Grading Collaborative Writing in the College Classroom

We’ve all witnessed the reactions to mention of the dreaded group project.  Worse still, the deafening collective gasp of shock when talk of a collaborative paper is thrown in the mix.  It’s no secret that college students fear group assignments, and with the difficulties of scheduling meetings, separating work, and relying on complete strangers to do their portion of the project with as much vigor and studious focus as one would do it individually?  Well, needless to say, it can be a stressful concept.

In fact, I can remember back to my first college group paper, and the ultimate betrayal I felt when I stayed up night after night researching, organizing, and writing, only to find out that my other group members waited until the day before it was due to do their own portions.  Then, it’s like some sort of unwritten code among the student body (especially in freshman level courses, mind you) to make sure that everyone gets an adequate grade on the peer evaluations.  The peer pressure in that alone is enough to make one question why they didn’t just do the entire project on their own from the get-go.

So, amidst all of this struggle, one question remains:  how is it possible to adequately and fairly grade a collaborative group project or paper?

An article released by Carnegie Mellon listed the different options concerning individual grading on a group scale.  One of these options was to have each student write a reflective journal piece to hand in with their group work.  This journal includes the things they struggled with individually with the project and how they overcame those struggles, and then also discusses the overall contributions of each group member, how often the group met before handing in their project, and any other details students might like to share with you concerning the completion of the project.  If you are planning on utilizing this type of assessment, make sure students know that their responses in these journals will remain confidential, and only you will be reading them.  Other ideas included individual quizzes or exams after group papers have been handed in to make sure all members of the group were equally fluent on the content their paper or project addressed.

If you’d like to be a little more personal with your assessments, and the class size isn’t too daunting, have students schedule individual conferences with you to discuss how the collaborative side of things went.  That way, you can take notes, and it enables you to discuss the importance of group roles within your classroom beforehand.  If students enter a project knowing that they will have to face you with information on their contribution, and that others will be telling you directly about their contributions as well, chances are they will be at least slightly more motivated to put their fair share of effort forth.

It's also strongly recommended that you never give a flat group grade to every person within the group.  Since students tend to split work among themselves in order to then bring their pieces together to create a larger cohesive piece, it might be beneficial for group members to label portions they personally are able to take credit for before handing in the finished product.  That way, you are able to better assess individual portions as well as take into account the finished product as a whole.  Utilizing a rubric that hosts point values for both the collaborative and individual aspects separately will help make grading and providing feedback seamless and consistent.

Tip Provided By:  Jessica Moser

Active Learning Activities - Debbie Ernie, English

While this seems like a prime moment for me to engage in the whimsical rhetoric my writing typically includes, I will spare you from some bizarre analogy or tangential introduction and instead let you immediately get to a better piece of rhetoric: Professor Debbie Ernie’s active learning activity focused on (you guessed it) rhetoric.

Setting: Activity implemented in multiple sections of same 100-level course; activity takes about 20 minutes in active learning classroom (5 pods with 4 students per pod) but time varies in traditional classrooms due to prep and transition time for class sharing (see extended discussion below)

Purpose of the activity: For the Blugold Seminar in Critical Reading and Writing, we place a large emphasis on rhetoric as a way for students to transfer knowledge learned in the seminar to other classes or writing they will do on their chosen career paths. A good entry point for many students is through advertisements and social media, examples of rhetoric they come into contact with regularly, examples that might have more obvious elements of rhetoric. For this activity, done both in an active learning and traditional classroom, my students were identifying rhetorical choices made in advertisements. The goal here was to review concepts we had been discussing in their own words and through their own analyses of use of the term.

Setup for the activity + how the activity unfolded in the classroom: This activity would come toward the beginning of a discussion of the elements of rhetoric, but after having done some work/reading as an entire class on these elements. This activity is thus a bit of review/testing student knowledge, as well as a chance for students to begin to play with these devices themselves. This activity took place in both an active learning room and traditional classrooms. I will discuss the procedure for the active learning version. Then, I will discuss the differences when placed in a traditional space.

