Initially I had the assignment be their 15th blog post. However, upon considering the feedback I received in class during my presentation, I decided to make the reflective letter a bit more private, so that group members wouldn't be able to see how their peers were evaluating their contributions and collaborative effort. I've structured the reflective letter in such a way that it is a revised version of the initial assignment while also adding a evaluative survey for each group member to fill out, again bringing them back to the obligations laid out on the contact as well as the important foci for collaborative projects.
Because I can't upload my assignments to my blog as Word Documents, I've done a screen shot of new additions as well as revised portions of my unit. The revised portions are highlighted in yellow. Thanks for looking and please, any constructive feedback is always appreciated :)
Revised requirement components on Unit 3 Assignment Sheet:
I've also added in two chapters from Hacking the Academy into this unit to engage students with thinking more critically about how the social media sites that they are critiquing engage within the academy:
Lastly the Evaluative Survey that students need to complete for each group member. The survey questions have been copied on the sheet 4 times so that the student can give each group member ratings on the same document. For the sake of brevity on this blog post I'm only going to screen shot the first page:
Hi Lucy,
ReplyDeleteGreat post! As I said in class last week, I really like your approach to group work as it holds each student accountable for their work and contributions. If this was in practice during my undergrad, I don't think I would have loathed group work as much. I do have a few questions for you regarding your changes, though. First, how will their group members' responses factor into the students final grade? If you decide that the reflective letter will hold, to some degree, significant weight, how do you anticipate students will change their responses. For example, if a group knew that their responses wouldn't be considered as much, they may be more inclined to deliver an honest answer; whereas, if they felt as though their reviews could have a negative response on their group member's grade, they may try to be, for a lack of a better word, nice. Have you done this before? What have the responses been to it? Second, I like how you're incorporating readings from Hacking the Academy to your discussion of social media. But what other texts will you put into conversation with it? Why that specific chapter?
These are just some general questions I have, mostly because I'm really interested in the results you've seen from this approach to group work.
Lacy
I love the contract idea. I was thinking, in addition, you may want to have the group do a mid point evaluation--this could be with you individually and/or written, this may alleviate some of the normal group work issues...I like the collaboration you are getting them in to, can you also get them to reflect on the group dynamics and how this altered both form and content?
ReplyDeleteLucy,
ReplyDeleteWow! I can't tell you how much I appreciate the revisions you made to your assignment here. We were all pretty taken with the whole idea of the group contract and I think you have integrated it very well into your assignment sequence and the framework of your overall course. Your development of the reflective letter survey is both straightforward and sophisticated. I did, however, have questions about why you didn't provide an optional field in which students can add specific contextual comments. Was this a deliberate rhetorical and design choice on your part? Also, I'm curious about how you envisioned actually using the data gather from these reflective letter surveys. Will this factor into your grading of students? Will there be a punitive measures taken against students who seem to fall short of expectations for collaboration? These are certainly questions that students will want to know the answer of, but I hope my response gives you something to chew on. Thank you so much for sharing your blog entry!
Mark