Francis (et al.):
I have one suggestion... perhaps a quibble.
Francis says this directly and many others seem to have the same idea. He
says that "We (as professionals) rarely have to "rank" the contributions of
our peers."
This does not fit my experience.
1) We review and score grant applications (separating winners from losers).
2) We review journal articles... and not all are accepted.
3) We decide who gets tenured and promoted.
4) Supervisors ask for our input on hiring, promotion, and layoff decisions.
Well, I feel that we are frequently asked to rank peers and that our
students will face the same obligations. What this says about how we should
teach is unclear but, for management or econ courses, I think that it's good
for students to get some experience confronting this difficult task of
evaluating other people. It's an important part of the team experience and
I view this as one more contribution that I can make to their education.
Best,
Fritz Laux
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Team Learning Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> On Behalf Of Francis Jones
> Sent: Wednesday, March 12, 2008 12:13 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: peer evals
>
> Hello colleagues,
>
> I have appreciated watching this and other discussions about Peer Evals.
> I have dropped using them altogether, but only because I haven't been
> able to come up with a peer/self evaluation procedure that suites what I
> perceive to be the needs.
>
> If peer evaluation is supposed to improve metacognitive skills and add a
> measure of accountability to the team and individual efforts, then I
> would prefer to implement a way for students to do self AND peer
> evaluations that makes them consider the extent to which they achieved
> the original goals of the exercise (small scale) or the course (larger
> scale). This instead of asking them to rank contributions of peers. If
> the team is working well then of course they all contributed.
>
> Assessing our selves and our peers against the goals of the work is
> after all what professionals and academics have to do. We (as
> professionals) rarely have to "rank" the contributions of our peers.
> Instead we are measuring degree of success, and hopefully acting
> appropriately upon the result of those (implicit or explicit) measures.
>
> If I had the time to come up with a rubric that helps students honestly
> assess the degree to which they (self) and their peers met the goals of
> (a) individuals, (b) the team exercise, and (c) the course, I would feel
> I had a good peer and self assessment process. Only then would I
> consider using these assessments as part of the grading process,
> probably as a multiplier to other team-based components of the grade.
>
> Unfortunately I an not teaching presently so I don't have an opportunity
> to work on this. Any thoughts?
>
> Cheers, Francis.
>
> --
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> | Francis Jones,
> | Lecturer (Geophysics) / Teaching & Learning Fellow,
> | EOS Science Education Initiative (eos-sei),
> | UBC Carl Wieman Science Education Initiative (CWSEI).
> | UBC Department of Earth & Ocean Sciences,
> | 6339 Stores Road, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z4,
> | [log in to unmask] or 604-822-2138.
> | http://www.eos.ubc.ca/public/people/faculty/F.Jones.html
> --------------------------------------------------------------
|
