Module 3 Blog 3 Assignment-Assessing Collaborative Efforts

Blog 3 Assignment-Assessing Collaborative Efforts

How should participation in a collaborative learning community be assessed? How do the varying levels of skill and knowledge students bring to a course affect the instructor's "fair and equitable assessment" of learning?

According to George Siemens (Laureate, 2008), there are four models of assessment in a collaborative environment:

•  Students assess their peers

• Encouraging learners to communicate in open communities

• Educators assess based on student contributions

• Educators assess based on metrics from learning management systems

Based on these models, assessments should be fair, direct, equitable, and built on standard outcomes.  Some similar assessment principles that are suggested by Palloff & Pratt (2005) are to design and include grading rubrics; include collaborative assessments; design assessments that are clear and easy to understand; encourage students to develop  skills in providing feedback by providing guidelines to good feedback and by modeling what is expected.  The characteristics of an effective classroom assessment are:  “it is learner centered, teacher directed, mutually beneficial, formative, context specific, ongoing, and firmly rooted in good practice” (Palloff & Pratt, 2005).  

The varying levels of skill and knowledge that students bring to a course affect the instructor’s “fair and equitable assessment” of learning by trying to provide for cultural differences, individual attitudes, adequate technical support, and providing clear guidelines for the assessment of collaborative work (Palloff & Pratt, 2005). 

If a student does not want to network or collaborate in a learning community for an online course, what should the other members of the learning community do? What role should the instructor play? What impact would this have on his or her assessment plan?

Members of the learning community should deal with other members that do not actively participate by having a group meeting with all members to discuss ways on how the non participant can contribute towards the online learning process. This allows members to resolve their own disputes (Palloff & Pratt, 2007) and makes sure that all voices are heard within the group. As a group, we must deal with the situation until there is no other choice but to contact the facilitator. We should give the non participants a chance to try and break their barrier of silence so that their information can be included and be used as an informative opinion that the group can incorporate into a discussion. 

The instructor should monitor the support of our groups to make sure that everyone is offered equal opportunities and make sure that students are meeting the requirements of the course.   Instructors also need to intervene in case of over and under participation to minimize frustration and conflict (Palloff & Pratt, 2005).

Some guidelines that I can offer are to make sure that all members are given a chance to participate in the learning community; provide constructive feedback that is encouraging and not degrading; and be considered of emergencies that can occur. Everyone has a family, a job, or something that will sometimes not allow them to access the internet at specific times.

The most important and essential responsibilities of the members in a learning community has to be an overall collaboration in a group setting. All members must be able to solve problems, manage conflicts, develop norms, process information together, communicate with one another, and connect (Palloff & Pratt, 2005). Collaborative learning is defined as “an activity that is undertaken by equal partners who work jointly on the same problem rather than on different components of the problem" (Brandon and Hollingshead, 1999 as cited Tseng, Ku, Wang, & Sun, 2009).

Blog post example dealing with assessing collaborative learning:

http://principlesofdistanceeducation.blogspot.com/2009/07/module-3-blog-posting-assessing.html

References:

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer) (2008). Assessment of collaborative learning. Baltimore, MD: Author

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

Palloff, R. M., & Pratt, K. (2007). Building online learning communities: Effective strategies for the virtual classroom. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Tseng, H., Ku, H., Wang, C., & Sun, L. (2009). Key factors in online collaboration and their relationship to teamwork satisfaction. Quarterly Review of Distance Education, 10(2), 195-206. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.