Assessing Collaborative Efforts

Module 3, Blog 3

In
collaborative learning communities, participation should not be solely assessed
by only using checks and marks. Students should be assessed by their abilities
and contributions made towards the success of the group. “Not all assessments
translate into a mark” (Siemens, 2011). Some ways to assess participation
mentioned by Siemens is to allow other students to assess their peers, receive
feedback from online communities, assess on student contributions and assess
based on metrics from learning management systems. One difficulty that
educators have with assessing learning communities is keeping the assessment
fair and equitable. “In order to assess student performance in collaborative
activity effectively, the instructor needs to understand basic principles of
student assessment” (Palloff & Pratt, 2005). This difficulty is present
because students in these learning communities have varying skill levels and
knowledge. One way to combat this issue is to assess based on each student’s
individual growth. A problem that is very prevalent in these learning
communities is dealing with members that do not want to collaborate within a
group. Other members that are faced with this issue should try to collaborate
with the unwilling member to see if the issue can be resolved. If this does not
solve the matter, then the instructor should be notified. At this point in
time, the instructor should have already made some prior guidelines that
address situations like this. “Because of these issues, instructors should take
some precautionary measures at the start of a course that involves
collaborative work” (Palloff & Pratt, 2005). If the instructor finds that
the unwilling member is not cooperating, then the instructor should remove that
member from the group without giving any penalties to the other group members.
The actions of the instructor should not heavily impact the assessment plan
since the unwilling member has not made a consistent effort to do their part.



Reference
Palloff, R. M., & Pratt, K. (2005). Collaborating online: Learning
together in community. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Siemens, G (2011). Assessment of Collaborative Learning. (Approx.
9 min)

Siemens, G (2011). Learning Communities. (Approx. 11 min)

Related Articles


http://www.brighthub.com/office/collaboration/articles/74181.aspx

http://www.collaborativejustice.org/how.htm

http://www.joe.org/joe/1999april/tt1.php

Module 3: Creating a Storyboard

During Module 3, each student must put together a storyboard that represents the video presentation that covers different topics related to distance education. The topic that I chose was differentiated instruction. Feel free to view my story board and to make comments as needed. Please use the link below to view my storyboard.



http://olufemi.wikispaces.com/