Active Learning Procedure: Before the students arrived, I wrote one element of rhetoric we had been discussing on each whiteboard (near each pod). We had one extra whiteboard. On that board, I listed some options –print advertisement, YouTube video, meme, etc. Once students had taken their respective seats, I discussed the activity:

1. As a group, find or create a strong example of use of your board's element.
2. This example can take any of the forms listed on the extra board.
3. Be prepared to share with the class. You will need to define your element in your own words (review) and explain your example's use of said element. Why is this a strong example? How is your concept at work here.

Students took time searching and/or creating as a pod-group using the computers at each pod. I walked around to answer questions and comment on their finds. All groups sought out several examples and then voted on the best use of their given element, which I was pleased to see! This is why I allowed for some wiggle room as far as time. Once each group had made their final choice (two created something, three found something), we shared. I displayed images from each pod to all of the other pods and projector screens as groups discussed.

Traditional Classroom Comparison: This was a fairly simple but effective use of our technology. Just how effective this was came into play when attempting similar activities in my more traditional classrooms. Because of a lack of pods, a more traditional classroom has certain limitations that lead to needed prep work by the instructor or students. Some options: I bring magazines into the classroom, this of course limits options for discovery; students are asked to bring in advertisements, this is an issue for coordinating group work on this small of an activity, as well as the issue that many students print in black and white, which plays into rhetorical concerns; students bring in laptops; or I instruct students the day-of to make up their own advertisement or meme (could do so with scratch paper or laptops). Even in making these decisions, the small activity becomes more complicated. Because I teach several sections, I tried a few variations. I brought in magazines, a wide variety, but felt students spent less time analyzing multiple options, and rather just picked one at almost-random (NOT a goal of this activity). I also asked students to choose their own advertisements before class, as well as bringing in laptops. With the choosing of individual ads, students were given assigned elements ahead of time.

The group work once in the classroom felt limited with the group search aspect removed. I certainly could not assess their searching and critical thinking involved in person. We also had to waste some time moving into groups, no matter the prep chosen, especially in a classroom filled with rows of desks. While the project got them reviewing rhetoric, and while I would not necessarily cut it from future classes in more traditional rooms, these versions certainly presented more challenges. Lastly, sharing could be done one of two ways –groups coming up to the front to display their ad/meme, or small groups sharing with another nearby group. Again, a little more finagling required and time-wasted.

After the activity: The assessment was tied into the sharing portion of the activity, both the review and analysis of the use of the concept for each group. Assessing their work and knowledge was certainly more easily observable in situations where they were searching while in the room.

Additional comments from the instructor: On a scale of 1 to 5 (with 5 = high success), I would rate this activity as a 3-4 for a traditional classroom. It requires more prep from the teacher and/or students and makes the group aspect and sharing of the activity less accessible. If I were to rate this in an active learning setting, however, I would give it a 4-5. This activity runs smoothly in these classrooms, and is an easy and fun way to utilize our technology.

Tip provided by: Debbie Ernie
Write up by: Jon Pumper

Active Learning Activities - Don Gaber, Information Systems

The efficacy of the active learning classroom lies on the principal that students learn while doing. There could not be a more appropriate demonstration of this then Don Gaber’s active learning activity depicted below:

Setting: 20-minute activity implemented in a 300-level course; 5 pods with 6 students per pod

Purpose of the activity: One of the course goals is to "apply procedural code and objects to solve business problems and meet business requirements." This activity has students identify multiple options available for a combo box programming object. Students must compare and contrast the options, and distinguish which option or options could provide a useful solution to a common business application problem, or meet programming project requirements.

Setup for the activity: Students complete a hands-on tutorial that includes a brief introduction to a "combo-box" control object, which you commonly see in software used to click and select various options.

When programming these objects, there are typically 20-30 properties to consider. Examples include color, size, style, autocomplete, sorting, etc.

How the activity unfolded in the classroom: One student in each group logs on to the Pod PC, and I assign each group a range of properties that begin with the following letters:

• Pod 1: a-b
• Pod 2: c-d
• Pod 3: e-i
• Pod 4: l-s
• Pod 5: s-v

The students then experiment with the options to see what purpose or effect they have on the combo-box object. After about 15 minutes, each team displays their screen to the class and demonstrates their findings. They must also explain how their findings may relate to building an effective programming application.

