WS for Collaborative Learning (Team Project)?

WS for Collaborative Learning (Team Project)?

by Alexandre Enkerli -
Number of replies: 8
Can the Workshop module be used (abused) to facilitate peer assessment of work in a semester-long group/team project?

Personal background:
Still somewhat new to Moodle (only used it for one full semester, preparing for a second semester). Haven't used the workshop module yet. Haven't done team projects in class before. Looking for ways to make the process of in-group peer assessment easier.

Teaching Context:
This is for a large (170 students) introductory-level course in cultural anthropology at Concordia University, in Montreal. Typically, Concordia students are used to a fair amount of autonomy and don't expect much hand-holding or spoon-feeding.

Project:
A semester-long ethnography project on a specific social group (music fanclub, hobby group, religious community, etc.). The project has four parts: a project proposal, an observation report, an interview report, and a final paper.

Grading:
My criteria for grading the assignments include such things as insight, originality, and honesty. All things which are relatively easy to use while grading and quite robust across semesters but pretty difficult to transmit to others. My use of peer assessment would have more to do with factors influencing teamwork. It's easy for me to relate to comments made by Roger Arango about group projects and group grading.

Issue:
The main reason I want students to use peer assessment is to prevent "hitchhikers and couch potatoes" while making sure that the team project benefits from an open, consensual structure. As such, I'd like members of each team to give each other grades reflecting their behaviour within the team. I would then like to use the averages from these grades to serve as a factor in each student's grade for the project overall (45% of the final grade) or for the separate assignments.

Solutions:
I could simply ask all students to submit their peer evaluations as an assignment so that I can then put the grades in a spreadsheet next to each student's grade and then calculate the grades through that spreadsheet. Seems a bit time-consuming, especially if students fail to submit those evaluations on time.
Third-party tools exist to facilitate such tasks, but I would prefer to integrate this into Moodle.
I could possibly torture the workshop module to make it work for my purposes but I'm really not sure how, or even if, it could be done.

Any suggestion would be welcome.
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In reply to Alexandre Enkerli

Re: WS for Collaborative Learning (Team Project)?

by Peter Sereinigg -

Hi,

peer assessment/workshop-modul "now" is a tool which supports NO groupe work, or you have to use "work arrounds" to solve that problem.

Two possible ways for your ideas:

    • 1.)
      Use a forum 1 for small groupe discussion (seperate groups)
    • They have to post their solutions in forum 2 (ask them to structure it in the postings), first seperate groups, then change to visible groups now all may see these postings and may browse through them
    • Let them find differences, new ideas and so on ...
      If you would like to give them the possibilities to POST, then you have to use the no groups solution.
      To show the different groups, use nthe possibility to show groupe-pictures.
    • Then they have to continue the discussion in Forum 1 with the new inputs and have to complete their own work (seperate groups)
    • each group has to post ONE solution in a forum 3, which first has seperate groups and then change to no groups
      Now they may comment and rank they solutions.

      for this process you may use a WIKI in a groupe-mode to support the writings.
      Take care - that they show you they process of discussion and not only the solution. this prevents solutions, which may be written in view hours or days befor the end
  • 2.
    If you would like to use the workshop modul
    you have to use several workshopmoduls:
    • Each groupe has to post the solution in one of the moduls (ONCE).
    • You have to decide before, which groupe should post in which modul and should do the peers in another modul.
    • Now all Students may peer - assess the uploaded works in predefined workshop moduls and you can be sure, they will not get their own work as a peer.
      For your situation i would recomand the Nr. 1

Hope that helps

Peter

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In reply to Alexandre Enkerli

Re: WS for Collaborative Learning (Team Project)?

by John Isner -
The purpose of "groups" is not clear from your description. You mention "teamwork" and "behavior within a team." Where does the teamwork come in? Does each group/team collaborate to produce a single proposal/observation/etc.? Or does each individual work independently and later have their work assessed by others on the team? In the standard workshop module, each individual produces work which is peer-assessed by others in the course; there are no groups.

If the criteria for grading are "pretty difficult to transmit to others," then won't the assessment elements also be pretty difficult to transmit (i.e., vague and subjective)? And if the grades are based solely on peer assessments (with no teacher assessment), how meaningful will they grades be?
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In reply to John Isner

Re: WS for Collaborative Learning (Team Project)?

by Alexandre Enkerli -

Apologies for the misunderstandings.

Members of each team will work on the team's project, producing one "assignment" per team per stage in the project (e.g., each team submits one project plan, one observation report, etc.). Those teams are separate groups in the Moodle class (taken at random, working as a team throughout the semester).

As both the instructor and the grader, I'll make the assessment of the team's output (the "assignments" themselves) using those difficult-to-transmit criteria that I mentioned. Students will not peer-assess the quality of the assignments (e.g., observation report) submitted for the teams' projects.

