Reader Response

Elizabeth

Thanks for an interesting and useful issue of ITL. I was interested in page 2 because I have used group and individual project assignments for several years. One of the most useful ideas I stumbled upon is to require students to write a paragraph about their experience doing the assignment and what they think they have learned by doing it. This forms a part of the reports which the students write, and a small proportion of the mark is allocated for complying with this. In a group report, this must always be an individual statement from each group member.

This provides valuable feedback.

1. If there are critical comments, they are almost always framed in a constructive and positive manner.

2. In group assignments, the different levels of participation are immediately apparent. This makes it much easier to deviate, when necessary, from my normal practice of assigning a group mark to all students equally.

3. Students often write very nice comments which are rewarding for me to read, like "I found this assignment very difficult, but looking back on it I realise I have learned some very important things which I would never have realised otherwise."

It might be a useful idea for others to use.

James Trevelyan

Further reader comment concerning the issues raised in the article Assessing Group Assignments is invited.