The other day, Ms. Snider approached me with a simple query,
“Do you have a minute to discuss grading of my group project?”
The ensuing conversation centered around two questions:
1.
Should the group be assigned one grade?
2.
How can we assess for individual learning and
provide meaningful feedback to each individual?
We began with a resounding “NO!” to the first question.
Both of us believe that a grade stands for what each student
learns, so this was easy. But, as we explored the subject in more detail, we
soon realized that assigning the group one grade actually defeats the purpose
of a cooperative assignment. Ms. Snider shared a story of her daughter, a
high-achieving student, who often felt pressured to pick up her group mates slack.
Like many students, her daughter felt it easier to do their work than to wait
for them or to work with them.
Is it any surprise
that a lot of our top students, cringe at the thought of group work?
We had our starting
point: individual students will be responsible for their own learning and will
receive their own grades.
Our next challenge was to determine how students would be
held individually accountable while still relying on each other to successfully
complete the assignment. Although this was a new project for Ms. Snider, she
knew exactly what she wanted the students to learn and what skills they would
acquire. That led us to our next question:
How can we assess
learning and provide feedback?
After much back-and-forth, we stumbled upon the following
idea. Periodically, each student reflects on his/her own contributions to the
group and on his/her own learning. (Sometimes this might be daily and at other
times it might be weekly.) We immediately began to craft a rubric, but then
another idea hit us. Why not have the students share their own experiences and
have the class create their own group participation rubric.
This, of course, led us to our next problem. Ms. Snider
teaches some of our best students—students who are highly grade-motivated. Some
would undoubtedly grade themselves harshly, while others would unfairly inflate
their grades. To counter this, Ms. Snider came up with an outstanding idea:
After each self-reflection, lets allow the students time to share their own
rating and give the other members of the group time to provide feedback.
For the student who grades herself harshly, this would be
easy. For the student who inflates, his/her grade the task would be more
difficult for the group mates, but the ability to provide truthful and honest
feedback is an important skill. Additionally, this would take some of the
pressure off of students having to actually assign their peers a grade (an idea
we nixed). Again, we could use the same
student-created rubric to help this process.
While great ideas were flowing from our conversation, we
hadn’t yet discovered a way to accurately assess student learning. We were
getting closer though.
Last year, I remember watching Ms. Mathews’ students create
a Rube Goldberg machine. Along the way, she peppered the students with
individual questions, and after presenting their machines, students were asked
more detailed questions. Her questions required students to demonstrate their
knowledge; their reflective nature also shed light on the entire group
experience.
Ms. Snider took Ms. Mathews’ ideas to the next level, “You
know what? That’s a great idea.” With increasing enthusiasm, “I think we can go
one step further. Why not have the other students in the class ask questions—and
I mean real questions after each
group’s presentation?”
Finally, we started to discuss two very important individual
components. First, all students would be
asked to grade themselves according to the class-created rubric. Finally, each student would be required to demonstrate
his or her knowledge of the assignment through an additional assessment—perhaps
a test or an essay.
We were definitely on to something. As the project
progresses, I’m sure Ms. Snider will improve upon the ideas we generated.
What started as a simple conversation morphed into something
much more complex. Our focus centered around 4 basic, research-supported
premises:
1.
No
group grade will be assigned
2.
Students
will not be told to grade each other. Students will, however, provide
meaningful and honest feedback to their group mates.
3.
Reflection
is critical to the learning process.
4.
Targeted,
well-crafted and specific questions will be used to assess student learning.
This will provide meaningful feedback and can be used as both for both
formative and summative assessment.
****
By the way, I need to give Ms. Snider’s project a plug. This
is not a group project in which students simply gather facts, arrange them
neatly on a poster or PowerPoint, and then spit them out during a presentation.
Ms. Snider’s project required students to think for themselves, to pose
questions, to think creatively to solve problems and to rely on each other. I
can’t wait to see the end results.
