Module 3- Assessing Collaborative Efforts

How should participation in a collaborative learning community be assessed? How do the varying levels of skill and knowledge students bring to a course affect the instructor's "fair and equitable assessment" of learning?

In a collaborative learning community it is really the instructor’s responsibility to assess students work. The course should be designed stating the objectives as well as the use of rubrics used as guidelines for students work. The rubric should state what is expected in each assignment and the outcome. George Siemens makes the suggestion that peer assessing and the instructor assessing students based on what they contribute to the assignment should be used for assessment of collaborative learning (Siemens, 2008). According to Palloff and Pratt, assessment in a collaborative learning community should be in the form of papers, artifacts, and projects that are based on the course objectives and goals (Palloff & Pratt, 2005).  According to Rovai, the members of the learning community should be graded on quantity, quality, and timeliness of their contributions to the group project or paper (Rovai, 2002). Those students that have varying levels of skills and knowledge would benefit from a group project because that way they will get the opportunity to help each other by sharing their ideas.

If a student does not want to network or collaborate in a learning community for an online course, what should the other members of the learning community do? What role should the instructor play? What impact would this have on his or her assessment plan?

According to Palloff and Pratt, the instructor should let students know in advance their involvement in the collaborative activity and of their plans to guide it. This will give the students a sense of confidence and the ability to move forward with their involvement in the community (Palloff & Pratt, 2005). In a distance learning environment, if a student does not want to network or collaborate, the other members of the group should attempt to talk to that student. If they still fail to get involve, then the group leader should contact the instructor let them handle the problem which involves them not getting a grade or them getting a zero. All students should feel comfortable enough to be able to talk to the instructor about a problem within a group but usually it is a good idea to have a leader in  the group.

Palloff, R. & Pratt, K. (2005).Collaborating online. Learning together in community. (first edition) San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Rovai, A. (2002). International review of research in open and distance learning. Building sense of community at a distance. Retrieved from http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&sqi=2&ved=0CBMQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.irrodl.org%2Findex.php%2Firrodl%2Farticle%2Fdownload%2F79%2F153&rct=j&q=building%20a%20sense%20of%20community%20at%20a%20distance&ei=GlcqTZ-ZHcaqlAft8YGLAg&usg=AFQjCNHkqe-yAzS7Aoud78UHjDozUry2kQ

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