A case for the group exam.

The first exam of the semester took place in early October, and as soon as the students walked in the room and sat down at the tables, I knew it had to be said.

"A quick reminder that today's exam is an individual assignment.  That is, there is no collaborating with your group members during the exam."

This announcement halted the conversations in the room, and I was met with more than a few puzzled faces as I passed out the exam.  Not overly surprising given that this focus on working individually on the exam is in direct contrast to what the students have been asked to do every other time they walked into the classroom up until that point.  Plus, the tables cannot be reconfigured in this particular room, so the students were doing their best to ignore each other at tables designed to foster collaboration.

Time to rethink the exam format.

Two weeks prior to the second exam, the students submitted their vote in response to an exit ticket question:

Yes or No: Should we approach Exam #2 as a take-home exam (individual attempt) and use class time on 11/5 to collaborate on the same questions with your group (group bonus attempt)?

The vote was a unanimous "Yes."  The definitive response from the students surprised me initially; they raised concerns and asked a number of questions prior to deciding that we should vote.  Stepping back and reflecting on the structure of our class, the decision to incorporate a collaborative attempt at the exam questions makes complete sense.  It aligns with how we approach each class meeting: give it a try on your own and then collaborate with your group to see if you, collectively, can come up with something better.

Even then, I wasn't sure anyone would actually show up to class for the group attempt!

Not only did the students show up for the group attempt, they got right to work, and the whole room was filled with conversation.  I overheard quite a few comments that fit in the categories of "Oh I didn't even think of that!" and "That is a possibility too, but now we have to figure out which one is the best approach."  I wandered around the room for a few minutes just observing before groups took me up on my role as an available resource.  It was one of the most productive class periods all semester.  Not only were students looking back at the exam they already took, they were analyzing and discussing its contents with each other!  Most students walked away with a better understanding of the answers than I could ever convey in an exam score or feedback (which, by the way, took the pressure off of me in terms of grading the individual exams as quickly as possible - added bonus!).

I use an approach that is similar to the one outlined by Maryellen Weimer in her Faculty Focus post on the benefits of group exams and quizzes; the group attempt at the exam is offered as a debriefing activity after the individual attempts are submitted.  The group attempt for our second exam was framed as a "bonus" opportunity.  For groups who collaborated successfully (scored 80% and above), the contributing members received bonus points, awarded on a sliding scale, that added to the score earned on their individual attempt.  This approach is very much in line with the items that topped the students' "wish list" for group work compiled at the beginning of the semester: class time will be allocated for group work, there will be accountability for individual preparation, and group activities will provide opportunities for group members to pool their various strengths.  All eight groups scored at least 80% on the group attempt, so everyone earned some bonus points for their efforts.

Barkley, Cross, and Major refer to this approach as "Test-Taking Teams," and their book, Collaborative Learning Techniques, offers examples from Psychology, English, Statistics, and Music Composition and Theory.  The examples illustrate that a number of variations are likely to work; shorter tests or quizzes, for example, allow for both the individual and group attempts to take place in one class period while another example highlights this activity being used with practice exams as students prepared for a comprehensive placement exam.  For those who have access to the journal New Directions for Teaching and Learning, the Winter 2004 issue contains a few articles on group exams as well, including examples from the sciences and engineering.

There is a lot to consider when it comes to group exams - the necessary planning and the pros and cons, generally speaking, are similar to any other group work situation.  If collaboration and group work are already a part of your class, then a group exam or quiz might be a reasonable addition.  When I inquired about their group exam experience, one group left me with this brief summary:

"Three brains are better than one!"

References

Achacoso, M., and Svinicki, M. (eds.). (2004, Winter). Alternative strategies for evaluating student learning [Special issue]. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 100, 1-119.

Barkley, E. F., Cross, K. P., & Major, C. H. (2005). Collaborative learning techniques: A handbook for college teaching. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

An example 'glog' & its potential for a group project

Last week I highlighted "glogs" as a web-based option for creating digital research posters, and I have put the finishing touches on an example glog to pair with this discussion of how this could be used as a group project - one that would be especially well-suited for the active learning classrooms on the UWEC campus.

Here is a link to the glog; a screen shot is shown below for those who want to take a quick glance:

What went into glog creation?
It is worth pointing out that I found myself wishing for at least a couple of collaborators while putting together the glog over the past week!  Even though working within a group presents its own challenges, I could have used a few more brains and sets of eyes for a few of the activities that went into the glog creation, including:

• Identifying an appropriate timeline (or glimpse of a timeline, really) for the event;
• Locating coordinating images and screening video clips;
• Gleaning important background information from a variety of reports, including two lengthy reports;
• Summarizing aforementioned background information into concise statements;
• Locating appropriate data to complement the words and visuals;
• Arranging and rearranging the glog components to ensure that all of the important items would fit;
• Editing the text items to highlight certain points while maintaining some sense of consistency.

I spent approximately 6-8 hours on this glog, which is more than I initially expected since the topic is one that has routinely been a focus of discussion in my intro-level economics courses over the past few years.  In other words, I have already examined at the data, read several reports, and trolled YouTube for helpful videos - I can only imagine how long it might take someone who is new to the topic!

