Group Projects, Part 1: Let the students grade!

Large-scale collaborations can engage students over a span of weeks and in ways that no day-to-day lesson ever can. Whenever it’s time for my students to begin a collaborative project, the classroom transforms: students who rarely speak become chatterboxes and group leaders; talkative students learn to compromise and incorporate other ideas and voices. Sure, there are those students who began the class uncommitted and stay that way, even during a collaborative project, but those students make up maybe 1% of all of my students. The rest inevitably rave about the chance to work and create with their classmates.

But these types of projects can go incredibly wrong if, as instructors, we fail to keep one key thing in mind: making the students hold each other accountable. So how do we do that?

A bunch of UC Berkeley students working together on a creative, large, collaborative project.

The quickest and easiest way an eduator can compel students to become responsible for each other? Let the students grade each other!

Students relish this because they rarely get to exercise control over “teacherly” tasks like grading. I find that once they receive the power to grade, they treat that power with great care.

Plus, letting students grade each other shifts all the responsibility for grading (and holding students accountable) away from the instructor, so that this responsibility can be shared with the class. This creates less stress for the educator and generates more time for the educator to guide students in the project and in how to self-assess their own work.

I see the instructor as the person who provides the framework for grading, which can change depending on a project’s outcomes.

Option A: Outcome = Group Presentation or Performance

1. If a project’s outcome entails some type of final group presentation or performance, then I have the whole class score (except the group’s performers/presenters). I often rely on this formula, which I present to the class at the beginning of the project:

(Average Class Score + Instructor Score)/2 = Group Score

This formula gives my score greater value than if my score were simply one of the scores in, say, a class of 45 students.

Sometimes though, if I feel the class’ expectations for a solid presentation already align with mine, I’ll just add my score into their scores and average them all together to create the Group Score. This method would make my score just one of many, without greater weight in percentage.

2. At the end of the project, I then ask each group member to evaluate their own members through a rubric/score sheet like this one below:

Score Sheet for Group Participation .docx

Download DOCX • 11KB

From this point, there are several ways an instructor can use these individual scores. Sometimes, if the group is composed of 5 people or more, I will see if the majority of the scores for a student falls below a 4 (equivalent to an A) or a 3 (equivalent to a B). If the scores fall below a 4 or a 3, then that student’s score on the group presentation/performance falls by 5 points (on a 100-point scale).

To reward students who group members feel go above and beyond and average a score well above their peers, I add an extra 5 points to the group presentation/performance score.

You can also use these individual scores as another score to average into their group grade, using this formula:

(Group Score + Individual Score)/2 = Final Group Grade

Option B: Outcome = Group Script or Report (without a class performance or presentation)

I mostly teach academic writing, so I often don’t require a class performance or presentation as the final outcome since presentation/performance skills aren’t part of the course’s standards. In this type of situation, oftentimes, I only ask for a group script or report as the final assignment.

I then fall back on individual scoring of and by group members, as outlined in Option A, Step #2, above. That average individual score then becomes that student’s grade for the group project.

I often offer groups - as an extra credit assignment - the option of performing their group script or presenting their group report to the class. I like this option because it incentivizes students to practice public presentation and performance skills without the pressure of a grade. They only benefit from this experience. I then take those extra credit points add them to the students' final scores for their group project. The extra credit points I assign can vary, but to make it worth their while, if the outcome is scored on a 100-point scale, offering 5-10 extra credit points is a reasonable, generous boost to their grade.

Option C: Outcome = Group Presentation/Performance + Group Script/Report

Sometime, a project might entail a combination of both Option A and Option B. In that case, you can ask the class to generate the score for each group’s performance/presentation (as outlined in Option A, Step #1, above). Then, ask group members to score each individual group member’s effort in generating the group report/script (as outlined in Option A, Step #2, above). You can then use this formula to create an overall grade for the Group Project:

(Average Class Score for Group Presentation/Performance + Average Individual Score for Group Report/Script)/2 =

Final Group Project Grade

Final Thoughts on Student Grading

You might wonder: why not just give all the students in the same group, the same grade for a group project?

I'm not against this, and I've definitely used this tactic to get students to take collaboration seriously. However, over the years, I've found that students really value fairness. They want the scores a group member receives to reflect the actual work that the group member completes.

So going through all these steps to generate a score that's both group-ish and individual-ish helps ensure that students get to exercise their full grading power. Individualizing scores is a tool they can use to deal with freeloaders in the group - the biggest fear for most students who have to contend with group work. It's also a way to induce less committed students to contribute to the group more, so that they don't walk away with a really low score from their peers.