The most common error made while grading group work is the same error commonly made while grading individuals, says Susan Brookhart, author of Grading and Group Work (ASCD, 2013). "We confuse completing the task with learning."
"The cardinal rule for grading group work," Brookhart explains, "is that your grading should be about the knowledge and skills a student has learned in a standard. When grades reflect completion of a task, rather than what students know or can do in a standard, that's when there's trouble."
Brookhart offers some precepts to keep in mind to ensure that group work grades reflect individual achievement.
- Grade individuals, not the project. The grade should convey what individuals have learned. Make sure your rubric relates to knowledge and skills in the standard, not compliance with directions. You can give students a checklist to make sure they include all the required pieces of their project.
- To assess individual achievement, use any strategy that you would typically use to assess individuals. Which strategies you use will depend on the project's learning objective. For example, if the project requires recalling facts (e.g., a poster project), give students a test after they complete the project. For higher-level projects, ask students to do something with what they learned, perhaps through the question, What is the most important thing you learned and why? Their explanations can reveal what they are thinking about the concept. If the project involves learning a skill, have students demonstrate the skill.
- Make sure the individual assessment is a good match for what the project is designed to teach and assess. Many group projects end in an oral presentation, which is a skill but often not the one the project is focused on developing. Usually, the oral presentation is merely the mechanism for conveying the project.
- Be clear with students up front about what will be graded and how you will assess the group work. "It's not just 'do whatever you want' because the essay at the end is what really counts," warns Brookhart. Students must be required to pull from the group project and show how it shaped their learning. "If you do a crummy group project, you're not going to have anything to write about," adds Brookhart.
