Thank you for gathering us together, Elise!

Jessica, it’s really nice to see you!

no problem Amanda!

Hello! I realize you have us muted :)

We’re not able to unmute

Can’t unmute

^^^

Yes, we can’t unmute

Elise, would you mind to unmute me?

same

(Cant unmute)

I’m hoping to learn a good group size / way to collaborate for students on team projects, as students in my spring class identified that as a particular struggle.

Yes, I can hear, I can’t unmute

Thanks, Elise!

Did students want more office hours in theory, or were they actually more utilized? We experience this sometimes; students want more of them to be available if we ask, even if they don’t actually use them.

I’ve heard that students showed up in many courses.

But yes, knowing they could go puts them at ease even if they don’t go

Wow, neat!

We’re trying :)

The free rider problem was compounded in my class due to the S/U system, making our peer assessment more or less irrelevant to their grade. Hopefully that will be different this semester?

I have a few questions

But can’t unmute again

I think whenever we mute ourselves again to prevent random noises, we can’t unmute ourselves afterward.

Get this message: “The host is not allowing participants to unmute themselves.”

I also get this message

just let me know if you want to be unmuted. I have it set up right but Zoom is not cooperating.

@Brandon, yes, we hope with the termination of the SU default that problem will improve a bit. S/U create A LOT of slackers, and thus inequity

Indeed, these are the *very hard* problems, Amanda. I’m going to try to catch all of your topics: (1) mental health issues, (2) equity and missing out from on campus / off campus, (3) illness on a team.

Elise, I have a follow up on Amanda’s comments

Can you unmute me?

Thank you!

And if we are peer-grading, how do we do that? If a student prefers to keep their illness hidden (and I’ve heard many are b/c of stigma) how do we let their student team members to be generous and understanding?

Um, and faculty illness!

I use peer evaluations for the team based work in my class as well. One thing I am considering doing for peer evaluations is to separate it from the grade or structure it as “extra-credit” given the atypical and challenging aspects to the semester ahead.

you could also use qualitative feedback instead of quantitative

It almost seems like we need to think about setting things up such that no student is truly dependent on another student "doing their part" -- how does this mesh with "collaboration"?

Several things we are doing: 1. making teams a bit larger than normal to allow for inevitable issues 2. Revolving team roles so that no one is entirely responsible for one full aspect of the project 3. Self evaluations instead of team evaluations

I also, for Story+, told the student it was up to them to decide who to tell and how

So, for Story+, the students did indeed collaborate - and for my Spring course as well. So it is possible! And magical!

I agree that smaller collaborative projects would be better — avoid big semester projects

We’re doing a mix of both for our fall class

Magical, I like it!

I also think Amanda’s right — larger than usual groups to pick up less work with small assignments

I’m muted

One thing we've done in certain cases is, where 1 group has fewer members, adjust the rubric / expectations for that group (reduce their expected scope a bit). Just a thought - perhaps this is relevant for possible illnesses etc

If they define their own success, it also helps make sure the students don’t feel they are competing against each other in their team and/or with other teams.

It is also sometimes those who need the most help who are least likely to ask for it

Collaborative projects allow the students to connect - and that seems critical right now

We are doing that by putting students together in pods as ‘thought-partners’ - they help each other and share their work but they are not technically working together

We designed exercises for students to get to know each other and they seemed to work. They were creating mini-projects together to get to know each other while making together

I can't un-mute myself b

Thank you, Elise and Jennifer for guiding us today!

Thanks for some great ideas for the group[

For Story+, we set up a range of various models and support systems and then let the individual teams and their ‘clients’ work together to devise which model of communication/collaboration would work best for them

I am also planning for a client-focused (community partner) product

happy to share if I can be unmuted!

Thank you everyone!

have to run, thanks all!!

Thank you so much, Jennifer and Elise!

Elise -- Is there a way to save the chat? These questions comments are really useful!

Great to learn from everyone hear!

her

here

very valuable, thanks