The difference between group work and group assessment.
Group work and group assessment are two different things. Groups can be created to work on a project or a formative assessment but not necessarily a group assessment that must be part of a summative assessment.
Group work
Groups can be formed in Canvas and you can allocate work to the group without it being assessed. A group can also be formed to work on a project that is part of an assessment. This all depends on what you want to create groups for. Group work allows students to have robust discussions on topics provided that there is respectful.
Discussions: Groups can be created to discuss a given topic and report back to the class for general discussions and debate.
You can create groups in Canvas and allocate students to a group (or have Canvas auto assign groups). Groups can be of a certain size, e.g. you can have Canvas allocate students into groups of fours for you. You can nominate a person in each group to be the ‘spokesperson’ for the group too.
Group assessment
Group assessments require more effort and organisation from you and your students to make sure they go well. This is because group assessment normally results in completing a summative assessment where the final marks will be given to students. You have to provide rules and specific tasks for students to follow if they are to achieve and complete the assessment allocated. You also have to be specific on how group assessments are marked.
All students must be able to individually achieve each learning outcome. You cannot simply set a large assessment, e.g. project which contains multiple learning outcomes, and let the group get on with it, else students will often allocate certain tasks to each other which may preclude all students from contributing to every assessment.
Group assessments are not easy to set because of the issues around fair allocation of marks. Group assessments are not widely recommended because of this issue. When summative assessments include a group element, you must give students an individual task in that assessment, e.g. a reflection, for them to account for their contributions to the group.
Hints and Tips
- Encourage group work so students can hold meaningful robust discussions about topics that are important to your course.
- Allow students to chose their own groups depending on what they are comfortable with.
- Group work is beneficial when working on a big topic that you may not be able to cover during your allocated lesson.
- Group assessments should only be selected if it is required in the PAD.