This youtube video shows a winning group project from computer science undergraduates from Cambridge University.
Earlier this year our eldest son had to take part in a group assessment at Edinburgh University. It involved him working with others to complete a joint project. The outcome was assessed and the result forms part of his assessment profile for the year.
It set me to thinking about the potential of using formal group assessment in schools. If it’s seen to be good enough for universities then there should certainly be no problem using it in schools. I’m not just talking here about the occasional project in S1 or S2 but using this approach in the formal certificated curriulum in the upper school as a part of a mixed assessment model.
Here’s how it’s described by the Higher Education Academy:
Group work has become increasingly important in higher education with the greater emphasis on skills and lifelong learning. We want students not only to be effective during their studies but also as future employees.
However, group work is often introduced in a hurry, can be unsupported and assessed without thinking through the consequences for both the student and the tutor. The following resources will provide a firm foundation for ensuring group work to be effective and a positive learning experience.
Introduction to group work is a complex process, it is therefore advisable to consider the many different aspects involved – Planning, establishing groups, assessing and evaluating etc.
The resources below cover the following areas, using groups, group roles, stages of development, group size, group formation, preparing students for group work, managing group processes, assessing group work, evaluating and reviewing and pedagogical and ethical issues.
Resources
- Group work and Group Assessment, Victoria University of Wellington (pdf 1.7M) 2)
- Assessing learning in Australian universities; (pdf 387 KB)
- Assessing Group Tasks, The University of Queensland (pdf 208 KB)
- Group Assessment, University of Essex
- Assessing group-work, Michael Christie and Fariba Ferdos (pdf 151 KB)
Assessment Grids
a) Baltimore County Public Schools (web page)
b) University of Lincoln, NZ (PDF)
c) Indiana University, USA (web page)
d) Southern Illinois University (web page)Peer assessment of group work: a review of the literature
This review may be of interest to those involved in peer assessment of group work. Numerous recommendations are made for the peer assessment community and the Web Peer Assessment (WebPA) project. The review comes with a references table (available to download) which highlights over 30 references with key themes and findings for each. For further information, please follow the link below:
Hi Don
This is an interesting post and I’m glad you have raised the issue of how, what and why we assess. It generated a couple of questions in my mind:
What is the current understanding in schools of what constitutes sound assessment practice?
Teachers need a clear understanding of the key features of assessment in order to devlelop the skills of peer and self assessment in youngsters.
What are the opportunities currently exist to ensure valid, reliable assessment takes place and that teachers have ample opportunity to ‘share standards’ within and across schools?
(Particularly in subjects other than English. How many maths teachers have an opportunity to be involved in local moderation for instance?)
I think the answers to these two questions may be significant in the development of the ideas discussed in your post.
Second question should read:
What opportunities currently exist to ensure valid, reliable assessment takes place and that teachers have ample opportunity to ’share standards’ within and across schools?
Hi
My daughter is studying Spanish at university and also participated in a joint assessment project recently.
Her end of term assessment took the form of a divorce hearing at which students took different parts. My daughter, being of a dramatic nature, revelled in the role of bullying ex-husband with a mistress to support and a gambling habit: his (her) defence against having to pay child support!
The research she had to do and the vocabulary she learnt might not be immediately relevant to a 17 year old girl’s life but she thoroughly enjoyed it, she gained in confidence and, of course, she developed skills in collaboration and peer assessment.
This is not new: my son had similar experiences when studying History – and he graduated in 1999.
We in school could learn a great deal from this. It’s challenging, but who ever said educating the next generation should be easy!
Don
It’s good to connect back to your blog and read this post on “group work” and formal group assessments. It got me to pondering about some of the challenges here.
We in schools have often spouted about cooperative learning – read group project work but hit barriers:
Some of barriers were simply and others more complex:
- state wide curriculum did not value interpersonal learning as an assessible thing – therefore it never got onto student reports.
- not all teachers believe some of the thinking behind co-operative dare I say collaborative learning which is about the social construction of knowledge
- true collaborative learning needs lots of foundational skills to be modelled and made explicit by teachers for students before we can assess against these – and layering learning so that whilst we learn about content we also learn sets of collaborative skills.
We are woking on this notion of layering learning, making collaborative skills more explicit, learning to assign tasks that require deeper thinking and teachers need to be coached in this before we can ever hope to change teacher beliefs about knowledge construction.
Then we finally might get authentic group assessments. Thanks for the post.
I wonder if the emergence of the web-based peer assessment system WebPA has been part of the solution to making peer assessment more formal and auditable? Perhaps, if it has proved a help in the university sector, we should try it in school?
There’s a 14-slide PowerPoint on Slideshare which outlines the project’s history.
There’s a demo facility on the WebPA site where you can log in as student, staff member or administrator and easily get a good idea of what that system is like. It looks simple and user-friendly, and could be used in school with no licensing costs.
It looks like it could probably be installed in a corner of the edubuzz server if anyone wanted to try it out, although we’d need to do a proper check to confirm that.
You would think that school-based, ensemble music-making in its varied, prolific forms might shed some light here. I wonder, however, if it amounts to little more than parallel, individual work for many pupils. I suppose the only way is to ask them. Exactly how to put that question is another matter. Would this be a question best posed by a musician or a non-musician? Or by a group?
Alan
That’s an interesting one. Perhaps if every member’s grade was to be judged by the quality of the ensemble piece then there might be more incentive for them to support each other as opposed to working as individuals within the group?
Cheers
Don
I should perhaps have been clearer about the distinction between group lessons and ensemble rehearals/performances.
I’ve noticed in lessons, particularly in primary schools, that pupils are very keen to help one another and that this process serves to consolidate their grasp of content. Unfotunately this becomes less straightforward in ensemble rehearsals as the vast majority of the group* will be playing a different part from any given pupil. This is where I suspect the experience to be more one of parallel individualism.
* (66% in a trio, 75% in a quartet, 80% in a quintet or 84% in a sextet) – the average individual school guitar ensemble weighs in at around 20+ members and the EL one at around 40.