After the activity: Students demonstrate their findings to the class, and invariably someone remembers and uses at least one of the findings in a future project!

Additional comments from instructor: Students demonstrate what they have discovered instead of me demonstrating each property one-by-one –much more interesting and effective! This same method can work for nearly any software program that has options that should be explored (Excel, Word, PowerPoint, WinTab, etc.).

Tip provided by: Don Gaber

Active Learning Activities - Tom Sulzer, Information Systems

Professor Tom Sulzer, Department of Information Systems, shares his active learning activity focused on simulations:

Setting: Simulation activity utilizing pod groups (8-10 pods with 4 students per pod)

Setup for the activity: To prepare the students for this activity I had to help them install an SAP client piece of software. In addition, we talked about Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solutions in business and had a reading assignment associated with ERP to better help them understand what it is that ERP is about.

How the activity unfolded in the classroom: Part of the SAP curriculum is a "Distribution Game" which allows students to role play being the managers of a company that distributes water. The simulation typically lasts 3 classes and allows the students to gain experience using a real ERP system.

• The first day, students are allowed to modify their product's price and marketing expenditures to get their products to be purchased by a simulated market. Note the market that the simulation tries to simulate is Retail Stores in Germany which is divided up into 3 regions: North, South and West.
  
• In the second session, students are allowed to replenish their inventory once as well as set their product's price and amount of marketing as they did the first day.
  
• In the third session, students build on what they were able to do in the previous days by having unlimited replenishment capability as well as the ability to forecast and select specific replenishment amounts. Note they still are setting price and marketing expenses as well.

After the activity: After each session, we summarized what occurred and allowed the students to share experiences, good and bad. The intent is to help them appreciate, in a safe setting, some of the real-world types of decisions that managers struggle with. While it is in a contrived scenario, the tools they use and their reactions are very close to reality.

Additional comments from instructor: "I believe that the simulation is able to drive home the use of ERP systems and allows them to get hands on experience with an actual piece of software they will potentially see in a real work environment setting."

Tip provided by: Tom Sulzer

Active Learning Activities - Louisa Rice, History

In general, generalities are never all that useful. This is primarily due to the fact that the person relaying the generality usually rarely has any specific details to support the generalized statement. I’d give examples, but then I’d actually disprove my point. Dr. Louisa Rice, Department of History, tackles the issue of student-produced generalities by constructing a close-reading active learning activity that gets students to dive into specifics:

Setting: Close reading activity utilizing pod groups (11 pods with 4-6 students per pod)

Setup for the activity: The class focuses a great deal on the ability to complete a close reading of historical documents (often to "figure out" what those old words actually mean or imply). There are many of these documents in the textbook, and they are all no longer than one page. Students were assigned these 1 page documents on multiple occasions as part of their reading preparation for class; sometimes there were accompanying quiz questions, sometimes there were not. Prior to the class in which we would discuss the assigned document I scanned the page and made it into a PDF which I then posted onto the "news" section of D2L. Theoretically, then, the students had read the document and contextual information before they came into class (although some had not). They could then access a PDF version of the document at their pod when they came into class.

How the activity unfolded in the classroom: In class, I would lecture a little on the context of the document and then asked students to complete some annotations on the document as a group (we went over the Adobe annotating tools a few times in class). Usually this involved a series of questions that I put onto a PowerPoint slide (so that they could still see the questions on the large screen while they completed the work as a group on the small screen). The questions varied, depending on the source, but they all asked them to mark-up the document. For example, for work on a document by Christopher Columbus—his first reflections upon arrival in the United States, I asked them to highlight where the audience for the document was indicated, and underline places in the text where Columbus is revealing a motive in producing the document. Finally I asked them to decide as a group which of the motives revealed (denigrating the indigenous people, claiming a Christian mission, identifying riches) seemed to be the most influential or important, and to explain that importance in a sentence as a textbox on the document. In other documents I asked them to highlight important words (for example, in poem written about World War I) or to underline phrases where the meaning was unclear to them.

