I agree with Noam. Because I use TBL in a "personal ethics at work" class, my goal is to have teams become cohesive in a way that is ethical rather than selfish and self-serving. I certainly do not want to facilitate or reward their 'group think' or 'group pressure' that empowers them to cheat the process and the system. Obviously, we have seen the rippling and damaging consequences for all of us when that dynamic happens out their in the world of work.
So because we have had this problem in our lower division class (specifically with students giving up their points to others because they are only taking the class pass/no pass), we have: 1) switched to an online form; 2) changed from a separate team maintenance score to the % of team score method; 3) required students who do not provide sufficient explanations for the scores they assign to attend an oral exam where they have to defend their scores to the TA and myself; and, 4) instituted a rule that any student who does not provide a score for a team member will have their own score dropped by 5%.
While I wish that in an ethics class, students would make the right decision on their own accord, I am dealing with primarily 17-21 year olds who are still developing as ethical professionals. Thus, while they are learning about "ethics at work" in a stressful and pressure-filled competitive institution, I want to facilitate a secondary learning objective - if they cannot maintain their ethical or moral compass on their own, the system (through codes of conduct or ethics or laws) will normally respond with consequences.
Tricia Bertram Gallant, Ph.D.
Director, Academic Integrity Office
Lecturer, Rady School of Management
University of California, San Diego
301 University Center
9500 Gilman Drive, 0069
La Jolla, CA, 92093-0069
858-822-2163
858-534-7925 (fax)
http://academicintegrity.ucsd.edu<http://academicintegrity.ucsd.edu/>
UCSD is an institutional member of the International Center for Academic Integrity<https://mail.ucsd.edu/ecp/Customize/www.academicintegrity.org>
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From: Team-Based Learning [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Noam Perry [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Sunday, March 16, 2014 10:39 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Does anyone else have this issue?
This exact thing happened to me the first time I used TBL 3 years ago, when I used in-class paper surveys for peer evals.
Unlike previous responders, I don't see this as a sign of team cohesiveness, as this happened in my least cohesive team. I think that the person who's been dominating team discussions throughout the semester figured it out, and convinced/coerced the other team members to follow his lead. This was the same student, by the way, who during the first tRAT was trying to find ways to cheat with the IFAT cards. Having the surveys done in class created an environment that enabled peer pressure.
After that experience I switched to an online survey, and it hasn't happened since. It is more work, but I find it worthwhile.
Noam
On Mar 16, 2014 9:28 AM, "Bradetich, Judith" <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
I administered peer evaluations mid-term, and reminded them they were not to give everyone on their team the exact same number of points, because not everyone does equal work, yada-yada-yada. However, I have had several teams try to "outsmart" the system by agreeing among themselves who will get a 9 or 11 from which team member, in essence making it so that everyone ultimately ends up with 40/40 points. I did have them do them in class, as I hadn't had time to put them on-line. Not sure if it would have made a difference. Suggestions??
Judi
Judi Bradetich, M.S., M.M.
Lecturer, Development and Family Studies
Dept. of Educational Psychology
University of North Texas
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