MAILING LISTS

I use the method of total points to allocate to teammates is 10*# of teammates (not counting self) and you can't give everyone the same score.  I do occasionally have students/teams protest, but I have them also include comments about the contribution of each member of the team and tell that that if everyone truly contributed equally, it usually works out that everyone will average pretty close to 10.  I say just make them do it and emphasize the value of the comments.  

I also state explicitly in my syllabus that I weight the teamwork portion of the grade by both the peer evaluation (quantitative) and my own assessment (qualitative), leaving me the leeway to address this and other sorts of quirky peer evaluation issues (e.g. just one student marking someone else significantly lower because of a personality issue).

Molly Espey, Professor
Applied Economics and Statistics
263 Barre Hall
Clemson University
Clemson, SC 29634
(864) 656-6401



-----Original Message-----
From: Team-Based Learning [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Jackson, John Mark
Sent: Friday, December 10, 2010 2:57 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Team evaluations: planning to give all members equal ranking?

How many of you doing peer evaluations require each student to grade at least one person higher and one person lower?

For my mid-term sample peer review, I required that they rank at least one person with more than 20 points and at least one with lower than 20 points. I got a lot of feedback saying that they didn't feel this was fair; they felt everyone in the group strongly contributed and wanted to award all equal points.

I relented on the end-of-term review and about 80% of the groups ranked each other will full points across the board. I am certain that many of the groups put their heads together and agreed to give all equal points.

Other than going back to the "must rank someone high and low" method, anything else I could do to encourage honest evaluations?

I must mention these are all first year professional program students and they are a tight-knit group...teams even more so.

Thanks

John Mark Jackson, OD, MS, FAAO
Southern College of Optometry
1245 Madison Ave, Memphis TN 38104
901-722-3314