Introduction
In this article we will walk you through how to set up Group Member Evaluation from the perspective of a teacher.
If you’d like more information on how this tool works, you can check out other articles here:
Group Member Evaluation: For Teachers (Active Assignment)
Group Member Evaluation: For Students
Group Member Evaluation: Overview
Tool In Action
How this article is structured
This article walks you through the steps of an Group Member Evaluation activity, following the same flow as the tool itself. It will describe the process of setting up the assignment. This refers to what you can configure before the assignment is published, such as instructions, settings, deadlines, grouping, and grading rules. Students cannot access the activity at this stage. You can still edit some settings after publishing; however, once students start making progress, certain options may be locked to protect their work and data. Wherever this applies, the article will clearly note it.
Note: When you open a published activity, you’ll land on the Active Assignment view by default. To return to the setup view after publishing, click Edit in the upper-left corner of the activity.
You can see the article about the Active Assignment view of this tool here.
Accessibility
We're devoted to making our tools as accessible as possible for all learners - to read more about accessibility in FeedbackFruits tools, check this article: Accessibility: Within FeedbackFruits Tools.
Step 1: Instructions
Here, you can see the instructions written when setting up the assignment. These can be changed by clicking on Edit on the top right corner of the screen.
Collaboration Options
Directly underneath the instructions, you can select options for student collaboration.
When selecting student collaboration options, there are several configurations to choose from. Please bear in mind that collaboration options need to be selected before students participate in the assignment - once a student makes progress, the configurations can't be updated.
Options for how students are evaluated:
Individually
As a group
Options for students evaluate:
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Individually. Students will individually get assigned to anyone.
Within groups. Students individually get assigned someone within their group. (Disabled if ‘as a group’ option for hand in is chosen).
Outside of their group. Students individually get assigned to someone, not in their group. (Disabled if ‘as a group’ option for hand in is chosen).
As a group. Group gets assigned to review another group. After the group comes to agreement, any member can submit the review on behalf of the group. (Disabled if ‘individually’ option for hand in is chosen).
Individually, same work per group member. Each member of a group gets assigned to review the same group. Reviews are made individually. (Disabled if ‘individually’ option for hand in is chosen).
For more information on configuring groups when using FeedbackFruits within Blackboard, Brightspace or Canvas, click here. If it's not possible to sync the groups within your LMS or if you are using the platform, you can find more information about how to create groups here.
Step 2: Given Reviews
In this step, you can specify criteria to help guide students as they give feedback. Click configure to edit, add, or delete criteria. Click here for a detailed guide on setting criteria.
Required number of peers to review: Specify how many peers/groups each student has to review. Reviewing multiple peers is good practice, giving students a broader view of how their peers did in the assignment. At the same time, it means that students get reviewed by several peers, giving a better, more nuanced view of their own efforts.
Self-assessment: Students are able to review their own work before reviewing their peers.
Automatic outlier detection: To enable Analytics to detect outliers in group ratings and identify students of interest.
Note: to enable automatic outlier detection, you should configure the following:
Scheduling deadlines: Set the deadline for giving feedback. Note that reviewers will not be able to view or edit their reviews after this deadline passes. Leave the deadline blank to allow reviewers to view and/or edit their feedback indefinitely.
If a closing date is specified, you can also grant students an extension to make a review after the deadline. By selecting this option, you can specify which students will regain access to this step and assign them a new deadline of your choosing.
Allocations: By clicking change you will be able to select your preferred method of allocation. If you set this to all, students will have to review everybody in their group - it's important to be mindful of the student workload when using this setting.
Automatically - One by one: The students will be assigned a review one by one, the second review will appear after starting the first one, and so on. This is the default and recommended method of allocation.
Automatically - All at once: Only available if the amount of required reviews is set higher than 1. With this allocation option, students will be assigned all the reviews they'll have to complete at once. The advantage of this is that students will see all their peers at once. The disadvantage is that it allows for less flexibility, i.e. if students only complete 1 review, the others can no longer be assigned to.
Manually: You get to assign all the allocations manually.
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Students choose to review: Students get to select the peer or group they want to review.
Anonymity: Enabling this option will make reviewers anonymous. Reviewers will still see the name of the peer they are reviewing. Teachers can also see the name of the reviewer.
Visibility: Choose when the students can see their feedback. You can set this to instantly, after release date, a certain date or never.
Guiding students (optional): If you have specific hand-in instructions for your students (such as the desired font, line spacing, naming the file, etc.) fill them in here.
Here, you can also enable Feedback writing tips, which automatically display one tip at a time as students write feedback. Additionally, there's a Review checklist that is shown to students during the review process, and a Feedback coach that provides AI-powered, real-time feedback to help students improve their reviews.
Step 3: Received Reviews and Feedback-on-Feedback
In step 3, You can choose to enable or disable the option for students to provide feedback on the feedback they received. Here, you can also set a deadline. Keep in mind that if a deadline was set in the previous step, this step will only become available once the previous step's deadline has passed.
Step 4: Reflections (Optional)
If you want your students to reflect on the outcomes of the activity and their learning, this is where they will do so. When setting up this step, you can specify the required length of the written reflection, with a minimum of 1 word and a maximum of 5000 words.
You can also set a deadline for when students must complete their reflection and enable features like the Reflection Coach, which provides AI-powered, real-time feedback to help students improve their reflections. This option is available under the Guiding Students section.
However, please note that this step is optional. If you decide that student reflections are unnecessary, you can remove this step by clicking the X button in the top right corner.
Grading
After finishing setting up the core of the assignment, it is possible to add the configurable grading module. Click here to learn more about how this grading module works.
You also have the option to publish the grade either as a percentage or as pass/fail, and you can choose whether to enable the Group Contribution Grading feature.
For more information on how to configure this feature, please check this article :
Group Member Evaluation | Group Contribution Grading | Group Contribution Factor
Good to Know
Anonymity: If anonymity is enabled, the students work under a pseudonym, but the teacher can always see the student name.