Of course good things (like having kids collaborate in groups) often cause us to rethink a whole bunch of other things (like assessment). In traditional teaching models assessment was pretty straight-forward. I taught and each kid wrote their own test, did their own essay or project, and then I marked it. Check, done. I knew what each kid knew.
Now we are having kids collaborate to inquire, research and create. How do we assess these final products? What is the role of peer and self assessment? How do we help kids to be effective listeners during group presentations? We know that the grade we put on the report card needs to be a reflection of what an individual student can do independently. How do we figure that out if students have worked collaboratively on the final product? Let’s look at one possible example:
Students are working together to create an iMovie as a final assessment to demonstrate understanding of the topic covered in class. You have co-created a rubric so that they know what determines a successful iMovie.
As the students are working on their iMovie your observations and individual conversations of how each student is participating and understanding the process of creating the iMovie can provide you with some summative assessment data.
Before submitting the iMovie or the final showing, each group could show their iMovie to another group and receive feedback on their movie, using the rubric as a starting point for the conversation. This peer assessment is used for students to be able to make changes to their iMovie before it is finished. The peer assessment is not part of the final grade. This process of looking at another movie may also help students to make revisions to their own movie.
As the group of students submits their final product, each individual student could mark the rubric for their iMovie and provide specific reasons or examples from the film as evidence for how they rated the film. You could use this as part of your summative assessment to see how well individual students understood their product in relation to the rubric. You cannot use the self-assessment of the rubric only—it is the individual student’s ability to provide specific rationale for their rating that provides you information about their understanding.
The iMovie can be shown to the entire class or handed in to the teacher. Only the teacher can mark the rubric for iMovie and return it to the group of students. However, this mark CANNOT be used as part of each individual’s mark as you cannot be certain who contributed what. However, students do need feedback on how well they collectively completed the task. It is important to recognize that individual group members may have varying degrees of understanding about the final product.
If the iMovie is shown to the entire class, you could ask each individual student to fill in a graphic organizer as they watch that would demonstrate their understanding of the media piece. Perhaps the GO asks students to identify effective angle shots or how music was used to enhance the iMovie. Perhaps the GO asks students to determine what the overall message or theme was. Perhaps the GO asks students to identify key concepts included in the iMovie. This could be used for your summative assessment as students are providing you with their understanding of the media presentations. It is not a peer assessment. It is not an assessment of their iMovie. It is however an assessment of their understanding of the process of creating the final task.
You do need to have individual students explain about the making of their iMovie to demonstrate their understanding of the process, and content. This could be written or through a conference. This will be the main part of your individual assessment for this final task. Students should know ahead of time that this will be part of the assessment. These questions allow you to know that each individual student had an understanding of the process and the final product. Perhaps you ask questions such as
How did your group decide which scenes to include?
Which scene in your iMovie is the most important to your overall theme?
What were the key concepts about the topic that your group decided to include? Which concepts did you decide NOT to include?
How did your group decide to choose the music?
Give examples of three different angle shots in your iMovie and explain why they are effective.
We want students to collaborate and work in groups. We know this is engaging and deepens student understanding. The trick is determining, at the end, the individual understanding of each student. In all collaborative endeavours we need to understand that collaboration is a tool FOR learning or FOR doing. At some point students must demonstrate their individual understanding of the content, concepts and skills.
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