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Collaborative Web 2.0 Tools to Monitor Accountability

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Collaborative Web 2.0 Tools to Monitor Accountability

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As applications exist in allowing group collaboration to be virtually assessable, educators can monitor student accountability through this array of Web 2.0 tools.

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Why Work in Groups | University of Birmingham

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Why Work in Groups | University of Birmingham

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As previously discussed, group work not only allows for students to share their diverse learning techniques, but allows students to rely on one-another in developing trust and a sense of accountability for not just individualized, but group success.

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An important aspect of your university studies is the opportunity to work as part of a group. Group working is used at university because it can be an effective and powerful way to learn, and is also highly relevant to the workplace. The following points highlight the benefits of group learning:
Effective learning
Group working can make study more efficient and fun. Working with others enables you to pool your ideas and see problems from different perspectives. In a group situation, you can attempt tasks that could not be accomplished by an individual, combining a variety of skills and expertise to tackle more complex and larger scale problems. If you are working to a limited time frame, group work allows analysis to a greater depth and breadth than if you were working individually. Furthermore, group work gives you the chance to learn from each other. There are many benefits from analysing, discussing and exploring your own ideas and questions and gaining feedback from your peers.
Development of Generic Skills
Group working can provide a great opportunity to develop generic skills such as,

Organisation

Delegation

Effective communication

Co-operation

Leadership

Following

These are all valuable qualities that will be sort after and highly valued once you have left university.

Relevance to the workplace:

The organisational structure of the workplace means that teamwork is becoming increasingly important. Group work will prepare you for when you become a graduate and make you immediately useful for employers. Many companies require tasks to be completed in teams with the teams functioning to best of their abilities, for example, an engineering company recruiter says;

'Team working is an absolutely vital requirement in the graduate recruitment criteria. When assessing recruits, Corus looks for evidence for team working skills and experience in the candidates' applications. We subject short-listed candidates to a team working exercise in our Assessment Centres and one of the first training courses we provide for graduate recruits is on team building, covering the theory and practice of team working and the various roles of members in effective teams. In industry our experience is that problems are solved by multidisciplinary teams and innovations have the best chance of success if implemented by multidisciplinary teams.'
Development of Social Networks
Working in groups gives you an excellent opportunity to get to know one another. It can be useful for encouraging social interactions and for developing strong social/learning networks.
Development of Group Dynamic awareness
Group working is likely to become an important aspect of your working life. Central to effective group working is group dynamics, and practising group work at university may help you gain a greater understanding of the various factors that apply in a group-based scenario (e.g. group roles, communication, delegation).

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An important aspect of your university studies is the opportunity to work as part of a group. Group working is used at university because it can be an effective and powerful way to learn, and is also highly relevant to the workplace.

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(1) - 3 Links to resources regarding stimulating group involvement.                            (2) - 3 Theories/Methodologies  regarding working together.                               (3) - 3 Images that convey partnership spirit.                                    (4) - 3 Videos that convey responsibility and/or reciprocity.                               (5) - 3 Accountability measures within a group.                                     (6) - 3 Steps to ensure support is provided to all members during an assignment. 

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(1) - 3 Links to resources regarding stimulating group involvement.                            (2) - 3 Theories/Methodologies  regarding working together.                               (3) - 3 Images that convey partnership spirit.                                    (4) - 3 Videos that convey responsibility and/or reciprocity.                               (5) - 3 Accountability measures within a group.                                     (6) - 3 Steps to ensure support is provided to all members during an assignment. 

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Increasing Student Participation | Washington University

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Increasing Student Participation | Washington University

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While all students have a selective way of promoting their participation skills, a diverse student population is considered when understanding how one student can participate in a classroom environment.

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While increasing participation is an obvious goal in courses that include frequent discussions and small-group work, it is also important in a lecture course. In short, if only a few students participate by volunteering answers, asking questions, or contributing to discussions, class sessions become to some extent a lost opportunity to assess and promote learning. You can improve student participation in your course by devoting time and thought to shaping the environment and planning each class session. Furthermore, the way in which you interact, both verbally and non-verbally, communicates to students your attitude about participation.

Ideally, the goal of increasing participation is not to have every student participate in the same way or at the same rate. Instead, it is to create an environment in which all participants have the opportunity to learn and in which the class explores issues and ideas in depth, from a variety of viewpoints. Some students will raise their voices more than others; this variation is a result of differences in learning preferences as well as differences in personalities. For example, some students who do not speak often in class are reflective learners, who typically develop ideas and questions in their minds before speaking; others are shy students who feel uncomfortable speaking in front of groups (at least initially). Many students who frequently volunteer to contribute are active learners, who typically think while they speak. The instructor's goal is to create conditions that enable students of various learning preferences and personalities to contribute. To reach this goal, you will need to take extra steps to encourage quiet students to speak up and, occasionally, ask the more verbose students to hold back from commenting in order to give others a chance.

This handout is divided into the following sections:

Shaping the Environment
Planning
Listening and Responding
Links and References for Increasing Student Participation

Reserve a classroom that will accommodate the kind of participation you have in mind. Starting on the first day of class, arrange the room in a way that encourages active engagement. When it is time to reserve a classroom, keep in mind not only the number of student chairs you will need, but also whether these chairs should be moveable. If you lead frequent discussions, consider moving the chairs into a circle or "U" to ensure that students can see, and speak to, one another. If you are teaching in a large lecture hall, consider asking students to move so that they are concentrated near the front of the room. Move the chairs back to their standard configuration at the end of class (in University-managed classrooms, see the diagram posted near the door).

