Received a reply from the last member of Group 24 telling me that he should have no problem letting me decide the distribution of the report grade when it is finalised. Group 24 had a problem when the group members were deciding how much they want to grade each others when considering the contributions to the group work. It all began when A (there are 4 members, A, B, C & D) emailed me to say she received "reliable source" indicating that D is going to grade the other members of the group based on his dissatisfaction with some of the group members, whom he was involved with when doing other group work. I then replied A to ask for "evidence" and if that is the case, I would investigate. After all the 25 groups submitted their reports and each in turn submitted their online peers assessment of each others efforts, A & B both came to me and said that their feedback about peers assessment show they scored "below averages" for all criteria that were assessed of them and claimed, they do most of the report and cannot be "below averages", this naturally implied suspicions about the motive behind D when grading other members in the group. Indeed, as I checked the group peers assessed scores, D in fact has graded other members a lot lower.
Immediately I thought I should let them do the scores again, but common sense told me that won't work because they will end up "taking revenge" and grade each other lower than previously, and all will not benefit. I thought letting all the students score the same, without considering the contribution made, may be less complicated. Then I sent out an email to group 24 stating that, but was met with disapproval by group members, claiming those contribute more should deserve more scores. I then discussed this with a senior colleague, who came out with a Plan B, which is to let students discuss face-to-face as to who contribute more and who contribute lesser and then proportion it accordingly and then should be based upon to determine the individual final score. And finally the students agreed to this plan B, claiming this is not likely as some members in the group "will be traveling", so following the email received from the last member in the group agreeing this to be left to the decision of the marker to decide the score for individual member, the matter is confirmed solved.
The purpose of group work is to foster group spirits and enhance effective learning. People must have an open mind. The online Peers Assessment method aims to assess the group work process as well, so that those who contributed will be awarded with more scores, while those contributed lesser will be penalised accordingly. It became harder if people in the group disagreed with how they grade each other. I sometimes wonder why such disagreement arises. The disagreement may just be one's made-up illusion, which is why I stressed to A, I need to see "evidence". Made-up illusion is a war one is fighting within oneself, painful and not going anywhere, tedious and draining too. The solution is to forget about the "fight" and get on with it. This means if you then decide that other members contribute less, then go and proved they are worth lesser than you. A bit tedious, a bit silly to go to that extent, but.this then posts a challenge to the students to ask themselves if it would be silly to go through it. A leopard would not change its spots. Some people simply have issues, it is not the lecturers' job to help them solve their problems. We give them options and they decide what's best to do, all else, if people think they need to get helps about "issues", they may, but sorry, not in my department.
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