I do think that participation in collaborative efforts should be assessed, but ensuring that this assessment is fair can be tricky. The first step that needs to be taken is for the instructor to share the requirements and rubrics associated with participation in the collaboration. All members of the community need to be aware of how their collaborative efforts will be assessed. According to Palloff and Pratt (2007) instructors should place "significant weight on the level and quality of participation" and that they should recognize and reward those who exhibit a good participation (pp. 215). I agree that participation in an online course should be scrutinized carefully and assessed according to the quality of the participation that is exhibited. This can be a little tricky in terms of being fair when assessing participation since students don't come to the course with the same skill and knowledge levels.
Dealing with students who are not choosing to collaborate in an online learning community should be done with a certain amount of care. Instructors should be certain to check in on those who are not participating to try to find out the reason behind the lack of participation. Personal emergencies (serious personal or family illness, natural disaster, etc.) could be the cause for not participating, or the student could have dropped the course. If the student is still enrolled and has no issues preventing them from participating in community activities, the instructor should then take steps to assess their lack of participation accordingly. I also think the age/maturity level of the student in the online learning community should be taken into account in some way when assessing participation. For instance, if the student is on the high school level or younger, that may play a part in the level of skill and knowledge evident in their participation. In our case, however, I think expectations should be much higher. Even if this course is someone's first experience with an online learning community, as adults, we should have a better work ethic and should be held to higher standards in terms of participating in collaborative activities.
Palloff, R. M., & Pratt, K. (2007). Building online learning communities: Effective strategies for the virtual classroom. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Palloff, R. M., & Pratt, K. (2005). Collaborating online: Learning together in community. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Hi Monica:
ReplyDeleteI agree age and maturity plays a major role in the success of online learning. I have been in some groups as a non-trad learner and maturity played a major role in the outcome of their group performance. Have you experienced this before? Thanks for your post. Amy
Monica,
ReplyDeleteI agree assessing is a tricky thing. Do you think an instructor can have biases even though they are supposed to be impartial?
Hi Monica,
ReplyDeleteYou are right that assessment is a tricky thing when there is a lack of participation. Dealing with students who choose not to participate leaves the instructor with the task of finding out what the issues are that are causing the lack of involvement. For instance, our learning community has two members (Ederson Jean & Victoria Parrish) that have not posted anything in weeks. Are they no longer among us, have they dropped, are they ill? I have no idea and it makes our learning community much smaller now, so I have started responding to other people's learning groups in an effor to keep my level of participation up.
Neena