Ideas for a coordinating class project

Here's what I had in mind when I selected the topic for this example glog: Zimbabwe's recent episode is one of a long list of hyperinflation episodes that have occurred across time and space, so one approach would be for each group to focus on a different hyperinflation episode for their glog.  A larger objective for the class would then be to identify the basic underlying pattern for each of the hyperinflation episodes.  In other words, what are the "ingredients" of hyperinflation, so to speak, and how does this information aid our understanding of why these episodes occur?   Addressing these important questions could be a part of a discussion or a reflection paper - to be completed as a group or as individuals - that follows a digital poster-sharing session in class in which students can move around the room to ask each group questions about their particular hyperinflation episode (perhaps with pairs of team members taking turns manning their own digital poster to share and answer questions).

Options for individual accountability

Collaboration does not happen automatically (see last post about collaborative learning for more on this).  There are a number of options available to increase the chances of effective collaboration with this type of project, and there should be some form of individual accountability in order to ensure that team members are working together and sharing the workload.  One possibility is to divide up the project's tasks among the members of the group (see example list above) and ask for each component to be submitted individually - ideally, at the point in the project that it is needed - as well as for it to be incorporated into the final product.  Another option would be to require each student to complete a set of tasks individually (e.g., extract three important points from a given report, locate two images that represent the event, and identify one YouTube video that would be a good source of related information) and then have the groups meet to sort through the available options, refine, and locate additional materials, if needed.  The important step here would be for each member of the group to be held accountable for his or her share of the work, which helps to minimize the possibility of freeloaders and reduce the fear that the lack of effort by one or more group members will have a negative impact on the grades of those who do their share.

Group projects do not necessarily translate into saving time

Students should be asked to collaborate with one another when collaboration is valuable.  Groups often provide opportunities for students to capitalize on strengths and specialize; however, discussion and decision making takes time.  Horton (2012) identifies allocating sufficient time for teams to work effectively as an important aspect of designing coordinating activities: "Typically team activities take three to ten times as long as an analogous solo activity" (p.498).  This serves a reminder to be thoughtful when offering opportunities for collaborative learning.

References:
Horton, W. (2012). E-learning by design (2nd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Pfeiffer.

Collaborative learning as a form of active learning

The active learning classrooms have reinvigorated the ongoing discussion about students working in groups.  How can/should groups be formed?  What leads to students working together effectively?  How can collaboration be encouraged?  One post alone cannot offer sufficient answers to all of these questions, so consider this the start of a longer, always-in-progress, response.

According to Weimer (2002), "...like every other instructional method, good group learning experiences do not happen automatically" (p.88).  Planning is needed.  I firmly believe that students collaborating with one another has great potential, but group members working together effectively has been a work-in-progress for me for years.  At one point, I decided to stop guessing and to start asking students, informally, what it was about group work that created barriers to effective collaboration, and most student feedback I have received thus far seems to converge on a few points:

• Meeting with group members outside of scheduled class time is often a challenge.
• Fear that lack of effort/poor quality work by one or more group members will negatively impact the grade.
• The work is sometimes - or frequently - unevenly distributed across group members.

There is no doubt that points two and three are intertwined, and the first point might sometimes play a supporting role there too. While its contents are not overly surprising, the list does offer some good news.  If students perceive these sorts of items to be barriers, then addressing one or more of these concerns may help to increase the level and/or quality of student collaboration.

Also worth pointing out is the fact that the active learning classrooms have the potential to help out here.  The students are, by default, organized into pods of up to six students in the active learning rooms, and each pod is equipped with a computer and large widescreen monitor for activities that ask the groups to refer to artifacts (e.g., documents, images, web resources) and/or produce something (e.g., problem solving steps, description, blog post, evidence that supports a claim).  Allocating class time for the group to plan, discuss, and accomplish tasks will help to eliminate or reduce the need for students to meet with group members outside of class.  The physical setup of an active learning room lends itself better to students collaborating with another vs. the layout of a traditional lecture hall or a classroom with fixed tables.

A handful of our active learning instructors teach hybrid (blended) classes with some scheduled class meetings replaced with online activities and/or content, and this presents a second option for alleviating the first concern: (1) group members are, technically speaking, available, and (2) the active learning classroom is open for students to meet in their groups during those scheduled class times that have been replaced with online material.  Groups wouldn't be required to meet in the classroom during that time, but they also wouldn't be able to say that no one could meet outside of class either.

So what can be done to address the concerns over grades and the uneven distribution of work?  Individual accountability is the suggestion from both Kagan (1995) and Weimer (2002).  Both reiterate the important fact that students' course grades are intended to reflect individual progress towards meeting the course objectives.  There are various ways to allow for individual accountability.  For one, each group member can be asked to submit individual materials that will then provide a foundation for the group's assignment - either each person submits an individual attempt of an identical task or the tasks that make up the larger group assignment are divided up across group members and each individual must submit the assigned component (in addition to the group submitting the end product).  As long as the individual's work is incorporated into the grade, then this will help to minimize the impact of any free loaders.

Even Horton (2012), in E-Learning by Design, highlights the need to fairly evaluate individuals in team learning environments: "Decide how to determine whether the team accomplished its objective and how much each member contributed" (p.499).  I have to admit that I wasn't expecting a lengthy discussion of team learning in a text focused on e-learning, but it is great when best practices translate across modes of instruction!

References:

Horton, W. (2012). E-learning by design (2nd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Pfeiffer.

Kagan, S. (1995). Group grades miss the mark. Cooperative Learning and College Teaching, 6(1), 6-8.

Weimer, M. (2002). Learner-centered teaching: Five key changes to practice. San Francisco, CA:      Jossey-Bass.