Assessing Collaborative Efforts

Both instructors and learners must take responsibility for achieving this goal. Occasionally, you may run across a student who does not like to work in groups or collaborate with peers. He or she may even request to work on a project alone rather than in a cooperative group.

As an instructor, there are several issues to consider:

• How should participation in a collaborative learning community be assessed? How do the varying levels of skill and knowledge students bring to a course affect the instructor's "fair and equitable assessment" of learning?
• If a student does not want to network or collaborate in a learning community for an online course, what should the other members of the learning community do? What role should the instructor play? What impact would this have on his or her assessment plan? 

 Each student takes on a different role (Palloff and Pratt, 2007) with group work. Forcing them into a role they are uncomfortable with may cause discourse, rather than allowing them to focus on their talent. Some are comfortable taking the lead on projects, while others are comfortable with supporting the group through research and/or technological assistance. It goes back to elementary school where students learned what goes into a successful project by being each of the roles involved in the creation. Everyone needs an opportunity to have their ideas heard and to feel they have a contribution to share in project development. This promotes a sense of ownership and pride in the work involved and a responsibility toward others in doing a team job toward appreciation overall. 

Assessment of collaborative efforts should provide opportunities for reflection. A community learning environment can be difficult to assess due to the varying skill levels of students and the nature of communication issues in an online learning environment. Development of rubrics from such assisting sites as Rubistar (http://rubistar.4teachers.org/) for both facilitator and learner are of great benefit.  Teachers can define expectations without setting limits and students can evaluate their work as well as the work of their peers.  Opportunities to “rate” themselves as well as team mates offers a learning experience on top of the target content.  Reflections as observations have an impact on future educational endeavors.  Having students rate themselves with the teacher using a rubric together as well as rate team mates privately to the teacher opens a view into an individuals celebrations and frustrations with collaborative learning.  This allows for the facilitator to reflect and observe to provide a continually positive learning experience for future educational endeavors.

Opportunities for sharing are an integral part of an online learning community. Expectations can be set by the teacher, again with a rubric, but chances for learners to assess each others contributions builds value to the conversations. In posting with guidance from a rubric students could be allowed to decide whether or not a classmates submission warranted their time online or not.  Assigning points based on the rubric is one way, but a bit of whimsy in choice goes a long way to encourage younger learners.  “Way Cool” could mean the inspiration and information shared goes above and beyond the norm or expected, with “Cool” being better than just meeting the requirements, then “Okay” says you did the assigned requirement, below that can be excluded as not rated due to lack of assessable material (not worth the effort or total lack of effort).  The motivation receiving a “Way Cool” from peers seems greater than points or a grade from the teacher.  This student-centered learning works well for learners, with an understanding for those struggling, or exceeding to be considered appropriately when peer assessing.  A sense of community and inclusion becomes built through the encouragement and trust of classmates to help each other succeed.  These relationships need avenues of communication and collaboration to grow as well as consistent interaction and feedback. Group feedback becomes expected, but a non-group member providing commentary evokes a feeling of having a guest everyone is excited to listen to. Peers can assess each other in a collaborative manner to assist the teacher and the teacher needs to realize that not all assessment should be a grade. For these reasons the building of online learning communities needs to be equally encouraged by all sides of a learning environment.  The ideas of assessment need to be expanded.

Reference

Palloff, R. M., & Pratt, K. (2007). Building online learning communities: Effective strategies for the virtual classroom. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.