Assessing teamwork skills
Teamwork or group work has become increasingly important as a form of assessment. This is because of the increased focus on employability as a desirable outcome for students completing a university degree.
However, team management and team conflict can cause difficulties for both course examiners and students.
Lecturers can reduce the potential for this type of conflict by paying particular attention to both assessment design and team management strategies:
- provide a clear professional rationale for using team-based assessment
- choose a method for team allocation, and decide on the ideal number of members per team
- provide resources and guidelines to support students to complete the teamwork process
- include a reflective component so student team members can evaluate the teamwork process, including the contribution of each team member
- consider how marks will be divided between individual team members and the group as a whole
- ensure that you manage diversity in teams, whether this is diversity of ability, learner type, personality or cultural background
- establish an online environment for each team, using Moodle forums, Moodle wikis or Wimba
Exemplars
Lyn's teamwork and reflective portfolios
MKT2001 - Promotion management website provides a teamwork resource for students
Resources
Developing Teamwork Skills Moodle community site on Study Desk designed to support students. USQ login required
Erwee, R., (2005). Evaluating a virtual team assignment in a distance education course. International Journal of Business and Management Education, 13, 1-20.
'Teamwork'. Embedding the development and grading of generic skills in the Business curriculum
'Teamwork toolkit', Career Development Centre, Latrobe University.
Audiovisual resources
Centre of Fine Arts, UNSW, (2011), Online teamwork and collaboration. Learning to Teach Online
Centre of Fine Arts, UNSW, (2011), Using wikis for student collaboration - a case study. Learning to Teach Online