I Have the Water, You Bring the Horse - Assessing Collaborative Efforts

When assessing collaborative efforts in the online community, one must definitely consider several factors. These factors being the participation level of all members, the skill levels of these members and the various knowledge bases that each member brings to the discussions independently. This being said, these factors play a significant role in the direction a particular course goes, so to speak, in relation to the fair and equitable assessment of the learning process. One then can only question, how should participation in a collaborative learning community be assessed?

Assessments are a very important part to the learning process as a whole. In fact, assessment should be an evaluation of students' performance through their "demonstration of the ability to apply knowledge in real-life settings" (Edelstein & Edwards, 2005, p.2).However, it is up to the instructor to decide how important online participation relates to the learning process, thereby balancing the workload of the course. These assessments can be determined in a variety of ways, but no matter which way is decided upon, a clear set of guidelines must be presented to the student that outlines the grading criteria for participation. The forms of guidelines that work the best are found in rubrics. This form of qualitative data helps the student and the instructor to understand what needs to be completed for the maximum points available for online participation.

Through using rubrics, the instructor also combats the other dilemma in online participation, concerning the varying levels of skill and knowledge students bring to a course. The rubrics outline what is expected of the student, such as the amount of discussion that must occur for each topic presented and how these responses must be presented to the rest of the online class. Through having these clear instructions, the student, regardless of skill level or knowledge base, knows what is expected of them and how to effectively communicate with the rest of the online class. The instructor then has the ability to assess the participation of students based on the rubric and there is no ambiguity in how each item is graded based on the point values already addressed in the rubric. While having a rubric for online participation assessment is beneficial, there is another aspect that needs to be discussed.

I am reminded of an old cliché, “one can lead a horse to water, but they cannot make him drink.” This is true in the online environment, as well. If a student does not want to network or collaborate in a learning community for an online course, the other students and instructor must find a way to continue the online conversation in a productive way. The students must first continually reach out to the combative student for their opinion, but must not allow this to impede on their learning. They must continue the discussion with or without the other student, so they further their learning process. The instructor, on the other hand, has the task of finding out the why in the situation. If a lack of knowledge of how to interact collaboratively online is the reason, help must be given to the student to allow them to feel comfortable in the online community. On the other hand, if the student just does not want to be apart of the online community, then this has a direct impact on their assessment plan. The student has the same rubric as everyone else and should understand, through communication form the instructor, which electing to not participate will have a negative impact on their grade. They, the student, should also understand the value of knowledge everyone brings to a discussion and their electing not to participate diminishes the possibility of the maximum learning process in a given course.
Edelstein, Susan and Edwards, Jason (2005). If you build it, they will come: building learning communities through threaded discussions. Online Journal of Distance Education Administration. Retrieved from http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/spring51/edelstein51.html on October 6, 2010.