The peer assessment comes in as a regulatory system to diminish the impact of "freeriders," "leechers," or "hitchhikers." My idea is to have the members of each group assess the degree of participation by their fellow team members based on criteria on which they will agree, as teams. As much as possible, I want to use the averages of those grades to serve as a differentiating factor for the grades of different members of the team in cases where there are noticeable discrepancies in terms of individual participation within the team. So, if a given team receives 41/45 on the project overall but three of the four team members describe the participation of the fourth member as insufficient (giving her, say, an average of 5/10 for participation), I want this fourth member's lack of participation to be represented in her overall project grade (20.5/45 instead of 41/45). The alternative would be to have a separate participation grade, the consequences of which aren't as harsh, but it might not serve as a sufficient regulatory mechanism.

I would prefer to have these evaluations made at every step of the process but, if the in-team peer assessment system can't be embedded in the "assignments" in Moodle, it will probably not be possible for me to implement such a cumbersome structure on 170 students. The course should not become "busy work" for anyone.

Reading Peter's answer, I have been thinking about other solutions. I eventually received a reply telling me that I can use a peer-assessment online database system made by a fellow Concordia teacher. It might work better that way. I just thought that the Workshop module could work to add a layer of peer assessment to the existing group structure.

Thanks a lot for your kind help!

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In reply to Alexandre Enkerli

Re: WS for Collaborative Learning (Team Project)?

by Peter Sereinigg -

Hi,

what you may do with the workshop modul in your plan:

  • every participant may write a short reflection individual (1-2 pages) about own experiences in this project
  • this may be the input for peer assessment
  • and this may be the end of the work

Peter

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In reply to Peter Sereinigg

Re: WS for Collaborative Learning (Team Project)?

by Alexandre Enkerli -

Excellent idea. It's just that, not knowing workshop, I'm not sure it'll give me what I want.

  • Can the workshop module be used for students to only assess members of their separate (not visible) Moodle groups?
  • Can the peer assessment be free-form?
  • Can I receive peer-assessments from all team members about all the other team members?
  • Can those assessments be anonymous for assessors?
  • What is the result of the peer-assessment project within Moodle grades?

Hypothetical example: Jane, Isabel, Hawa, and William do a project on the Straight Edge Punk movement in Montreal. They submit their observation report (under Hawa's name). I grade that observation report as 9/10, giving them feedback about the project as a whole. The four of them submit a "reflection paper" in which they assess their own participation. Each team member rates the reflection papers by the three others (e.g., Isabel gives Hawa 10/10, William 6/10, and Jane 8/10). For each team member, I get grades that I can average out and then multiply by the grade for the observation report (if Hawa gets an average of 10/10 from fellow team members, she gets the full 9/10, if Isabel gets an average of 8/10 from peer assessment, she gets 7.2/10).

If all of this can be done, it might be a relatively good solution as it really engages students in thinking about their team participation. (I also have a two engagement grades for the course as a whole, one of which is self-assessed.)

I'm guessing that the identity of the assessors will always be known (e.g., Isabel will know how Hawa assessed her participation). It might not be ideal, but it would still work.

Is there a test course where I could try this out?

Thanks a lot!

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In reply to Alexandre Enkerli

Re: WS for Collaborative Learning (Team Project)?

by Peter Sereinigg -
  • Can the workshop module be used for students to only assess members of their separate (not visible) Moodle groups?
    Peer Assessments may be anonymosly, BUT dont work in the groupe mode now (this will be changed in the new version)
  • Can the peer assessment be free-form?
    You may use up to 20 criterias ... these may be free form
  • Can I receive peer-assessments from all team members about all the other team members?
    during the peer assessment you just have informations about your own assessments.
    After closing an assessment, you may show something like a "highscore" and then you may see other works, BUT no grades or peers    .
  • Can those assessments be anonymous for assessors?
    yes - this is the standardconfiguration
    It depents on the sice of a groupe, but normaly knowbody should now who is grading...
    We force students to have NO information in a document about the author...
  • What is the result of the peer-assessment project within Moodle grades?
    this is the reason, we re-programm this tool, knowbody knows exactly what happens,
    I use the workshop modul AND then students get their grades with an assignment (offline - mode)

hope that helps

Peter

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In reply to Peter Sereinigg

Re: WS for Collaborative Learning (Team Project)?

by Alexandre Enkerli -
Peter,

Sorry for the delayed reply, thanks for all your kind help.
It seems that the workshop module could work for my needs but I would have needed to learn more about it before using it. Maybe next time. In lieu of the WS module, I'll be using a Concordia-designed peer assessment system meant specifically for teamwork. It already has a team participation structure and useful reporting features.
Maybe the WS module itself or another Moodle module could be designed specifically for team projects. The group structure already in place can be very useful and the available modules can be used for group activities, but the connection between pedagogy and technology also implies other issues with which Moodle seems like the perfect tool.

Anyhoo, thanks again for all your help.
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In reply to Alexandre Enkerli

Re: WS for Collaborative Learning (Team Project)?

by Agam Nag -

I have similar problems. Is the Concordia-designed peer assessment system you refer to a plugin to Moodle? Is it available to others?

I was thnking of using Questionnaire out of frustration.

Thanks

Agam

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