Hi Laura and others,
Here is the language from my syllabus:
o Work in Teams. Your
participation in team work will be assessed by your team members using a
quantitative assessment. Team members will compile this information three
times during the semester. For each assessment period, the lowest score
received by a team member in each category will be dropped.
The average of the three evaluations will count as 2% of
each student’s final grade.
To implement this, I printed a chart with all team members’
names in rows and four columns as follows: (1) Is prepared for discussions;
(2) Participates in discussions; (3) Avoids dominating discussions; and (4)
Listens respectfully. The team members used that chart to allocate points
among team members. Each student filled out one sheet of paper.
For points, essentially, I take the number of people on the
team, minus one, times 5. Thus, if they have 6 team members, each person
allocates 25 points for each category [(6-1)*5 = 25]. If they have five
team members, each person allocates 20 points per category [(5-1)*5 = 20].
Thus, if everything is fine on the team, they give everyone a score of 5.
(They do not give themselves points, thus the subtraction of one before
multiplying times five.) And if they feel a need to score a person
lower than a 5, they’ll have to score someone else higher. Thus,
there must be a genuine reason to decide not to give everyone a score of 5.
I was worried this would be confusing, but they all understood (two large
sections of 80 students each).
By dropping the lowest score in each category, if there is a
personal dispute (or a single problem about ethnicity/race), it will not affect
a person’s score. Also, no one average score in any category will
be below a 5 unless at least two people on the team believe that person
deserved lower than a 5. My theory was that if at least two people out of
five or six identify a problem, then it really needs to be addressed.
Allocating the points prevents someone from
“gaming” the competitive nature of grades and grading all of their
teammates more harshly or lower. (Students here are graded on a strict
curve.) It also prevents the people who have a tendency to score high
from falsely giving everyone a high score over others who think
“average” is good for everyone.
Finally, for the first round, I included a page with the
open questions of “list something positive about each person” and “list
something you’d like this person to improve” for each person to
fill out. My assistant typed up the comments on a single sheet of paper
for each student, and I computed the averages to report (after dropping the
lowest in each category); that average for each category was also reported on
the sheet with the typed comments (typed to protect anonymity). I gave
that sheet to the students within a week of them completing the evaluations.
My hope is that by the time we get to the final assessment,
everyone on all teams give each other 5s in each category.
It’s a bit labor
intensive, but I’ve already seen some people improve after receiving comments---things
they would never have “heard” if I’d said something
similar.
I hope this helps some.
Jana
Jana
R. McCreary
Assistant Professor of Law
Florida Coastal School of Law
8787 Baypine Road
Jacksonville, Florida 32256
(904) 256-1222
(904) 680-7771 (fax)
From: Team-Based Learning
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Laura Madson
Sent: Thursday, October 07, 2010 2:57 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: peer evaluation practices
Hello everyone -
I’m curious about the peer evaluation procedures you use. Would you take
a few moments to respond to the following “straw poll?” In
addition, please feel free to send any thoughts or comments about peer
evaluations.
In the spirit of sharing, I tell you my answers to the above questions. I teach
undergraduates in large-enrollment sections (N=140) of Introduction to
Psychology. In the past, I’ve collected peer evaluations at the end of
the term using survey items rated on a 1-to-7 scale and I haven’t shared
peer evaluations with students (unless they asked about their final grade).
This semester, I’m experimenting with collecting open-ended comments
after each team activity and sharing those formative comments with students.
Its too early in the semester to determine the effect of the new peer
evaluation procedure but the change got me wondering about the variety of peer
evaluation procedures used by other TBL folks.
Many thanks for your thoughts and time!
lm
Laura Madson, Associate Professor and Graduate Director
Department of Psychology
Box 30001/MSC 3452
Las Cruces, NM 88003
(575) 646-6207
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