Spotlight on… Group Work Assessment
The 20th November saw the launch of a new series of Learning and Teaching events with the first session centred around Group Work Assessment. The event shared the newly approved University Group Working Code of Practice and guidance found here and featured lighting style presentations followed by Q & A time with the panel of presenters.
The presentations covered a range of topics, complementing each other in their approaches.
First up was Dr Ian Graham with extensive experience of leading group work modules, Ian creates mixed ability groups and shared his advice for the use of peer assessment using the tool Web-PA in his group work assessment.
Next to present was Dr Victoria Haines talking through a Teaching Innovation Award that is working through all aspects of group work including developing resources to support the use of peer assessment.
Dr Ash Casey joined us to share his research into Cooperative Learning, how to form groups and how to use groups in the classroom to engage and interact with them as effectively as possible.
Finally, Dr James Knowles concluded the presentations with an example which again uses peer assessment but has very large groups of around 12 students which can mean group effort is much easier to monitor as those not contributing are easily spotted in the peer assessment marks and there is less room for singling an individual out.
An interesting technique that seems to have benefited those employing it is the use of interim formative peer assessment on Web-PA to check in part way through the project and see how the group is functioning before they then go on to complete their summative piece.
Following the presentations, Ana- Maria Bilciu LSU Education EO joined the panel and all took questions from the audience around themes such as group forming, inclusivity in group work and the benefit of group work for students. One of our main challenges is that although working together on an assessment can feel quite tricky for students this is a crucial skill for the workplace and after graduation many reflect that they hadn’t realised the benefit at the time.
Presenters slides and the lecture capture of the event can be found on the Group Work guidance Learn page here.
Keep an eye out for upcoming events in the Spotlight series and note that this event launched the opening of applications for the Teaching Awards 2020, for more information see here.