On Sharing Part of the Grade with Others.

When I've asked students about the biggest impact on their learning in my courses, they often report that how they study and do their work outside class is the best predictor of engagement in the class. That makes good sense to me. I've never assumed I can or  should take responsibility for a student's learning. That's for you to do. I can try hard  to help,  do my best,  to set an encouraging environment for learning, establish high expectation and help you learn,  but students  decide if,  what, and how they will learn, not me.

A second thing I've learned is that when students figure out how to help each other learn, when they can work on homework assignments together, when they have have access to study groups, their engagement in the learning is enhanced and they usually report they learn more. You most likely will spend a substantial part of your organizational lives working in groups so why not find better ways to do that here at the Bloch school.

But student or working  groups don't work well by accident. Many important things must happen for a group to succeed. See, for example,  a power point presentation about how to do a frame  analysis of a study group that suggests some of these things. 

Students do want to know how they will be graded for working in groups in class. See: guidelines for peer evaluation. It is folly to  ask for teamwork, but reward only individual effort. A major principle of the HR frame is that you can expect to get what you reward in organizations. If you don't find a valid way to reward team effort, why should you expect to get it?

Most grades in most classes are based on individual effort. Most performance appraisal systems in organizations unfortunately fail or inadequately reward team effort. Most folks expect to be prompted/rewarded on the basis of their individual efforts. But here's a paradox. Organizations are places where collective effort always matters. So why not find a valid way to reward contributions to the team. Most contemporary  organizational leaders espouse teamwork, the need for high performance teams, etc. Reward systems rarely are fully aligned with this expectation.

Here's the rub for me. I usually don't know what happens in your group.  A basketball coach can reward a player with additional playing time by assessing team effort. A basketball coach sees  all group effort. But I don't see your group work (nor can most bosses know the inner  working of the teams they oversee).  So, in this course, group members have to tell me about your level of commitment, responsibility, and group skills.  Who knows better  about your contributions  than your fellow group members?  This ability to hold each other partly responsible for the group effort makes sense to me. We begin to align the reward system with the behaviors we want.

In the past 20 years that I've been using this grading system, I rarely have complaints from one segment of a group that another segment or individual is not pulling his/her own weight. Groups tend to monitor and provide pressure on lagging individuals. Peer evaluation gives you the means to reward positive efforts by other group member who are especially helpful  for what and how you learn.

Whenever possible, I provide group time in class to work on group graded projects.

If your group ever reaches an impasse or if you no longer believe you can continue working in your group, contact me.