Assessing Collaborative Efforts
Assessing collaborative
learning is a difficult task. I struggle with this in my own fourth grade
classroom on a daily basis. I want my students to learn together and build
their knowledge. I have such a range of ability levels in my classroom – from
kids who are globally gifted (gifted in EVERY way possible) to kids who can
barely read at age 9. I also have to contend with English Language Learners. No
matter how much time I spend creating multilevel groups that will nurture every
ability level, I still run up against those kids who don’t want to work with
others or won’t engage in the task and leave all of the work for others. One
thing I do to try and even the playing field is providing students with clear
and timely expectations. I show them the time and thought that I put into
planning the activity and they typically buy-in more. This is something
mentioned in the book Collaborating Online: Learning Together in Community.
While this book is aimed at the online community, I think that many of the
principles discussed in this book also apply to face-to-face education. Along
with clear and timely expectations, I also lace all collaborative tasks with
just enough individual work to allow me to adjust levels of performance for
individual students, as I need to. It would be easy to just put all of the
“high” kids together and all of the “low” kids together. This is not ideal for
most kids however. In my experience, only the gifted group benefits from being
grouped together. They are a naturally competitive demographic and together
they truly do achieve more. The lower and middle kids do not benefit from this,
however. Being purposeful in the types of learning experiences and tasks that
you design for students is the best way to fairly assess students in collaborative
learning experiences.
I know that if I encounter
someone that does not want to collaborate or network in a learning community
for an online course, I have one single backup strategy that I fall back on. I
do the work myself. It is really hard in an online environment to trust so many
people that I do not know and will probably never meet to do work that will
help or hurt my grade. I am someone who excels in school situations (hence, why
I’m a teacher) and for me to put my success into someone else’s hands is a lot
to ask. As an online student, you have to understand two main things: The first
is that you will probably learn a great deal from your classmates – whether it’s
from their mistakes or just their opinions & and second, you are the only
one you can depend on to create your success. If someone doesn’t want to
participate, all you can do is continue on your own path of learning and do
what you need to do to succeed. If that means doing more work, then that’s what
has to happen. If it is truly a project that cannot be done alone, the instructor
does need to be involved. They should either re-assign the groups, talk to the
non-participating person, or give the other group members other options for fulfilling
the requirements of the assignment. This is something that could completely
change the instructor’s assessment plan. It is something that you have to be
prepared for as an instructor.
References:
Palloff, R. M., & Pratt, K. (2005). Collaborating online:
Learning together in community. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
