/p>\n

    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<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    1. Rank Your Peers<\/h3>\n

    Asking students to rate each other doesn\u2019t work because giving a 10 to a freeloading student doesn\u2019t 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\u2019ve 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\u2019s assessments<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1982,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30650],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-resources-for-teachers"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1982"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":437,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147\/revisions\/437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}