Do you do group #assessments for your #highered courses? How do you deal with "free-riders" who don't engage with the rest of the group?
At the moment I'm thinking of
- having students include a statement of who has done what in their final product
- having a couple of sessions (beginning of term and mid-term) where each group presents a plan first and a short progress report later, which clearly states student contributions
- stress to the students that part of the idea for a group assessment is for them to organise and work in a group. I'm a bit torn on this one as it seems unfair to put the onus for those who don't engage on those who do... but hey that's what happens in real life...
Any other ideas?
@nicolaromano We ask each member of a group to provide a score for each other member, tally those and add it (representing 20% of mark) to the team score that we assessed. Outliers are quite obvious but people are also generous if there are no issues.
@jwoodgett This is a very nice idea! How do you deal with the obvious outliers?
@nicolaromano Keep an eye on them. There’s usually just one or two (per class of 60-70) and either meeting with them or emailing can help. Sometimes there are good excuses (sickness, etc), sometimes they have difficulty interacting and need encouragement/guidance. Occasionally you’ll get an overly controlling/dominant person (invariably ranked down by group mates).
@jwoodgett Ahhhhh, I misunderstood what you meant with outliers... I thought you were talking about the students' scores, still your reply makes a lot of sense 🙂
