Cooperative Learning - NIE Digital Repository - National Institute of ...

Influence of Peer Assessment 1072. peer assessment raises awareness of the importance of group dynamics;3. pees assessment also reduces the presence of free-rider members withingroups considerably.The decision to go ahead and introduce peer assessment for cooperativelearning tasks also stems from the fact that people like to be recognizedfor their achievements, a fact which Yueh and Alessi (1988) claimcan help foster self-esteem. Student teachers need to know that each ofthem, in their own unique way, can contribute to the success of the group.This would help the student teachers realize their potential. The authorsconsidered this suggestion in the design of the intra-group peer assessmentand this was implemented for the student teachers for this electivemodule at NIE.MethodIt was noticed by the authors during the previous teaching of the modulethat the participation of student teachers in cooperative group-tutorialwork varied as some put in a lot of effort while others did the minimumjudged by their participation in class as well as through our personal interactionwith the student teachers. The success element of cooperative groupwork depends on positive interdependence and individual accountability.For positive interdependence, there must be awareness among groupmembers that their success is linked to that of others. For individualaccountability, each group member has to be accountable to do his/her partand help others complete the group task successfully.Therefore, it was decided for the module that the authors wereteaching, the student teachers would be assessed for participation in tutorialpreparation and presentation. Using this approach, the authors hopedto engage the student teachers fully in the tutorial activities. The authorsalso decided to involve the student teachers in the assessment process forboth the group presentations (inter-group product evaluation) as well asthe contribution of fellow group members to the success of the group'swork (intra-group process evaluation). This is based on the assumptionthat since they know what each group member has done and contributedto the task, they are in the best position to assess. This procedure is a departurefrom the norm in assessment practices at NIE where students are notinvolved in assessing peers' work. Though this procedure is quite widely