Assessing Collaborative Efforts
“Collaboration has been defined as the “heart and soul” of an online course or for that matter, any course that bases its theoretical foundation in constructivism” (Palloff & Pratt, 2005, p. 6). Collaborative learning activities cannot be graded in the same manner that traditional learning activities are assessed. Collaborative activities need to utilize a rubric that will provide students with “a road map not only to guide the activity, but also to know how the activity will be assessed and evaluated” (Palloff & Pratt, 2005, p. 43). Participation is a collaborative activity that cannot be assessed with traditional means. Participation should be clearly defined in terms of class expectations to avoid confusion. Students and the instructor should assess participation. For example, students within a collaborative group can assess one another’s participation via peer evaluation. Assessment should be “fair and equitable” whether the assessments are delivered online or face-to-face. One way to ensure that assessments are “fair and equitable” is to provide authentic assessments such as projects and collaborative activities rather than traditional quizzes. Authentic assessments will allow the instructor to measure a student’s growth from the beginning of the course until culmination of the course (Laureate Education, Inc., 2008).
Students should be made aware of class/instructor expectations for participation in the class and collaborative activities from the start of class. Collaborative groups should be encouraged to develop group norms for intervening when a group member is not meeting expectations. The instructor should give an honest effort to generate participation from an unresponsive student. One manner in which this could be done is to provide the student with an opportunity to be successful in front of the group in order to build confidence. If participation is a key component of online assessment then an unresponsive student should have his/her grade negatively impacted as a result of nonparticipation.
References
Education, Inc. (2008). Principles of Distance Education. Baltimore: Author.
Palloff, R. M., & Pratt, K. (2005). Collaborating online: Learning together in community. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Joshua, Our assignment states we are to include contextual hyperlinks -> "Includes substantial connections to the global learning community by linking to other professionals' postings in blogs, podcasts, and/or Webcasts." In blogspot, the chain in the hyperlink icon OR the html code is on (minus the 'h')this page.
ReplyDeleteJoshua, you write that the unresponsive student should have their grade negatively impacted. But what about the others in the group? What if the unresponsive student is dragging the others down? A negatively impacted grade doesn't do much for the others in the group. What else can be done besides a negative grade? When should that student be removed from the group?
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