After the activity: Students completed the work and saved it to their group locker in D2L—so that I had a record of this (ungraded) work and also so they could return to their group commentary to study for exams. In class, I often pulled up one response on the large screen and then asked whether other groups reached similar conclusions. This normally produced a larger group discussion on what we should take-away from the document and enabled me to connect their conclusions or questions back to the larger theme or argument of the class period.

Additional comments from instructor: "Prior to the version of the activity described above, I asked students to bring the documents to class for discussion and often they did not do that. Usually our discussions were based on the "general" ideas they had discerned from the documents, not the specific details (often very relevant) of the author's writing. This way, I was actually getting them to really READ the texts closely, and I think versions of this exercise would work really well in any class where textual analysis was important."

Tip provided by: Louisa Rice
Write-up by: Jon Pumper

Active Learning Activities - Kelly Murray, Biology

It isn’t often that I employ personal opinions on this blog; as I’m constantly reminded in the CETL office, my opinions are only valuable if they are accompanied by a handful of M&M’s or the delivery of a fresh cup of coffee.* But for this post, I will indulge myself and give my opinion as an undergraduate student who has spent a lot of time in the classroom. And as an undergraduate student who has spent a lot of time in the classroom, I can tell you that the best class periods are the ones that end with you wishing you had a little more class time.** Kelly Murray, Department of Biology, has that very good problem with the active learning activity depicted below:

Setting: Discussions utilizing pod groups (5 pods with 4 students per pod) and whole class

Setup for the activity: Prior to the in-class activity, students completed 2-3 readings and posted two questions/comments to a D2L Discussion board outside of class.

How the activity unfolded in the classroom: The group in charge of facilitating that day's discussion gave a brief introductory presentation (typically using PowerPoint and video clips) on the large screens. Pod groups were given discussion questions/tasks. These often included one or more tasks in which group members were asked to list or diagram on the whiteboard. A large-group discussion followed with each group sharing information from their pod discussion and whiteboard notes.

After the activity: At the conclusion of in-class discussion, students were provided with 1-2 prompts; each student was asked to reflect on the discussion as part of a 1-page response paper which was submitted to the D2L Dropbox by the following evening. The material from the in-class discussions was also covered on unit exams.

Additional comments from instructor: "This was a 1hr 15minute class period – but we were short on time – my main issue with the activity. I was pleased, though, with the process and felt students approached the discussion from a more-informed perspective. I prefer this versus a lecture where I show a bunch of graphs, etc. to outline evidence.

*The people of CETL have never actually requested me to fetch a cup of coffee, and actually value my opinions quite frequently. I truly fulfill the role of “oppressed intern” only in my imagination.

**this of course bars any class periods that contain graded work such as labs and tests. Ironically, the opposite effect is true in these cases: these are the worst class periods.

Tip provided by: Kelly Murray
Write-up by: Jon Pumper

Active Learning Activities - Jean Pratt, Information Systems

Communication in the virtual world is a precarious thing: one constantly runs the risk of mistaking sarcasm for sincerity, assuredness for obliviousness, or smiley faces for extraordinarily poor punctuation practices :). The students of Jean Pratt’s Information System’s course ran into this very problem in her active learning activity centered on communication between collaborative, virtual teams:

Setting: Activity utilizing pod groups (8 pods with 3-4 students per pod)

Setup for the activity: Students were instructed to work through some similar diagramming activities in a PowerPoint slide deck prior to coming to class. We had worked through a similar activity in class in the preceding class period. One purpose of this activity was to give students more practice in applying the concepts and skills. Another purpose of this activity was to expose students to working in virtual teams, which are predominant in the field of information systems.

The activity had three parts:

1. Given a scenario, students would collaboratively define business rules.
2. Given business rules defined by another group, students would collaboratively design a data model.
3. Given business rules from one group and resulting data model from another group, class would discuss both relational database design principles and communication across members in virtual teams

How the activity unfolded in the classroom: We started with two business scenarios requiring data collection and storage. Half the class received one scenario; the other half received the other scenario. Each group developed a set of business rules based on the scenario (business rules are the foundation for designing a relational database model). Groups were then instructed to share their business rules with another group on the other side of the classroom. The recipient group was to then develop a data model based on those business rules.

