Create Affinity Groups for Interaction

The following are some possible strategies for helping students engage in their groups more readily, as well as an option for increasing the accountability of students contributing to their group's work.

Creating Affinity Groups - from Aaron Warnock

One strategy I use is creating Affinity Groups for students to complete certain assignments. The assignments (weekly written math applications) don't relate to these group titles, but it gives students a camaraderie with each other as they work together. I used to get quite a few complaints from students about having to do group work in an online class - but the implementation of these Affinity Groups has practically eliminated those complaints.

As I read their First Day Biography submissions, I make notes of hobbies and interests of students. As I see trends of something being mentioned 3 or 4 times, I list them as a potential group category. Then I create a group set, and name the groups based on those categories. Almost every quarter I have "Parents", "Binge Watchers", "Gamers', "Travelers" as groups. You can even add alliteration for more flare, like "Proud Parents" or "Great Gamers". It is also fun to keep an eye out for those unique groups that surface in a given quarter. "Anti-Coffeers" for example - a group of students who surfaced declaring their dislike for coffee, or "Foodies Forever". I choose to cap the groups at 5, and select "Allow self sign-up". I also create more groups than necessary, because I don't know exactly what students will be drawn to. Lastly, I always create a "z. None of the Above" group, so as not to force a student to join something they don't associate with, though they might get paired with a group later.

 

 

After creating the groups, I give the students directions to go to the "People" tab and join one of the available groups. A day or two before the self-selection deadline, I message students who haven't selected a group Links to an external site., reminding them to do so. Once that deadline has passed, I put those who haven't selected a group into the newly created "Non-Responders" group and encourage them to choose a new name amongst themselves. I also check for groups with just 1 or 2 members, and combine them, getting creative with the name - like "Binge Hikers" (combination of "Binge Watchers" and "Hikers-R-Us"). Lastly, delete the groups that didn't attract any students, and you have students in groups with similar interests, that just encourages their interactions with each other.

Student Accountability in Group Work - from Aaron Warnock

It is important that students are responsible and accountable to contribute to their group, as mentioned in this article from Carnegie Melon's Eberly Center of Teaching Excellence and Educational Innovation Links to an external site.. One way I do this is by having a simple graded survey  Links to an external site.due after the assignment. It is a one-question survey, that asks whether everyone in the group participated, or please name those who didn't. I make it worth some nominal (free) points, to encourage responses.

 

 

Then you can view the Survey Statistics and Student Analysis to learn who didn't participate.  

 

 

After reviewing the student responses, I usually visit the group's pages to confirm that students reported did in fact not contribute anything. Then you must decide what the consequence will be. Do they get a 0% on the assignment? A reduced grade? One warning first? I find that after one 0%, students either start participating to avoid recurrence or establish a pattern of non-participation. After 2 or 3 instances of a student not participating, I usually move them to a "Non-responders" group, so the other groups members don't have to keep reporting them.

 

Managing the Group Grades

1. When initially assigning an assignment to a group, I do NOT check the box for "Assign Grades to Each Student Individually". This way, I only have to grade each assignment once - and the grade applies to all members of the group.  
   
   
   
   
2. After reviewing the Group Participation report, I go back to the assignment settings and retroactively select the "Assign Grades to Each Student Individually" box. This allows me to then change the grades of non-participating students, without affecting the rest of the group.

Cautions:

• If you check the box to assign grades to each individual student before initial grading (see #1 above), you'll have 30+ assignments to grade, instead of 6 or 7 (one per group).
• If you don't check the box when attempting to reduce a non-participator's score to 0% (see #2 above), it will change all members of the group to zero.

 

The process of grading a group assignments initially, and then changing individual scores after the fact is also summarized in these two posts.

Group Assignment Grading Links to an external site.

Best Practice for Grading Group Assignments Links to an external site.