Make clear from the beginning your expectation that students will participate. On the first day of class, explain what you see as valuable about class participation. Indicate that you want to do all you can to ensure that the classroom dynamics and activities support full participation, including calling on students who do not raise their hands and sometimes asking frequent contributors to allow others to have a chance. Ask students to inform you if you can make any changes to improve the classroom dynamics and rates of participation.

On the first day of class, give students a clear idea of what to expect regarding participation. If you plan to lecture each day with pauses for questions and discussion, do so on the first day; if you plan to lead more extended discussions, then do so on the first day.

Consider whether you will assign a grade to students' performance in discussions so that they understand the importance of participating. If you do plan to grade participation, inform students of the specific criteria that you will use. For example, will you evaluate the frequency and quality of their contributions, as well as how effectively they each respond to others' comments? Will you include in each participation grade the student's performance on informal writing, online discussions, minor group projects, or other work? Grading student participation is especially important, and usually essential, in discussion courses (see Teaching with Discussions).

Learn and use students' names. Students will be more engaged if they believe that you perceive them as individuals, rather than as anonymous members of a group. Encourage students to learn one another's names, as well; this strategy will increase the possibility that they will address one another by name and direct their comments to one another, not just to you.

In a discussion course, assign to your students some of the responsibility for increasing participation by all. For example, on the first day of class, you might tell students your goals for class participation (e.g., informed and lively discussions in which everyone participates) and ask them to come up with a list of guidelines that will help the class reach this goal. Typically, they will generate excellent guidelines such as "do not interrupt others when they are talking" and "critique the ideas; don't criticize the person." Post this list on the course Web site and hand it out in class. Students who feel invested from the beginning in making the discussions successful will be more likely to work together to increase participation.

Consider requiring students to lead discussions or to submit discussion questions before class. Provide guidance and assess student performance on these tasks (assigning a score, for example, that forms a part of the class participation grade.)

In discussion courses in which you are having trouble getting students to participate, consider asking students to submit anonymous comments on class participation as well as suggestions on how to get more people involved; often, they will let you know that there are problems with the classroom dynamics that you may not see yourself (such as that some students resent the "domination" of discussion by one or two others) or that the structure of the discussions has become too predictable or formulaic.

Use a variety of teaching methods, including lectures, discussions, and small-group work. If you are teaching a lecture course, set aside time during each lecture to ask and answer questions, to ask students to solve a problem, or to discuss an issue. Pause every 15-20 minutes for this purpose. When students learn to expect these opportunities for discussion or questioning, they will listen more actively to the lecture. If you lecture for 45 minutes before you pause for questions or discussion, your students will have been taking notes for so long that they may find it difficult to switch modes quickly. Furthermore, they may well have forgotten questions, comments, or unclear concepts from the earlier parts of class (see Teaching with Lectures).

If you are teaching a discussion course, integrate short lectures into the lesson plan in order to introduce concepts, clarify and order ideas, and help students make connections. Use small-group discussions, informal writing assignments, and online discussions before or at the start of class to prompt student thinking about the discussion topic. These strategies can be effective ways to provide reflective learners and shy students a means of developing ideas that they can then contribute to the class discussion. Commenting on the insights that quieter students contribute in small-group discussions and on informal writing assignments and online discussions can encourage them to speak up in the larger group; you might comment on a student's written work, for example, "this analysis is insightful; the entire class would benefit from hearing your ideas more often" (see Teaching with Discussions).

Organize each class session to include opportunities throughout to ask and answer questions; prepare initial and follow-up questions ahead of time. Use questions to assess student learning, to signal to students which material is the most important, and to help students advance their knowledge and thinking. (For a discussion of strategies for formulating questions, see Asking Questions to Improve Learning). Encourage students to ask questions throughout the class (approximately every 15 minutes), not just at the end.

If grading student participation, plan to give students a preliminary participation grade, as well as a brief written evaluation of their performance. If you will grade class participation, give students preliminary grades as early as 3-4 weeks into the semester and at midterm so that they will know where they stand. Your written evaluation can be designed to encourage the quiet students to talk more often and the verbose students to hold their comments to give others a chance to participate).

Use verbal and non-verbal cues to encourage participation. Do not rely on the same volunteers to answer every question. Respond to frequent volunteers in a way that indicates that you appreciate their responses, but want to hear from others as well. Move to a part of the room where quiet students are sitting; smile at and make eye contact with these students to encourage them to speak up. By the same token, when frequent volunteers speak, look around the room rather than only at them to encourage others to respond (see below).

Reduce students' anxieties by creating an atmosphere in which they feel comfortable "thinking out-loud," taking intellectual risks, asking questions, and admitting when they do not know something; one of the best ways to do this is to model these behaviors yourself.

Give students time to think before they respond to your questions. Do not be afraid of silence. Give students 5-10 seconds to think and formulate a response. If 10-15 seconds pass without anyone volunteering an answer and the students are giving you puzzled looks, rephrase your question. Do not give in to the temptation to answer your own questions, which will condition students to hesitate before answering to see if you will supply "the answer." Patience is key; do not be afraid of silence. The longer you wait for students to respond, the more thoughtful and complex those responses are likely to be.

Often, there is at least one student in every class who will quickly raise her or his hand to answer nearly every question. If you consistently call on this student, those who require more time to formulate answers will simply learn to wait for this student to answer. (See Asking Questions to Improve Learning.)

Listen fully to your students' questions and answers; avoid interrupting. Resist the urge to interrupt when you think you know what the student is going to say or ask. Often, well-meaning and enthusiastic instructors make incorrect assumptions and leave their students' actual questions unanswered or misrepresent what the students had planned to say.

