As a student, I pretty much agree with you---I always hate having to let one person ruin group presentation grade.
However, as a pedagogical practice, I can see the point. You want to make sure that the students know they are (and will be in the future) sometimes responsible for motivating or compelling their peers, and that they can sometimes be judged by what someone else does. Obviously, you don't want to put their overall grade at risk in such a manner, but you do want both the diligent students and the slackers to feel like they need to improve in their coordination if the group receives a low mark as a whole.
The simple solution there is, when you're teaching this kind of practice, assign two or three group projects over the course of the marking period. Then just have them total to 5% or 10% of their overall score for that marking period. Students won't be able to lose much overall, but will still get the solid feedback the graded project provides.
And, if you want to make sure they receive more individual motivation, you can make personal grade components from the group projects worth more: say, 10% to 15% of their overall grade, based entirely on their own contributions to the project.
Unfortunately, it can be difficult to determine who did what or contributed how much, but if you have them meet during classtime or provide along-the-way assessments (like status reviews they have to turn in at certain time), at least you'll have something to judge by. And, of course, then you can change groups to make sure that you group (for example) one slacker with two motivated students, or put a group of slackers together so they have to start building some leadership and initiative.
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Date: 2008-10-02 12:14 pm (UTC)However, as a pedagogical practice, I can see the point. You want to make sure that the students know they are (and will be in the future) sometimes responsible for motivating or compelling their peers, and that they can sometimes be judged by what someone else does. Obviously, you don't want to put their overall grade at risk in such a manner, but you do want both the diligent students and the slackers to feel like they need to improve in their coordination if the group receives a low mark as a whole.
The simple solution there is, when you're teaching this kind of practice, assign two or three group projects over the course of the marking period. Then just have them total to 5% or 10% of their overall score for that marking period. Students won't be able to lose much overall, but will still get the solid feedback the graded project provides.
And, if you want to make sure they receive more individual motivation, you can make personal grade components from the group projects worth more: say, 10% to 15% of their overall grade, based entirely on their own contributions to the project.
Unfortunately, it can be difficult to determine who did what or contributed how much, but if you have them meet during classtime or provide along-the-way assessments (like status reviews they have to turn in at certain time), at least you'll have something to judge by. And, of course, then you can change groups to make sure that you group (for example) one slacker with two motivated students, or put a group of slackers together so they have to start building some leadership and initiative.