| Many tools are available
when grading team assignments: - Signature blocks indicate who
contributed to the assignment
- Workload/Percent-effort tables allow
grade adjustment and tracking of a team member's workload
- Peer assessments
give students feedback and opportunities to improve performance before grading
- Peer
evaluations provide peer ratings of each team member that may serve as a multiplier
on the team grade or can determine the team grade
- Bonus points
are given to other team members by each member
Combinations of these
tools are possible and sometimes desirable. As a general rule instructors may
use signature blocks on individual assignments to either give the same grade or
a zero. Use other methods to adjust semester or project average for individual
performance. Assignment Cover Sheets
Faculty
members may require that each assignment include cover sheets with either a signature
block or a workload table. Both of these indicate the extent to which
individual members of the team contributed to the assignment and can be used to
determine appropriate individual grades from the team assignment. Signature
Blocks
Team members signing the signature block may receive
the same grade, whereas those who do not (or are not allowed to) sign the cover
sheet may receive no credit for the assignment. Here are some suggestions: - Require
a signature block on all team assignments. A signature means
I did my share
of the work, and I have a general understanding of the contents of the assignment - Students
can decline to sign, or teams can refuse to let a member or members sign
- Students
who do not sign the cover sheet receive a grade of zero on the assignment
Workload/Percent-effort
Tables
A workload table allows some members of the team to receive
a greater (or lesser) share of the credit for the assignment. Some faculty members
ask students to list percent effort for each individual, some ask for percent
credit, and some ask students to divide the points for the assignment in the workload
table. Here are some options: - Use student-assigned grades or percentages
to adjust grades, including the option of a zero for exceptional individual effort.
Typically, students are asked to fill in a table on the cover sheet, assigning
percentages to each member of their team or distributing available points.
- Often
instructors require additional documentation for exceptionally high- (or low-)
workload assignments.
Announce the practices
you will use early in the semester, practice them during the semester, and use
them to reinforce the importance of individual responsibility to the team. Peer
Assessments
If you use peer evaluations to provide data for adjusting
individual grades, consider using peer assessments so students can practice evaluating
team members. Let team members submit ratings of all team members to the faculty
member. Then, the faculty member can review the team ratings and provide each
student with feedback that can help them improve ratings of their peers. Peer
assessments allow the students to gain experience with giving and receiving feedback
and give them an opportunity to improve performance before it counts
against their grades.
Peer Evaluations
- Assigning individual grades can be done by having students directly
assign grades or by using student evaluations of performance to determine individual
grades.
- Direct Assignment: The faculty member determines
the overall team grade, but the team makes adjustments to the team grade to determine
individual grades.
- Faculty Adjustment: Count peer evaluation
as a multiplier on the team grade. Typically, each student on a team of four might
receive between 70% and 110% of the team grade (depending on peer evaluation).
Brown offers a quantitative algorithm.[3]
Bonus
Points
Allow each student to assign a certain number of bonus points
(usually 5) with the following restrictions: - A student can give points
to anyone (sometimes limited to members of his/her team but can be anyone in the
class, i.e., the person who helped him/her the most)
- Students cannot keep
any points for themselves
- Limit the maximum number of bonus points so
that the effect on the overall score for each student is restricted.
Peer
Grading
Those interested in peer grading are referred to Michaelsen
and Schultheiss, "Making Feedback Helpful," The Organizational Behavior
Teaching Review, 1988, 13 (1):109–113.
There have been recent legal
challenges to peer grading:
http://www.nea.org/neatoday/0011/rights.html
However,
early in 2002 the U.S. Supreme Court overturned this challenge, ruling unanimously
for peer grading:
http://www.nassp.org/services/legal_peergrade.html
Calibrated
Peer Review
Calibrated Peer Review (CPR™) provides a creative
solution to future court challenges. CPR™ is a program for networked
computers that enables peers to anonymously evaluate frequent writing assignments.
A calibration cycle normalizes the grading and engages the students to
spend more time reading about the topics (and the instructor less time assessing
student writing):
http://cpr.molsci.ucla.edu/ Back
to previous page | 