Provide specific, encouraging, varied responses. Point out what is helpful or interesting about student contributions. Pick up on comments that were made but not discussed. Do not use the same, standard praise to respond to every comment. When students hear "good point" again and again, they start to lose motivation. Ask follow-up questions to prompt students to clarify, refine, and support their ideas. When a student gives an incorrect or ill-conceived answer, respond in way that challenges the student to think more deeply or to reconsider the evidence. The best way to shut down participation, and learning, is to embarrass a student.

Repeat student responses to summarize or clarify ideas. Use this strategy when a student's comments are vague or "all over the map," but do not over-use it, leading students to rely on you to "translate" or validate their ideas.

Redirect comments and questions to other students. Encourage students to respond to one another, rather than merely to you. When a student is speaking, look around the room, not just at the student who is speaking; making eye contact with other students lets them know that you expect them to be listening and formulating responses. Provide students with a model of civil discourse by demonstrating respect for, and interest in, the views of others. Learn to limit your own comments. Particularly when facilitating a discussion, hold back from responding to every comment; otherwise, students will learn to wait for you to respond rather than formulating their own responses.

Place the emphasis on student ideas. Encourage students to share their ideas and use those ideas (with attribution) whenever you can. Referring back to a comment made by a student in an earlier class demonstrates that you have thought about and appreciated what your students have to say.

Active student participation does not happen naturally in university courses; it must be carefully planned and encouraged. Set aside time throughout the semester to assess student participation in your course and to develop strategies for improvement; administer midterm student evaluations to help you with this process. Consider asking a colleague to observe your class; often, outside observers can discern patterns that hinder participation but that may not be apparent to participants. Take notes during and after a semester so that you have a record of what went well and what you would like to change the next time you teach the course in order to increase student participation.

Davis, Barbara Gross. Tools for Teaching. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1993.

"Questioning Strategies." Center for Teaching Excellence. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. http://cte.illinois.edu/resources/topics/methods/strateg.html.

"Encouraging Interaction in Science and Engineering Classes." The McGraw Center. Princeton University. https://mcgraw.princeton.edu/node/661.

"Facilitating Discussions in Humanities and Social Science." The McGraw Center. Princeton University. https://mcgraw.princeton.edu/node/656.

McKeachie, Wilbert, et al. McKeachie's Teaching Tips: Strategies, Research, and Theory for College and University Teachers. 12th ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. © 2009, Washington University.

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While increasing participation is an obvious goal in courses that include frequent discussions and small-group work, it is also important in a lecture course. In short, if only a few students participate by volunteering answers, asking questions, or contributing to discussions, class sessions become

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Promoting Effective Classroom Participation | University of Waterloo

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Promoting Effective Classroom Participation | University of Waterloo

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Participation is an effective methodology for stimulating students minds, and increasing the likelihood of classroom enthusiasm. But, what does participation mean, and how do we encourage students to share their thoughts?

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Classroom participation is a feature of many course designs. It can result in insightful comments and interesting connections being made by students, and can foster a high level of energy and enthusiasm in the classroom learning environment. However, poorly managed participation can also lead to instructor frustration and student confusion. Below are strategies to consider using to make your classroom participation more effective.

What does "participation" mean?

Be clear with your definition and intention. Participation is often equated with discussion, which typically involves a lengthy conversation with the whole class. However, participation can also include short exchanges between instructors and students, or within small groups of students. If you include participation in your roster of assessments, you need to clearly communicate to your students what it will entail and why you are including a participation component. Do see participation as the outcome of student preparation? Are you interested in the quality of contributions or quantity? Does participation enable students to take risks and make errors as part of their learning? Does it increase their exposure to other ways of thinking? Does it enable them to demonstrate and develop their communication skills? Is it possible for a student to participate too much?

Seek consensus. While you can independently prepare a rubric that explains how you will assess participation, you may find that students will participate more enthusiastically if you ask them to help define what constitutes effective participation and then ask them to develop a rubric with you. Bean & Peterson (1998) suggest asking students to identify features of effective discussions they have experienced in the past, including the behaviours and roles of both the students and the instructor.

How do I encourage participation?

Foster an ethos of participation. Hollander (2002) discusses the need to present participation as a collective responsibility of the class rather than just an individual responsibility. In order to facilitate a conversation where connections are made, students need to view their participation as a contribution to a shared experience. Asking students to respond to a peer's response helps to facilitate a conversation. As well, positively reinforcing such contributions builds this sense of collectivism.

Teach students skills needed to participate. Students may not yet have the skills required to participate effectively. A discussion about characteristics of effective participation can reveal undeveloped areas in your students: ask them how they have participated in previous courses, and whether they could use some assistance.

Devise activities that elicit participation. Discussion-based activities such as case-study analyses, role playing, and jigsaws encourage students to talk with one another and with the instructor. To be effective, however, they typically require clear instructions, including timelines. With one-on-one exchanges, you can adopt a deep questioning approach, probing students about the reasoning behind their responses, sometimes doing so repeatedly to achieve greater depth ("Yes, but why do you think that?"). Participation can also be facilitated by certain learning technologies. For example, you can use clickers to collect students' responses to multiple-choice questions. You can extend the learning with clickers by having students first respond individually and then having them respond again after discussing their ideas with their peers. Some instructors, too, encourage participation via micro-blogging technologies such as Twitter: students have the option of participating verbally or of typing their contributions into a live Twitter feed.