The first half of the activity went well. Student groups used the screen at their pods to define collaboratively the business rules. The last part of the activity also went well. I was able to bring up on the big screens—in a split-screen display—the business rules defined by one group and the resulting data model developed by another group. The design group didn't always design a model the way the business-rule group anticipated!

After the activity: At the end of the class period, students groups were directed to apply outside class the same concepts and skills to their 15-week client project.

Tip provided by: Jean Pratt
Write up by: Jon Pumper

Active Learning Activities—Tom Hilton, Information Systems

Research is very often a lonely pursuit in the undergraduate world. That could possibly be why the library is so often flooded with students weeping over their laptops, sobbing next to bookshelves, or blowing their noses into textbooks that had not previously been used for anything else. Professor Tom Hilton, Department of Information Systems, provides a support group for lonely scholars in his active learning room by assigning group research projects like the one depicted below:

Setting: Group-based activity (10 pods with 4 students per pod)

Setup for the activity: This activity was associated with a text chapter students were to read before class. Aside from the reading, the only advance preparation required of the students was me teaching them how to manage the pod technology, particularly how to display their own laptop screen on the pod display, how to switch the pod display among pod group members' laptops, and how to send their pod's screen to all pods.

How the activity unfolded in the classroom: To start, I displayed from the instructor station on all pod screens a list of discussion questions that were answered or partly answered in the reading. As a class, we briefly reviewed them to establish a baseline of understanding of the questions.

Next, each pod group collaboratively chose one or two questions (depending on the number of questions and the number of pod groups) to answer. I explained that all members were to contribute to the development of a whole-pod-group-approved answer.

For 10-15 minutes (depending on the number of questions and the time available), each pod group developed answers to their chosen question/s. Each member used his/her own laptop to search the Web, text pdf (sometimes available), do calculations when needed, and/or write a summary answer. Members shared what they found by talking and by displaying their own laptops on the pod screen. During this time I circulated among the groups clarifying the question being research, (re)directing the discussion, and occasionally arbitrating disagreements.

After the activity: After the research time, each pod group presented its question and related answer. They displayed on all other pods' screens their pod's written paragraph, web resources, or whatever support they found. Usually one member spoke for the pod group, but sometimes all members contributed to the presentation. I encouraged all the other class members to ask follow-up questions for the presenting pod to answer, but this was sometimes hard because students either didn't know enough to come up with additional questions, or they were worried about embarrassing the presenters. To help with this, I would ask follow-up questions as examples. The whole class could respond to the questions, so the presenters weren't left on the spot.

Additional comments from instructor: "I use this activity in several different classes, and sometimes (as in the senior seminar) it has been appropriate to gather the answers into a text addendum of sorts. This has often become a point of pride for the students: extending the text information right up to the state of the art."

Active Learning Activities - Bob Eierman, Chemistry

Many people have fond memories of making crafts, gluing together Popsicle sticks, and coloring inside (or outside) the lines of a dinosaur coloring book either as a kid or with their kids (for you older folks in the readership). A much fewer amount of people have fond memories doing a lot of the same things when they were in Middle School and they were desperately trying to assemble a poster that could kick the crap out of Danny Jones’ poster at the science fair. And an even fewer amount have fond memories of doing the same things at the collegiate level where supplies of colored pencils, glue, and artistic motivation are often quite depleted. But the poster—an excellent learning and presentation tool—cannot be written away simply because it can often be a pain to create. Dr. Eierman, with the help of Gene Leisz, keeps the poster a part of his curriculum by introducing a digital template that the students can work on together in the active learning classroom: 

Setting: Students presented research projects with the aid of digital posters at the pod stations (15 pods total with 3 students per pod)

Setup for the activity: As part of the final project in Chem 213 (lab), each student independently selects a research question, gathers and analyzes samples in the lab, completes calculations and statistical analysis, and draws conclusions. The design and presentation of the poster is the culminating event of the research project.

