Evaluating Simultaneous Group Activities Through Self- and Peer-Assessment: Addressing the "Evaluation Challenge" in Active Learning

Abstract Instructors seeking to add active learning elements to their courses encounter an “evaluation challenge” when trying to assign grades to discussion-based activities that do not produce a final product. By creating a way to incorporate evaluation into hard-to-observe activities, the protocol presented here can help instructors make active learning elements a key part of the evaluation of courses and, by providing a simple framework, reduce time spent marking. Drawing on debates in the scholarship of teaching and learning focused on reducing bias and grading irregularities in peer-evaluation, and building directly on Lawrence Li’s normalization protocol, this procedure combines marks from both self- and peer-evaluations, controlling for irregular grading practices and differences in subjective marking “toughness.” As the community of the scholarship of teaching and learning in politics and international relations continues to grow, continued attention on evaluation can help ensure that this important element of pedagogical practice can be improved to better fit the realities of today’s classroom (real or virtual).