Consider your position in the room. Moving away from the front of the classroom can sometimes promote better participation. If students perceive that all comments must be channeled through you, you become a gatekeeper for participation and it becomes harder to promote a sense collective responsibility. Try moving to the side or even the back of the room and see how students respond.

Ask students to assess their own participation. This strategy begins with having students set one or more goals for their participation at the start of the term. Hollander (2002) suggests that these goals need to be concrete and attainable in one term, and they should submit them to you in written form. At least once during the term, you should ask students to then assess their own participation: What is working well? What could be improved? What progress are they making on their goals? If you have developed a rubric for assessing participation, ask students to assign themselves a grade based on the rubric, a justification for the grade, and their plans to improve it if it falls below their expected level of achievement. Giving students a sense of responsibility for their participation can be very motivating.

Ensure that everyone's contributions are audible. In a large classroom, or even a small one with poor acoustics, it might be difficult for a student making a verbal contribution to be heard by a classmate on the other side of the room. This can detract significantly from the class dynamics, as students will become frustrated or cease to pay attention if they can't hear what is being shared. Frequently, students will need to be encouraged to speak loudly and clearly. Try reminding them that they should be addressing their comments not to you, who might happen to be standing close by, but to the classmate who is sitting farthest away. When a quiet student starts to speak, it's often helpful to resist your natural inclination to move closer, and instead to move to the other side of the room, so that the student is encouraged to speak more loudly. In some cases, you may need to reiterate a student's contribution, to ensure that everyone hears it.

Consider the use of an online poll before the class discussion. Students may be more willing to participate in debates and discussions if they can see that other students share their views. The results from a pre-class anonymous poll can be presented to students as a starting point or to set the stage for their in-class discussion.

How do I assess participation?

Keep written records. You need to develop a system that works for you. Some instructors use class pictures, name tents, seating charts, or attendance lists to keep track of student names so they can record participation each class. Teaching assistants may be needed to help record students' contributions if your class is large. In these large classes, it may be necessary to ask students to state their name before making their comment so that participation can be accurately recorded. A simple check mark system (one check for good contributions and two for outstanding ones) can be enough to record evidence of students' contributions. Such a system can be complemented by having students record their own contributions for submission after every class or as an aggregate every few weeks. Regardless of the system that you choose, you need one that is efficient so that the process of assessing student participation does not become too onerous for you or the students.

Consider the students' self-assessments. You should provide your own written feedback on their self-assessments. You may also want to meet individually with students whose self-assessment of their participation differs markedly from your assessment.

Use peer evaluation. In small classes, where students know one another's names, it is feasible to ask each student to evaluate the participation of everyone in the class; doing so not only gives you, the instructor, useful information, but also encourages each student to consider his or her participation in the context of the class as a whole. Even in large classes, students can reasonably be expected to assess the participation of classmates with whom they have worked closely, for example, in a small group or group-project setting. Having a clear rubric helps students make these peer assessments in an objective and "evidence-based" manner.

Further resources

Bean, J.C. & Peterson, D. (1998). Grading Classroom Participation. In R.S. Anderson & B.W. Speck (Eds.) New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 74 (Summer), 33-40.

Brookfield, S.D. (1999). Discussion as a Way of Teaching. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Inc.

Davis, B.G. (1993). Tools for Teaching. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Inc.

Hollander, J.A. (2002). Learning to discuss: strategies for improving the quality of class discussion. Teaching Sociology, 30 (July), 317-327.

Related Centre for Teaching Excellence teaching tips:

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Promoting Effective Classroom Participation | Centre for Teaching Excellence

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Classroom participation is a feature of many course designs. It can result in insightful comments and interesting connections being made by students, and can foster a high level of energy and enthusiasm in the classroom learning environment. However, poorly managed participation can also lead to instructor frustration and student confusion.

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Encouraging Participation | Berkeley Graduate Division

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Encouraging Participation | Berkeley Graduate Division

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Upon a introduction into a new classroom, educators are often faced with the concerning issue of classroom participation - individualized or group. While creating an inclusive welcoming environment, with clear goals to enact academic discussion, students will begin to feel inclined to share their knowledge and questions with their peers.

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One of the biggest fears new instructors have is that no one is going to speak up in class. And, in fact, many teachers are frustrated by the fact that students often do not respond to their questions or seem unprepared for section. Here are several tips on how to get students involved in discussion under the following headings:

Set the Stage
Help Students Prepare
Promote Student Thinking
Demonstrate Your Interest
Work with Everyone

Set the Stage

Explain How You Evaluate Participation

Having section participation count in the course grade acknowledges the value of student engagement during section. In many sections the participation grade constitutes a substantial portion of the overall course grade (10 to 20%), but students may be unclear or concerned about how their participation grade is calculated. To help ease students' concerns (and to keep your own criteria clear), you need to explain explicitly what counts as effective participation. Remember that effective participation does not need to be limited to talking in section meetings. You can expand the definition of participation to include speaking with you during office hours, responding on line to others' posts in bCourses, or taking part in virtual chat rooms.

Your faculty instructor may have criteria, or you can generate your own, or you can define participation in dialogue with the students. Consider not only quantity of talk but quality of engagement. Once you have established criteria, you need to keep detailed records of students' participation in each section meeting.

If time permits, you may want to send each student brief feedback about their participation grade in the middle of the term. This serves two purposes: it encourages those who are doing a good job, and it alerts those who are not that they need to modify their participation if they want to improve their grade by semester's end.

Encourage Early Discussion

Try to get everyone talking in the first couple of section meetings. Once students "break the ice," they'll be more likely to share ideas throughout the semester. Introduce activities in which students get to know each other, so they feel more comfortable voicing ideas in front of one another.

