JL
ory

ARR

  

Grading Collaborative Activities

How should individuals be graded for their contri-
butions to collaborative projects? Grading the team’s
project for quality and allowing team members to
grade each other for relative contributions to the task is
a workable strategy.

In my technical communications course, this assess-
ment challenge frustrated me semester after semester.
On several occasions, I considered abandoning collabo-
rative activities altogether. Yet, when they were well-
planned, collaborative projects proved to be a powerful
learning instrument. They provided students with
modeling for their own individual projects and helped
them learn collaborative skills they would soon be
using in the workplace.

However, when | sat down to grade collaborative
activities, I was trapped. I disdained blanket grades
that rewarded achievers and slackers equally, but
neither did | trust that my direct observations of
individuals in their groups yielded accurate data. I
pestered groups heartlessly while they worked. I
snooped. I prodded. I interrogated. I nagged. I studied
service charts, leadership models, interaction analyses,
and metacognition journals. Semester after semester,
method after method, I tried and erred, groped and
despaired. Then one wakeful night about six years ago,
an idea for evaluating collaborative projects bubbled
forth unexpectedly.

The logic was simple and nothing new: Effective
groups consist of team members who share the time,
effort, and work products equally. In other words, each
team member gives her expected contribution, that part
of 100% divided by the number of members in the
group. Groups that function otherwise are relatively
unsuccessful and ineffective. For example, in a two-
person group, each member represents an expected
contribution of 50% of the time, effort and product. Ina
four-person group, 25%, etc. If a person’s contribution
to the group is significantly higher than what is ex-
pected, then her grade should be proportionately
higher; similarly, if she contributed less, her grade
should be lower.

If | developed a simple way for students to assess
themselves and their collaborators on the basis of
expected contribution, I could use their assessment as a

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aN A alata aCe Sala eS EE Real Lg Oa OL THE W. K. KELLOGG FOUNDATION AND THE SID W. RICHARDSON FOUNDATION

VOLUME XVII, NUMBER 28

& INNOVATION ABSTRACTS

 
  

plus or minus deviation from the grade which I give to
their group’s collaborative product. In a nutshell, I
would grade their product, and they would determine
how that grade should be divided among themselves. I
created the following system.

1. On the due date, I collect the collaborative projects,
and grade them as products. At this point, the
grade belongs only to the product, not to its
producers.

2. On the day they submit their projects (written, oral,
etc.), the collaborators discuss among themselves
exactly what contributions they each made. This
discussion clears up any misunderstandings or lack
of awareness. Then privately they rate each other
and themselves, assigning percentages of contribu-
tions to the whole (100%). Their “percentage of
contribution to the whole” is a holistic individual
judgment based on their analyses of each other’s
work as well as their own. The sum of their indi-
vidual percentages must equal 100%.

Example: Karen’s Self- and Peer-Assessment
Sally designed pages and produced

drawings; she was absent 3 out of 7

meetings: 25%
Bart drafted most of the text and

typed and pasted up pages;

no absences: 40%
Karen did a lot of overall planning
and collated the roughs and final
version copies; one absence:
TOTAL (must be 100%):

35%
100%

3. Icollect these assessments and calculate a simple
average of the actual contribution according to
each student's self- and peer-assessments.
Example: Karen’s Self- and Peer-Assessment

Average

Karen's assessment of herself: 35%
Sally’s assessment of Karen: 40%
Bart’s assessment of Karen: 40%
TOTAL: 115%

Karen’s Avg. Contribution: (115% /3=38%) 38%

 

Community College Leadership Program, Department of Educational Administration

), THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR STAFF AND ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT (NISOD)
if Yr)
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Qa

SEY — College of Education, The University of Texas at Austin, SZB 348, Austin, Texas 78712-1293