Group Projects
I had a student tell me how frustrated they were in being on a team in an on line environment. Apparently the other team members weren't contributing equally. How is this possible in an on line environment which tracks everyones participation?
I think that group projects are important. By participating in group projects, students have an opportunity to learn and practice many important skills, such as time management (which is different when working with teams), and other important social skills. For team projects, I use two rubrics. There is a team grade, which is the same for all team members, as it assesses the project as a whole. There is also an individual grade. The individual rubrics assign points for things such as team participation. To get full credit, students must pull their share of the weight. In high school, I taught an in-class Photoshop course. Each year there was a team project. I assigned team members to particular teams. I wanted students to work with people that thy didn't usually associate with. It sometimes happened that certain students did not always come to class when their teams were working on their projects. These people sometimes didn't like their team mates. This is an excellent scenario for practicing real-life problem solving skills. I guided the students in handling these difficult situations on their own, and in the end, I think they learned as much from the team experience itself as they did about Photoshop! At the end of the project, as part of their individual grade, each team member had to submit a critique form in which they had to answer a number of open-ended questions about the experience. I received many insightful comments on those forms, and I think it helped the students realize the importance of cooperation and participation by every team member. I see no reason why these types of projects/skills cannot be translated to the online environment.
Deadlines are great to have and reinforce. We have deadlines in every job, so starting them in school is excellent.
It is if the non participant students always apply similar excuses, where they can only work on their class work on Sundays, so this creates an unfortunate situation for the rest of the group. It is not a fair situation, so I always empower students to communicate to the group that they should develop deadlines, to all, so if the people in the group do not comply, I can at least see who gets full credit and who doesn't. This also allows for all students to know that I am watching this closely, so contributing students do not feel pressured.
I think group projects are equally frustrating to students on-ground and on-line. I think group projects and participation is much easier to track in an onine environment. Participation, in my view, would be higher online because it is more easily tracked. If a student is not participating, there is a more obvious way to investigate student's claims that group members are not doing their part.
I think participation lacks online as well as on-ground for group projects. My experience with online group projects as a student were that in each class, there was at least one person in my group who did not participate or meet deadlines.
I believe, we as instructors, are responsible for ensuring fair grading practices occur regardless of the setting when a group project is assigned. By doing so, we are affirming the validity of the students' participation.
Denise,
I agree, they can be very troublesome if not carefully planned out!
Jon
I find so many problems arise with group projects. I first allow the students to pick their group. If they do not pick a group I will assign them based on time zones then to try and assist them with working together. I had the first experience in my career with a student who was rude and made racist comments to his group. Of the five group members asked to be removed. The school decided to investigate the matter against the code of conduct and placed him in a group alone. He then complained he had to do the assignment alone. My phone does not stop ringing when group projects are due.
Karen,
Good point, my experience in undergrad courses is that group work is not well received.
Jon
Cyndy makes a good point. Many students in an on-line course prefer minimal contact with other students. Perhaps giving students the option to work as a group on a project, or doing the project on their own might be a solution?
Interesting - Thanks! - Jon
After reviewing all of the posts up to this point, the only thing I can say is that we all universally dislike group projects. But, I think they are useful and, for most courses, necessary. We continue to require that students interact with each other in the hopes that we may have a cohort of hard working, selfless, students who will follow through on their commitments to perform as a team.
I don't see how the problem differs from a classroom environment. Since the students are not face to face you may get more honesty out who is contributing and/or the students will be more assertive in making each player play a role.
Jeffrey,
I have also received the same request. In response, I have a Peer Evaluation form which I use not only to determine the students grade but inform the student that the grade also reflects his/her participation in the group per the information I receive via the Peer Evalulation. This is my first time attempting this approach ; Its beem working in about 3out f 5 groups I instigated this.
In the group project, I also included a Group Charter which lists who is doing what for the project and the student is only responsible for his/her part. Those who are not doing any work will receive the appropriate grade.
Tracking the participation doesn't have anything to do with it in my opinion. A student can just log in and "look around" and not to anything that is why I instigated the Peer Evaluation and Group Charter. This lets me know directly what each group member is doing. I'm open to any other suggesstions you may have.
Great points - thanks for sharing! JO
There are just too many obstacles due to the lack of direct contact. In a classroom a student is more likely to be coerced into participation if they are inherently a non participatory. The online group participation makes it easier for that person to hide.
Group projects can be the integration of individual developed contributions with the objective of the group being to develop a standard presentation format or interface. The group project has two contributions - the overall success of the group to produce a collaborative document and the individual contributions. This forces contribution from all.
I also don't allow 11th hour participation in the online environment. I tell students that group participation must take place two days before the project is due.
The group participation is in the discussion board. There are two parts to my group projects, a group part and an individual part. In the group part you can grade participation. In the individual part, each student has to submit their own paper. There are no group papers, that is one paper from the whole group, in my group projects.
Some instructors allow group papers. It is wrong because this is where the slackers are and other group members will protect them.
The method I use in the online environment is individual grading on student participation and work submitted. I tell the students this up front. True it may not guarantee participation but it gives students a clear choice. What could cause issues with this method is those instructors that give all students in the group the same grade regardless of participation.
Well I think that there are two issues. I see this all the time in classes. One is participation. Some students are active, some never show and some are 11th hour players. Well there are also those who are kind of hangers on.
Wait. That sounds like a regular ground environment. Pretty much the same. Even though you can track behavior online it does not mean that you will get participation.
What you can do is state that the active students won't be penalized due to others actions. Save for perhaps a greater burden. Also, specifically include grading criteria that relates to participation.
Good example - thanks for sharing! - Jon