Suggestions for icebreakers appear in the Pre-semester Preparation chapter of this Teaching Guide.

Make Your Section Goals Clear

While remaining flexible to the unpredictable turns that classroom conversations can take, you should come to section with a lesson plan that articulates your main goals and the activities or questions you have planned to meet those goals. Some GSIs like to provide their students with the goals, or the "take-home message," at the beginning of class, in a handout or on the board. This will make section feel more focused and productive. Students participate more when they have a sense of what to expect. Also, prioritize the goals you set for a class session and be realistic. Planning only two or three goals and creating activities that promote discussion, debate, and deep learning is more effective than tackling many goals in a superficial way.

Create an Inclusive Space

It is important to establish an inclusive space in the classroom so that students feel comfortable expressing their viewpoints and ideas. Critique ideas, not people. Let students know that stereotyping, homophobia, racism, sexism, etc, are offensive. While it may occasionally be appropriate to address offensive language privately outside of class, it is usually best to address the issue in class to clarify expectations for all students. Students should know that they can contact you outside of class if something in section makes them uncomfortable or is upsetting. Don't ever dismiss students' concerns or feelings. You can find more on this topic in Module 1 of the GSI Professional Standards and Ethics Online Course.

Help Students Prepare

Ask for Written Responses or Free-Writes

Consider asking students to write a response to a question you pose. Then you can choose to call on a couple of students to read their response. This will give everyone time to prepare something. This is a great opportunity to involve students who participate only minimally or not at all. Call on someone who does not speak up much or who may seem disengaged.

Set Pre-Discussion Assignments

Students will be more willing to actively discuss the material in section if they have had the opportunity to think about it before class starts. To this end, GSIs can devise assignments that hold students individually responsible for engaging with the material before coming to class.

For example, have your students write responses to questions you give them in advance. Asking students to post their responses and read those of their colleagues in bCourses before coming to class is a great way to get them to come prepared to section. Online discussions can facilitate in-class discussion. (See Teaching with Technology.) You can also have students keep a reading "journal" (one page of free-form response) that they need to hand in or post electronically. Alternatively, select specific passages in a text that are central to the text's argument and ask students to come prepared to work with those passages. You can also ask students to identify the paragraph or section of the reading that confused them the most or the one they found most useful in understanding the overall message of the reading. Or you can have students fill out a worksheet before coming to class.

All of these small assignments will encourage broader participation in class. Giving assignments ahead of time requires that you keep at least a week ahead on the readings, and that you develop a system of grading pre-discussion assignments (usually by a check/check-plus/check-minus system).

Create Group Assignments

Instructors can devise assignments to facilitate more group involvement. Organizing students into small groups and giving them explicit instructions will get more students involved. You can have the groups report their findings back to the rest of the class. Once students have formulated and discussed their ideas in a small group, they may feel more comfortable sharing with the rest of the class. (For more group work suggestions, see Group Work and Classroom Activities.)

Create Roles for Students

Instructors can ask two or three students to lead or facilitate part of a discussion one week. Be certain to give students guidelines and a format, as well as some moral support. (If you have a large section you may need to make the discussion leader groups larger in order to ensure that all students have the opportunity to present a question or issue for discussion.)

You can also create other roles for students such as a summarizer or a recorder to recap the key points made in the day's section. You might also establish an observer whose role is to comment on the discussion. Be sure that students who facilitate discussions understand that they must involve the other students and avoid giving a presentation.

Promote Student Thinking

Avoid Programmed and Yes-or-No Questions

To encourage discussion, ask broad questions - "how" or "why" questions that require the students to think through a process, evaluate information, predict outcomes, form opinions, etc. Avoid "programmed" questions, in which you answer the question yourself before students have a chance to respond (e.g., "Why doesn't the moon have an atmosphere? It's because it has weak gravity, right?"). Questions with a simple "Yes" or "No" answer can also cut off discussion. For more on asking good questions, see "Asking Questions" (Davis 2009, 118-26).

Give Time to Think

It often happens that a GSI asks a complex question that students need time to consider before responding to, especially if it embeds multiple questions or pulls in a new perspective. If no one answers your question right away, resist the urge to answer it yourself or move on after just a few seconds. Around eight seconds is considered a fair amount of time to wait for students to formulate a response.

Rephrase the Question

If no one responds to your question after eight seconds, try rephrasing it. If you still get no response, don't be afraid to ask the students why they didn't respond. Was the question vague or unclear? Do they see connections with the reading? (And yes, it is okay to ask your students if they did the reading.)

Invite Student Questions

Remind your students that there are no "stupid" questions - if they have a question, chances are that someone else in the class has that question, too. Never assume that something that seems easy to you will be easy to your students. "What questions do you have?" usually gets a better response than "Do you have any questions?"

Ask Them to Respond to Another Student's Comment

Involve more students by asking questions that agree or disagree with a comment: "How do the rest of you feel about that?" "Does anyone who hasn't spoken care to comment?" "Is there anyone else who agrees or disagrees?" Discussions run best when the students are responding to each other. Try to keep your talking to a minimum and encourage students to respond to each other's comments, to look at each other, and (when possible) to use each others' names. Think of yourself as a discussion guide rather than a leader.

Don't Be Afraid to Say You Don't Know Something

You are not responsible for knowing everything! Far from undermining your authority, admission of ignorance about something shows that you are not defensive about your knowledge. It also imparts the important lesson that part of wisdom is knowing what you don't know. Use the knowledge gap as a learning opportunity. If the problem is one that can be speculated about, ask students to consider how one might arrive at an answer. Tell the students you will look up the information (and be sure to do so). Alternatively, for accessible facts, ask a student to look up the information after class and report back online or in the next session.

