Assessing Collaborative Efforts

 

 

Assessing each individual students participating in a collaborative learning community is no easy task, it can be challeging, but it can be done.

One way in which a students participating could be assessed is by having each student within the collaborative learning community identify their contribution. Another way to assess a students individual participating in a collaborative learning community is by providing each student with a rubric and giving them the opportunity to identify if they have indeed actively participated in their collaborative learning community. The rubric whoul also give them the opportunity to grade the participation of their peers. A rubric is a good tool to use when assessing participation. Rubrics provide students with clear, easy to follow expectations(Palloff & Pratt, 2005). The varied skill levels and knowledge of studets can have an effect o the fair assessment of learning. It is easy to seeming favor those individual students who are comfortable with the learning environment. Unfair assessmet of students can be combated by evaluating a student by their skill areas.

There may be a number of reasons why a student does not network or collaborate in a learning community for an online course but, regardless of the reason lack of participation is unacceptable. Educators should establish a fusion of environments if they wish to develop effective learning experiences (Palloff & Pratt, 2005).This fusion of environments will help those students who have some reluctancy to abandon the individual learning approach. If a student within the collaborative learning community does not network or collaborate other members of the learning community should encourage them to by asking for their advice on the assignment or inviting them to chat. The other members should be supportive of the student and try to engage them. The instructor role is that of facilitator.

 

It can be a challenge to get all student to participate in a collaborative learning community. To mitigate the problem a strong sense of community needs to be built (Palloff & Pratt, 2005). Clear communication, rubrics and assessment plans will help promote an effective and collaborative learning community.
 

References

Palloff, R. M., & Pratt, K. (2005). Collaborating online: Learning together in community. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

 

Laureate Education, Inc. (2008). Principles of Distance Education. Baltimore, MD: Author.