Tuesday, 11 February 2014

Group Peer Assessment

We were recently given a task by a course team here at UCS to look at how they could incorporate technology to enhance their assessment model for group work which involved a peer assessment element.

The first tool that springs to mind is the Self/Peer Assessment Tool (SPAT) that's available in BlackBoard (LearnUCS), however after our initial meeting with the team it became clear this wasn't going to work.

The SPAT in LearnUCS allows a textual assignment or activity to be distributed, depending on settings, to the rest of the cohort, each student being given one or more of the other students work to grade and feedback upon. Students can be given model answers to support textual questions and help aid them in their peer assessment.

The course team however needed a solution that would work for groups of students. Where each group would peer assess each individual in their group without it being anonymous.

These were the requirements:
  • 7 Groups
  • Each group working on a Poster
  • Need to assess the final product (Poster)
  • Need to assess the process of collaborative working
  • Peer assess each other by giving a score (%) based on input to the group work
  • A process to highlight students not pulling their weight in the group
Eldan Goldenberg - http://flic.kr/p/8vzJMD
The flow would be each group working together on a poster, at the end, a practical presentation of the poster will reward 20% of the final mark from the lecturers observation. 10% of the final mark will be given to students to distribute between themselves based on who they feel contributed to the creation of the poster activity. The other 70% of the students mark is built up through other assignments.

The Elevate Team huddled and came up with a mixed face to face and online solution for the course team. This consisted of using two tools available in LearnUCS.
  • Group Wikis
  • Journal Tool
Our proposed methodology would consist of each individual student using the Journal Tool to record reflective pieces throughout the creation process of the poster, private to themselves and the lecturer. Using the Journal Tool in this way gives the student the ability to reflect on the positive elements of the activity and highlight any other members of the groups lack of involvement.

The group would collectively add-to and amend the Group Wiki page a draft of the final poster, this would essentially become a 'working' area for the group. A lecturer could then go into the revision history and check individuals or groups activity.

The face to face element of this process would see each group of students presenting their poster to their lecturers, after this they would be instructed to sit in their group and discuss (Peer Assessment) who would get a cut of the final percentage for their contribution to the poster. The students would be advised that if they all feel they contributed equally, the score is spread evenly. Once an agreed final score is set, a designated 'scribe' would then update the group wiki page with the scores.

If someone has been highlighted as not contributing to the group activity, a lecturer can support students concerns by reviewing the revision history on the wiki and the journal tool where they could see if students raised specific issues.

This helps weave the process through many elements, a technology enhanced working or draft area, a reflective element and a face to face peer assessment element of which the result is posted back to an online environment to close the activity down.

We will work with the course team to make sure this process is supported and will gather their feedback at the end of the activity.


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