If a question leads too far off topic, you can suggest that the student speak with you about it in office hours or via email.

Demonstrate Your Interest

Give Nonverbal Support

Keep eye contact with students while they are talking. Nod along so that they know you are listening. If they feel as though you're interested in what they have to say, they may volunteer more often. If a student who is rarely involved contributes to the discussion, give the person a smile or a nod to let them know that what they have to say is important.

Move Around the Classroom or Lab

Sitting behind a table for the whole class can lower energy - both yours and the students'. It also gives the students sitting next to you more of your attention. You will find students regularly sitting far away from you either to avoid participation or to divert attention from their lack of preparation. Try varying where you stand from class to class, or move around the room during class - get up to write on the board, to work with students in smaller groups, or to show interest in a quieter student's contribution.

Tactfully Correct Wrong Answers

While it is crucial that students distinguish between correct and incorrect answers, instructor disapproval or a put-down will discourage people from sharing again. If a response is off track, try to coach the student toward the right answer or approach. Provide hints or suggestions. And say something positive about the aspects of the response that are insightful, original, or creative. Try things like "Good - now let's take it a step further"; "Let's go back a step - tell me more about xyz"; "Keep thinking about it."

Bring Students' Outside Comments into Class

If a student makes a good comment in office hours or on a paper, check with the person to see if you can bring it up in class. Then, in your next meeting, say: "Anna, you were saying something about that in office hours yesterday; would you mind repeating it for the class?" You might consider using this technique with students who otherwise do not speak up much. Be sure not to single out the same person repeatedly.

Work with Everyone

Be Aware of Who You are Calling On

Research studies show that many teachers, without realizing it, respond more favorably to male students than to female students. Be sensitive to this and be certain that you're communicating equally with male and female students and with students from all backgrounds. Call on them equally, make eye contact with them all, and support them all. If you are concerned that you may not be calling on people equally, you might find it helpful to keep track of whom you call on in class, either on your attendance sheet or a class roster. You can also ask a colleague or GSI Center consultant to observe your class and take notes.

Participation is Not All Oral

Students who remain silent during class discussion are not necessarily shy or reserved. Silence is a behavior, not a character trait, and there may be many reasons a student chooses not to participate orally in a particular class or social environment. Get to know your students through other venues such as office hours, email, and their homework for the course. Learn about the ways they do go about participating in the class - perhaps through reflection, or writing emerging thoughts and questions in their notes, or formulating careful contributions to an online discussion forum. Learn to acknowledge the ways they participate, and - especially if the course requires or highly values individuals' oral participation - also let them know that the entire class would benefit from hearing their thoughts in discussions.

Engage Your Students

One way to get students engaged is to connect with their daily lives or interests. This fosters intrinsic motivation, as does giving them an intriguing problem to solve using course material.

Not every student becomes intrinsically motivated in every class; having participation in section count in their course grade creates an extrinsic incentive to show engagement.

Limit the Contributions of Students who Dominate

Make sure to wait after you ask a question to give all students an opportunity to think about your question. Don't just call on the first hand that goes up. Provide six to ten seconds of "wait time" before calling on someone. Though this may seem long and drawn out to you, keep in mind that students and teachers have different timing needs, and most students need time to think before they can respond.

You can also have students write down a response to your question before you ask for oral contributions. This gives everyone time to think. You can then choose a couple of people to respond who don't speak up much.

Consider calling on students who don't raise their hand. Let students know at the beginning of the semester that you will be doing this. Some students may want to contribute, but might be more inclined to wait for a good opening or invitation.

Working in small groups is also a good way to distribute turns at talk, but you may need to take steps to prevent one or two students from dominating the group discussion. One way to do this (as discussed above) is to assign roles to students in the groups, e.g., recorder, summarizer, time keeper, etc. Assign a dominant student a specific role that limits participation, such as summarizer.

If the problem continues, you should speak to the student outside of class. Be certain to let the student know how much you value his or her participation. If the student's comments are good, let the student know, but point out that not all students are getting the opportunity to participate. Normally you will see a remarkable difference in the very next section meeting if you do this. If not, speak to the student again.

To nip this type of behavior in the bud, set discussion guidelines early in the semester that stipulate that no one person should dominate the discussion and that all should have the opportunity to participate.

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One of the biggest fears new instructors have is that no one is going to speak up in class. And, in fact, many teachers are frustrated by the fact that students often do not respond to their questions or seem unprepared for section.

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In evaluating the peer assessment methodology of a collaborative work environment allows for students to take responsibility for their own learning, as well as exchanging universal ideologies of knowledge on a deeper level in intelligence.

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Peer assessment or peer review provides a structured learning process for students to critique and provide feedback to each other on their work. It helps students develop lifelong skills in assessing and providing feedback to others, and also equips them with skills to self-assess and improve their own work.

If you are interested in facilitating a team member evaluation process for group projects, see the page on Teaching students to evaluate each other.

Why use peer assessment?

Peer assessment can:

Empower students to take responsibility for and manage their own learning.

Enable students to learn to assess and give others constructive feedback to develop lifelong assessment skills.

Enhance students' learning through knowledge diffusion and exchange of ideas.

Motivate students to engage with course material more deeply.

Considerations for using peer assessment

Let students know the rationale for doing peer review. Explain the expectations and benefits of engaging in a peer review process.

Consider having students evaluate anonymous assignments for more objective feedback.

Be prepared to give feedback on students' feedback to each other. Display some examples of feedback of varying quality and discuss which kind of feedback is useful and why.

