Francis, The sad thing is I think even the students know what's right or wrong or fair. But the tyranny of "earning" a grade (as if a certain number of points = learning) has caused some to become creative in ways we're forced to guard against. I agree, sometimes the "guarding" gets to be more trouble than it's worth. But I do like Michael Sweet's approach. Best, John John Fritz Asst. VP, Instructional Technology & New Media UMBC Office of Information Technology 410.455.6596 | [log in to unmask] | www.umbc.edu/~fritz On Mar 12, 2008, at 1:12 PM, Francis Jones wrote: > 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 > -------------------------------------------------------------- >