How the activity unfolded in the classroom: Each student created a digital poster using a PowerPoint template designed (by Gene Leisz) to fit the pod screens in the active learning rooms. There were three students to a pod and they pulled up all three of their posters onto the desktop. The first student displayed their poster; we then spent about 30 minutes visiting the displayed posters in both rooms (CEN 3814 and CEN 3504), and non-presenters moved around viewing the posters. Next, we switched to the second student at each pod and visited them for the next 30 minutes. A final 30-minute session allowed us to visit the last of the posters. In about 2 hours, we displayed 46 posters. The poster quality was high and students said the posters were easy to create starting with the provided template.

After the activity: Students also submitted the posters through the D2L Dropbox, and I was able to grade them electronically in the comfort of my office. No printing was necessary and students were able to include graphs, photographs and other imagery that enhanced the posters. In addition, the students and I will be able to retain a copy of the poster(s).Students and faculty recognized that this was an excellent way to create and display high quality posters.

Additional comments from instructor: "I have been doing poster sessions like this for over 20 years, typically with posters mounted on cardboard. The old way was a pain for the students to create and difficult physically for me to grade. As a group, these were the best looking and highest quality posters I've ever seen. Many students commented that this was an extremely convenient way to make and display this important product of the culminating event in the course. I will definitely do this again with my Chem 213 class."

Tip provided by: Bob Eierman

Write-up by: Jon Pumper

Active Learning Activities - Jean Pratt, Information Systems

Setting: Diagramming activity utilizing pod groups (8 pods with 3-4 students per pod), whiteboards, and reporting out to the whole class

Setup for the activity: Students were instructed to work through some similar diagramming activities in a PowerPoint slide deck prior to coming to class. We had worked through a similar activity in class in the preceding class period. One purpose of this activity was to emphasize the value and efficiency of sketching out ideas on a whiteboard before trying to use a computer-aided design tool to create a diagram. A second purpose of this activity was to give students more practice in applying the concepts and skills.

How the activity unfolded in the classroom: Student groups gathered around each whiteboard (located at the pods) and discussed various options for diagramming a relational database. I moved from one pod to another using Socratic questioning and mini-lectures as the student groups worked through the diagramming activity. I used the doc cam to zoom in on students' work at the whiteboards to facilitate class discussion of concepts.

After the activity: At the end of the class period, students groups were directed to apply the same diagramming techniques to their 15-week client project. They were provided about 10 minutes to get started on this activity, which they would continue outside class.

Additional comments from instructor: "Student feedback indicated that students were at first a bit embarrassed about having their group work displayed and discussed but they were becoming more comfortable with it because a) they were learning from the whole-class discussion, b) they prefer to focus on the concepts before trying to implement the concepts using a computer tool, c) they prefer to be corrected in an ungraded venue rather than via graded homework, d) they value the individual group/pod attention before the class discussion, and e) they see other groups erasing and revising white-board content as we discuss errors as a full class (i.e., they realize that other groups are making the same errors)."

Teaching Tip: Dr. Sherrie Serros on Snowball Activities

These last few gorgeous days have tempted even the most cynical Wisconsinites to believe that winter is finally over (for those that remember last year, however, cynicism might still be fully present). But if you don’t want to embrace the warmth like the myriad of college students in shorts now (it’s still only 40 degrees, people) try introducing one or both of these “snowball” activities that Dr. Sherrie Serros, Department of Mathematics, provides below:

Snowball fight:  This activity enables students to anonymously participate in a process-oriented problem and ensures 100% participation. I put a couple of different solutions on the board that provide the same answers, but structurally are very different. Students have to decide which one demonstrates valid mathematics. If I were to just openly ask the class, I wouldn’t necessarily get a lot of eager responses: student are often afraid to raise their hand and assertively declare which one is right and which one is wrong.  So instead, I have each of them take a slice of paper on which they have to write out what solution they think is correct and their reasoning behind it. Nobody else knows what they’ve written; I instruct them not to write their names on the piece of paper. Then, they crumple up the piece of paper into a little ball and throw it across the room. Students then pick up whatever “snowball” is nearest to them and they read what it says. In this way, I get to hear everyone’s thinking process and I can focus on the misconceptions present in the classroom without ever putting a single student on the spot. Additionally, when we do focus on the misconceptions, people can hear that others had the same thoughts and feel that they were not alone. Students really like this activity (who doesn’t like throwing snowballs?) and I benefit by hearing everyone’s thought-process in the classroom.

