As an instructor, there are several issues to consider:
How should participation in a collaborative learning community be assessed?
According to Siemens (2008a), students assess peers, feedback may be obtained from the online communities, and educators may assess students through their posts on wikis discussions and other Learner Management Systems.
How do the varying levels of skill and knowledge students bring to a course affect the instructor's "fair and equitable assessment" of learning?
Instructors realize that students have varying levels of skill and knowledge, so they may be graded not just on mark-based assessment, but on the level of growth they have obtained (Siemens, 2008a).
If a student does not want to network or collaborate in a learning community for an online course, what should the other members of the learning community do?
If encouraged and guided, students will share that information so that appropriate grading can occur (Paloff & Pratt, 2003). Not only are students engaged in a learning process, they have the ability to improve that process for themselves and others through feedback to the instructor (Paloff & Pratt, 2003).
What role should the instructor play?
The instructor should have the final word on what should be assessed, how it should be assessed and respond to any evaluation material gathered through the reflective materials submitted by students (Paloff & Pratt, 2003).
What impact would this have on his or her assessment plan?
Paloff & Pratt (2005) stated that, “the information gathered through collaborative assessment should not be given less emphasis than the information gathered through the instructor’s direct observation and evaluation.”
Blog Posting: The Learning Tresury
Collaborative tasks may include:
Participants write a definition together, where one person may write the first version, then others edit/modify it until they have a definition they are all happy with.
Learners read an article as a group, and then together write one summary.
If participants are designing a programme, a report or an experiment etc, then as a collaborative task, they can together write their goals or outline the steps to achieving their task.
References
Palloff, R. M., & Pratt, K. (2005). Collaborating online: Learning together in community. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Siemens, G. (2008). Assessment of collaborative learning. (Vodcast). Principles of
Distance Education DVD produced by Laureate Education, Inc., Baltimore.
The Learning Tresury. (2011). Good to go teaching. (Blog). Retrieved from
