Team & Individual Grades

In some instances, an instructor might choose to grade the assignment on both a team and individual level.  For instance, a 100-point project might be broken into a 50-point team grade and a 50-point individual grade.  The individual grade is typically assigned based on some form of team evaluation, or a self assessment where each team member documents his or her contributions to the overall project.  Each member of the team receives the same team grade. In other instances, each team member might be responsible for a specific portion of the overall team project. For example, each team member might, individually, have to develop a literature review before embarking on a larger, team-based research project. In this instance, the literature review is graded individually. The team then combines all the knowledge gained through all four literature reviews to better inform the research project. At the end of the semester, the team shares a single team grade for the final research project.

Advantages

  • Provides a great deal of opportunity to reward high performers
  • Students feel they have more control over their individual grade
Disadvantages
  • Can be time consuming for the instructor.