Rolling Snowball: This activity is useful when you want to generate a big idea based on a small core. My example for this comes from my education classes when I want the students to work on lesson design. I separate them into groups and start by providing them with the content of the lesson, and then have each group add an additional facet to the lesson (i.e. the diversity of learning styles, or the diversity of learning abilities, or assessment). By the time we go around the room and gather everyone’s contributions we have a big unit formed that addresses many crucial facets of lesson design. The metaphor I use for this is that of a snowball rolling down the hill because as each layer is added our lesson design becomes bigger, more fleshed-out, and more involved. 

Interview by: Jon Pumper

Faculty Projects – The Ever Ubiquitous Deadline

Professor: Patti See

Department:  Student Success Center: Developmental Education Courses

Name of Group: Successful Teaching Practices: Group Work

For those in the world who shudder, cringe, or tip over the nearest office printer upon hearing the word “deadline,” the rather morbid etymology of this everyday phrase may come as little surprise: originating from the American Civil War, a “dead line” was a literal line that prisoners of war were not allowed to cross, under penalty of death. This bleak association with the phrase carries well into the academic world, where every semester students (and faculty alike) struggle, sweat, and figuratively (or literally) bleed in order to meet the mountains of deadlines piled up on their respective desks.

But the contemporary deadline is not a form of purposeless torture: deadlines can be used to one’s advantage as a constructive form of organization, a way to stay on task. They can also become less intimidating if they are coupled with deadlines along the way: in this manner, an enormous project ceases to become one huge undertaking and instead a series of smaller, more manageable steps. An idea gathered from CETL’s group entitled “Successful Teaching Practices: Group Work,” Patti See, from the Student Success Center, anticipates this addition in her semester long documentary project:

"If I Knew Then What I Know Now: Advice for Next Semester’s GEN 201 Students” is a group final project to create a documentary of students’ experiences as they regain good standing.  They are to work in groups of three to five and include pictures, video, voice narration, music, etc. to create a video.  They also are to write a one page reflection on this project, explaining the group dynamics, members’ roles, what they’d do differently, and what they learned.

This past semester I realized that simply because students wrote down their plans they didn’t necessarily follow through. A number of students said that they didn’t actually START filming until the beginning of finals week (our final was on a Friday). This spring I intend to have two deadlines: one at midterm in which I ask students to turn in a short version of their advice documentary, and one during the final exam in which they turn in the completed one.  This also allows students to map their progress throughout the term, since the main goal of the course is to keep the students on track to regaining good standing. Students in GEN 201 really struggle with deadlines, and, as one of my Fall 2014 students pointed out, if I require them to get something done half way through the term, the final project is not as stressful."

She ends by briefly advocating the CETL group process:

"Though I had done group projects in my classes for years, I was able to tweak this semester-long project with much of the information learned in the CETL group.  At the end of the fall term, I also asked my students after they completed their projects what would have made this process work more smoothly.  They had excellent advice, which also supported what I’d learned in the CETL group."

Write up by Jon Pumper

Dr. Angela Dalhoe on Sustained Group Work

Group activities, much like groups of butternut squash puree, are much less likely to cause indigestion when they are prepared with close attention to consistency. Dr. Angela Dalhoe, Department of Special Education, advocates for consistent, pre-organized group activities in her classes:

In many of my classes, we do group activities every week. The groups are established at the beginning of the semester (the students even come up with their own group names – credit goes to Dr. Todd Stephens for the idea) and remain in place for the entire course. I give each group their own folder, which acts as our primary method for relaying assignments: each week I place a new prompt in the group folders for them to complete by the end of class and return back to me in the same folder. For larger classes I think this is essential: it gives the students (and I) a takeaway from the content, helps me with keeping attendance, and allows me to easily identify students and groups who are excelling with the material and who are struggling a bit more with it.

Interviewed by: Jon Pumper