Colleagues - I've searched the listserv archives but couldn't quite find the help I needed, but apologize if this is a repeat question.
I've now taught using TBL twice. The first time, we used the separate team maintenance score strategy. That didn't work very well (for my lower division undergraduate students) to differentiate between teammates so I switched to the % team maintenance score strategy. This worked very well to differentiate - almost too well and now I'm worried about it dropping students' scores too much or raising them too high.
This past term, the class decided that individual performance was 40% and team performance 60%. As a result, some students who actually scored in the A range in individual performance and were members of a team which gave an A performance, ended up with a C after the team maintenance score was used to adjust their team score. Another student who scored in the C range individually, ended up with a B.
I guess I'm fine with a student's score going up or down by a letter grade, but two letter grades seems a bit extreme. (to be fair the 'A' student didn't contribute at all in class - I and my TA observed this as well).
It seems the biggest problem is this - for team maintenance scores, students are compared to their teammates. But for their final grade, they are compared to the entire class. So, the best student in the worst team (in other words, the best of the worst) can end up getting the same letter grade as the average student in the best team. The average student in the best team probably worked harder and contributed more than the best student in the worst team, but received a lower percentage of the team performance score simply because she was not the best of the best.
So, I guess my question is this - have others observed this and handled it in any way (or just left it as is)?
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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