Best Practices in Preparation for Group Assignments
- Think about your teaching objective first: how does a group assignment help you achieve your teaching goals?
- Establish clear milestones and specify the deliverables of each milestone.
- Consider measuring individual contributions by incorporating teammate/peer evaluations or another evaluation method.
- If the project requires your students to demonstrate some soft skills, consider requiring a video presentation as a deliverable.
- Consider introducing some mechanism of competition, such as “ranking” team projects on various criteria. (However, be careful not to make the competitive factor count too much in the grade.)
- Be sure to add student groups to the Team Assignment setting in Compass2g. Otherwise, students cannot see the team assignment.
Best Practices in Forming Teams
- Limit team size to 3-5 members.
- Establish an Availability survey to help you form the groups based upon the learners availability for group work.
- Pre-define roles and responsibilities for students, if applicable (especially for undergrad classes): Establishing clear roles and responsibilities and asking students to sign themselves up can help eliminate team issues and disputes.
- Some members in teams might be unresponsive: be prepared to intervene if necessary.
- In Compass2g, only one member can submit a Team Assignment. Ensure teams are clear on which person among them has that responsibility.
- Be sure to add student groups to the Team Assignment setting in Compass2g. Otherwise, students cannot see the assignment.
Best Practices on Grading Team Assignments
- Establish a rubric early on and share with students before they begin the assignment.
- Ensure criteria are specific and consistent with evaluation priorities discussed within assignments.
More Resources