Give clear directions and time limits for in-class peer review sessions and set defined deadlines for out-of-class peer review assignments.

Listen to group feedback discussions and provide guidance and input when necessary.

Student familiarity and ownership of criteria tend to enhance peer assessment validity, so involve students in a discussion of the criteria used. Consider involving students in developing an assessment rubric.

Getting started with peer assessment

Identify assignments or activities for which students might benefit from peer feedback.

Consider breaking a larger assignment into smaller pieces and incorporating peer assessment opportunities at each stage. For example, assignment outline, first draft, second draft, etc.

Design guidelines or  rubrics  with clearly defined tasks for the reviewer.

Introduce rubrics through learning exercises to ensure students have the ability to apply the rubric effectively.

Determine whether peer review activities will be conducted as in-class or out-of-class assignments. For out-of-class assignments, peer assessments can be facilitated through Canvas using tools such as FeedbackFruits peer review and group member evaluation, Canvas peer review assignment, or Turnitin. See the Comparison of peer evaluation tools to learn more and/or set up a consultation by contacting CTI."

Help students learn to carry out peer assessment by modeling appropriate, constructive criticism and descriptive feedback through your own comments on student work and well-constructed rubrics.

Incorporate small feedback groups where written comments on assignments can be explained and discussed with the receiver.

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Peer assessment | Center for Teaching Innovation

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Peer assessment or peer review provides a structured learning process for students to critique and provide feedback to each other on their work. It helps students develop lifelong skills in assessing and providing feedback to others, and also equips them with skills to self-assess and improve their…

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Significance of Scaffolding and Peer Tutoring in the Light of Vygotsky’s Theory of Zone of Proximal Development

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Significance of Scaffolding and Peer Tutoring in the Light of Vygotsky’s Theory of Zone of Proximal Development

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As theorists Piaget and Vygotsky established the concept of scaffolding amongst the Zone of Proximal Development, students are faced with a gap of what the student can learn without help, and what they can achieve through the guidance of a peer and/or instructor.

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Teens and Peer Relationships | Rhode Island Student Assistance Services

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Teens and Peer Relationships | Rhode Island Student Assistance Services

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While academic intelligence stimulates through peer assessment, and scaffolding ideologies, peer-relationships are a significant element in having a successful collaborative classroom. As developing relationships are crucial to adolescent growth, trust and guidance is ensured through these relationships.

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Rhode Island Student Assistance Services

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Angela Oswalt Morelli , MSW, edited by C. E. Zupanick, Psy.D. As previously mentioned, social and emotional maturity are intertwined. Therefore, as teens' emotional maturity increases their relationships with their peers change as they become more vulnerable and emotionally intimate with their peers. This increased vulnerability and intimacy requires greater trust among peers.

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While this image is a metaphor for the concept of an individual thinking, the gears work in a way to produce energy and collaboratively complete a job. This image can reflect partnership and collaboration as students discuss and share their ideas in formulating a single response to a situation that they worked on together to complete successfully.

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As this is a well-known saying, this image conveys the idea that one hand will help the other - one student can help another student - in completing a task together. While infinite results will be displayed through collaborative experience, students are helping each other is sharing diverse learning techniques suited to their academic needs that can benefit another student in either a positive or negative way.

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As seen in this image, three people are running towards the same direction, but using different paths for success. Partnership can be conveyed through this image as all individuals have something to offer when completing a task; various ideas can lead to a straight path for success once everyone has presented their knowledge that can establish a ground for development.

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Tips for Great Group Work in the Classroom | Common Sense Education | Youtube

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Tips for Great Group Work in the Classroom | Common Sense Education | Youtube

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While assigning individual roles to students during a collaborative assignment may not be the most accurate form of collaborate study, the concept of "Own Assist Assess" may be the next big discovery.

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Tips for Great Group Work in the Classroom

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Why Collaboration is Important | OnSide Learning | Youtube

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Why Collaboration is Important | OnSide Learning | Youtube

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As collaboration can significantly change the situation in which a group of people can be navigating, taking responsibility for a group assignment and the roles in which members can retain are important to the overall successful completion.

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How Miscommunication Happens (and how to avoid it) | TED-Ed | Youtube

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How Miscommunication Happens (and how to avoid it) | TED-Ed | Youtube

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While miscommunication is a frequent occurrence among collaborative discussion and/or projects, it is important to value other peoples opinions and ideas in exchange that they will respect and value you. With miscommunication comes repercussions, and the concept of responsibility is present; to ensure a responsible environment, it is important to communicate artily with our peers, and initiate positive, thoughtful conversations, and respectfully question ideas and/or actions when we do not understand.

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How miscommunication happens (and how to avoid it) - Katherine Hampsten

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Five Questions for Creating a Peer-Review Rubric | Peerceptiv

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Five Questions for Creating a Peer-Review Rubric | Peerceptiv

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As self-evaluation is a critical feature to academic success, allowing students to manage their peer success through rubrics can be impactful as the suggestions made can benefit a students application of knowledge.

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Most instructors today use some form of a rubric to assess student writing or project-based-learning. Gone are the days of a professor writing a letter grade on the paper, and that being the only form of feedback the students receive. However, even when using a rubric, instructors may grade each rubric category in a holistic way, a result of their depth of knowledge of the topic and years of experience.

Learners, though, do not have the experience, knowledge, or ability to grade an essay or project in this kind of holistic way. For learners, the rubric needs to be a tool both for assessment and for learning. If they use a well-designed, objective peer-review rubric, learners can grade more like an experienced instructor, improve their critical analysis, and produce better finished products. In fact, research has shown that the reviewers improved the quality of their own work as a result of reviewing their peer's work ( Wooley, et al., 2008).

