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Addressing potential problem team members
One of the questions frequently raised by faculty members and students
about the use of teams is the potential problem of students who
either don’t contribute substantively or don’t make
the effort to do their parts. A faculty member must be prepared
at the beginning of a course to address this issue. There are two
vehicles for addressing the freeloader problem. One is the grading
policy for the course. The second are mechanisms through which teams
might address the problem if it arises.
Grading: To students, the expectations
of an instructor are reflected in the grading policy. For students,
if the instructor values certain behaviors, certain concepts, certain
performances, these will appear as components of the grade. So,
for example, if an instructor values performance as a team, a percentage
of the grade will depend on one or more assignments done as a team.
However, if teams submit an assignment and each team member receives
the same grade for an assignment, then a member who made no effort
to contribute could receive the same grade as a member who made
significant contributions or substantial effort. The same grade
for every team member may encourage freeloading. Therefore, an instructor
may develop a procedure to assign differentiated grades to encourage
individual accountability. One way to assign differentiated grades
is to use Peer Assessment or peer evaluation, which
is the topic of another document in this series. An instructor might
get better results from a peer evaluation if it is preceded by one
or more cycles of peer assessment and feedback.
Possible team mechanism: On assignments
submitted by a team, ask that each member of the team who made a
reasonable effort to contribute to the assignment sign it. If the
team thinks that a member of the team has not met the criteria for
signing, then that member should be not permitted to sign and will
not receive credit for the assignment. A suggested criterion is
“I did my fair share of the work, AND I have a general understanding
of the (entire) contents of the submission.”
Possible team mechanism: Another
mechanism or pair of mechanisms that might be offered to a team
to address slackers is “firing” or “resigning.”
For example, an instructor might allow a team to “fire”
a team member who consistently refuses to make an effort to contribute.
An instructor might require that a student who has been fired complete
the rest of the course work as an individual or find another team
that will accept that person as a member. Alternatively, an instructor
might allow a member to “resign” if the member thinks
that the other members consistently fail to make an effort to contribute.
Again, an instructor might require that a student who has resigned
either complete the rest of the course work as an individual or
find another team that will accept that person as a member.
Another type of potential problem member is the dominating team
member who refuses to allow other team members to contribute ideas
or concerns. These types of members can be worse than freeloaders
in terms of team development. Raising these types of problems early
with the entire class and asking them how these problems might be
addressed can help provide teams with tools to handle these problems
if they should arise.
Role Evaluation and Self-assessment
Ask students to assess their performance on a team, how they are
performing their assigned roles, and how their performances might
be improved.
Instructor Role The instructor's
role is crucial and active. Monitoring the teaming process can be
as important as grading the team submissions. Once a problem is
brought to the attention of the instructor, he/she has a responsibility
to get involved and precipitate resolution. Often, student teams
are not experienced, mature, and trained enough to deal with these
kinds of issues on their own. An instructor should provide facilitation
and/or guidance. To reduce the magnitude of team problems that might
be encountered, instructors should encourage teams to identify problem
members with an on-going evaluation process and by statements like
“If I don't know about it I can't help solve it” and
“I will have no sympathy for a long-standing team problem
that comes to light at the end of the project or semester.”
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