Assessing group work

This is for the eighth grade health education curriculum.

• Nice to meet you!
• First day of class
• Students are introduced and share past experiences, likes and dislikes, and goals for the year.


• Get to know yourself
• Second day of class
• Students will learn about how they work best, take a multiple intelligence test, and discover strengths and weaknesses.


• Create learning groups
• Second week of class
• The teacher will assign students to groups of three or four based on observed ability, experiences, gender, and ethnicity. Groups will be reassigned one week before the start of each new project (Research project, Poster project, and Create a video).


• Talk about group work
• Throughout the year during each project
• Students will complete reflections on their group in their journals, during discussions with their group members and in class discussions. Each quarter students will be assigned to new groups (each project has a new group) so that students work with a variety of other students throughout the year.


• Peer reflection
• After each group project throughout the year
• Students will complete a reflection of their group. They will answer the following questions: What can be improved, what worked well, struggles and successes? By combining teacher observations, student reflections, and work output the teacher is able to calculate individual student grades.


• Self reflection
• After each group project throughout the year
• Students will complete a self reflection that expresses their feelings regarding: how they improved throughout the year, what can still be improved upon, how they fit into the group dynamics and what struggles and successes they have overcome?

At the eighth grade level many students enjoy the social aspects of group work but run into problems when it becomes time to get work done as a group. Problems within groups can be caused by miscommunication, power struggles, and personal desires for how each person wants the project to turn out. The teacher can minimize many of these struggles by getting to know the students, assigning students to groups, changing the groups periodically throughout the year, helping with conflict management, and encouraging good communication within the groups.
It is crucial to stress the importance of working well with others. Some students will naturally excel at this and some will struggle but it is important to help each student to develop the skills to work well with other students in a group. Throughout their lives they will be forced to interact with people and sometimes they will have conflicts with these people. Teaching effective communication skills and the ability to compromise will help students when working in groups. Frustrations and misunderstandings should be addressed immediately and the group should make efforts within itself to fix the problem and ask for teacher assistance whenever needed. By using these techniques teachers can help students to be good group members and effective participants in collaborative projects.