Peer Rubric Distinctives

Unlike rubrics designed for instructor use, peer rubrics should be structured in a way to (1) assess a document, whether it be a writing assignment, video upload, presentation, podcast, or any type of project, and (2) help the reviewer learn how to think critically about the content of that document. For this reason, peer rubrics should be designed to teach students how to analyze the assignment in terms of specific, objective criteria and identify the quality of work at each level.

Using peer review often requires making changes to the rubric to transform it from an effective teacher rubric to an effective peer rubric. Using learner-friendly language, stating clear qualitative differences between rubric levels, and assessing one aspect of an assignment at a time will help your rubric become better for peer review.

Whether you are transforming an instructor rubric into a peer rubric or creating a peer rubric from scratch, here are some questions to help guide the process.

Questions to ask to Create an Effective Peer-Review Rubric

1. Do the commenting prompts encourage students to give constructive criticism that brings out strengths and weaknesses in the document?

Design your commenting prompt to elicit the type of feedback that you want your students to write and receive. Encourage students to identify both strengths and weaknesses and to provide suggestions for improvement. Focus students' attention on any specific areas on which you want them to provide feedback. Students appreciate the peer review process more when they receive useful, specific feedback that they can apply to future assignments.

For example, this commenting prompt on the content of a video presentation is designed to have the reviewer tell the presenter what they learned and what is not yet clear.

Content Commenting Prompt: What was something new that you learned or a new insight that you had as a result of this presentation? What in the presentation could have been clearer or more fully developed to enhance the content of this presentation?

2. How much reviewing can my students handle and still provide thoughtful, accurate feedback?

Reviewing several long documents with numerous commenting and rating prompts can lead to reviewer fatigue, where the reviewer starts to comment and rate carelessly. We recommend having multiple rating prompts but only one commenting prompt for each dimension (aspect or criteria being evaluated). For example, if there is a Content dimension for a peer review of a presentation, the rubric may include the following rating prompts: Depth of Content, Argument Structure, and Quality of Sources Used. If you are encouraging students to provide detailed, constructive feedback in the commenting prompt, having a small number of commenting prompts allows for thoughtful responses on all of the documents a student reviews.

3. Do my students understand all of the words and terms used in the rubric?

Make sure that the rubric only includes words that you know your students know. Remember that your students may not be familiar with technical or academic language. Spend time defining or describing the rubric terminology in class. It is easy to assume that all students will understand the language or know the difference between "competent" and "satisfactory," but unless you have defined it in class, students' interpretation may vary.

4. Does the rubric have clear, objective differences between each rating level?

While an instructor can quickly identify the difference between "poor" and "fair" work or "progressing" and "mastering" a skill, learners need more guidance as to what each of these levels means. For that reason, avoid using only one-word descriptors for your ratings and instead include a short description for each rating level.

In your description, use objective language that can be quantified or measured by a learner in the class. Identify what distinguishes one level from another in the assignment and use words of frequency, amount, quality, or proficiency to describe each level. Provide examples if you think there will be any confusion.

Here are some useful words in creating distinct dimension levels:

Frequency: never, rarely, sometimes, often, always

Amount: less than 2, 3-4, 5-6, 7+; no more than 50%, over half

Quality: poorly, well, thoroughly; satisfactory, exemplar

Proficiency: developing, emerging, mastery, expert

Actions: lacks X; includes X; includes and develops X; includes, develops, and analyzes X

5. Does this rubric scaffold student learning as well as allow for accurate peer review?

It is important to meet learners where they are in their understanding of concepts in your course. Your rubrics for peer assessment should include all the information a student needs to assess that particular assignment and not assume that students have outside knowledge of that concept or skill. This may mean that you remove or rework concepts such as grammatical accuracy, depth of analysis, or ability to synthesize material from the peer review rubric until students have had greater exposure to it. Or, you may choose to focus on one quantifiable aspect of that concept (appropriate use of verb tenses, number of sources used, etc.) rather than asking students to assess that dimension in a holistic way.

Source:

Wooley, R., et al. "The effects of feedback elaboration on the giver of feedback." 30th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society. Vol. 5. 2008.

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5 Questions For Creating a Peer-Review Rubric - Peerceptiv

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Most instructors today use some form of a rubric to assess student writing or project-based-learning. Gone are the days of a professor writing a letter grade on the paper, and that being the only form of feedback the students receive.

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Creating an Academic Environment (In-Person and/or Virtual).

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Creating an Academic Environment (In-Person and/or Virtual).

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Through researching various websites, articles, and videos relating to collaborative skill, it is important that students are provided a space to interact with both their peers and educators (i.e. A classroom, a virtual classroom). While we have researched this topic heavily throughout the semester, websites such as Blackboard, Google Classroom, Spiral, and Zoom are amazing options in allowing participation to spark.

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As students share their diverse needs for academic success through their ability to collaborate with others. Students are exposed to various learning techniques that can enhance their ability to perform in a group assignment based on their ability to obtain the information.

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Generating Meaningful Relationships within a Judgment-Free Zone

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Generating Meaningful Relationships within a Judgment-Free Zone

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Relationships are the key to success within an academic environment; for a student to succeed they must feel confident around their peers and educators to express their knowledge and questions as this will further their ability to engage in group activity. As relationships correlate to the concept of a Judgement-Free Zone, educators and peers must make this a known rule that criticism and feedback are the epitome to success if conducted correctly within the standards of academic language, and acceptance to the advice given.