Assessment

Herein lies the situation, too long has academics graded on the individual progress but not the group’s progress. As stated by Siemens Four models of peer assessment, instructor assessment, group to individual assessment, metrics assessment. All four models are lacking. (2008)We fail to establish and provide true group attainment if we continue to primarily assess the individual. If you are assessing each person, you never truly assess the group? If we elect to assess a blended environment, of individual and group work, which is worth more? Usually in this environment of distance learning, we are still assessing individual work at a greater percentage. Look at any distance learning class that contains a blended environment and you will notice that the percentage of assessable work is based on sole attainment.

To true obtain a community, we need to devise a system in which group work is solely the only qualifications. This way we are building an online community and not just an academic easy route to grading? In the corporate world, as a developer, my pay increases and bonuses were directly linked to how well group projects fared and how the group devised a solution to a stated problem. We need to devise another approach to online community assessment. (Siemens, 2008)

Writing and linguistic skills can affect a fair and equitable form of grading. I am not the best writer so someone who has published or written articles frequently would surpass me by miles. Also, APA formatting is not one of my strengths so I spend hours trying to figure out how to do the formatting. Does this affect my time in which I have to compose? Yes! I am concentrating not on subject matter but the technical aspect of research.

First, as Palloff and Pratt mentioned that the facilitator can not be a fly on the wall. It is the instructor’s role to monitor students that do not participate. (2005) It can not be taken for granted that the student is not participating purposely. In this age of electronics, a blown hard drive or missing Internet connection can be devastating to participation. As for the group, good communications need to be established so that levels of participation, or non-levels, can be addressed openly and freely. The group needs to trust each other first in order to build this type of communication. (Hurst & Thomas, 2004) The impact on non-participation can be deadly to a group. If everyone is apathetic, it is a spirally down effect for the entire group.

Marcia

Hurst D. &Thomas J. (2004). “Developing team skills and accomplishing team projects online”. The theory and practice of online learning. Ed. Terry Anderson

Siemens, G. (2008). Assessment of collaborative learning. Vodocast. Laureate Education, Inc.