[game_edu] Evaluating individual students on semester long project classes

[Bangsberg, Keld]

It has been interesting to read the different responses.  I use a blend of a few different approaches:

I have established a very basic rubric that outlines expectations across a number of parameters, such as quality of work, communication, meets deadlines, etc.  I grade each student and everyone does both a self evaluation and an evaluation of their peers using this framework (on a scale of 1-10 for each item).  I use the self and peer evaluations as a reference to see if my perception/observations align with that of the students.  Typically my numbers fall between the self eval and that of their peers.  I then make adjustments to my original scoring as I see fit.

We do this at both midterms and finals so that there are at least two points of reference.

- Keld

Keld Bangsberg
Academic Department Director
* Game Art & Design
* Media Arts & Animation
* Visual & Game Programming

Ai - The Art Institute of Portland
1122 NW Davis ~ Portland, OR 97209-2911
kbangsberg at aii.edu
503.382.4749



-----Original Message-----
From: game_edu-bounces at igda.org [mailto:game_edu-bounces at igda.org] On Behalf Of Robert R. Kessler
Sent: Wednesday, January 04, 2012 7:10 AM
To: game_edu at igda.org
Subject: [game_edu] Evaluating individual students on semester long project classes

We have been teaching semester long video game development project classes for years (two semesters in our capstone class and also in our master's program).  We have tried a whole bunch of different techniques to try and evaluate the performance of individual students within the team.  For anyone that has taught these classes, there are always a handful of students on each team that work their tails off and contribute most of the code or art assets to the project.  Many students put in the time that is required of the class (we use the rough formula of 3 hours per week per credit hour of the class) and get their tasks done, but because of other commitments never do any more.  Lastly there are the handful that just don't get much done.  The question is how do you set up an evaluation system that fairly evaluates these students and gives them the appropriate grades.  For example, when you have the middle tier students who do their work, but nothing extra, do they deserve A's?  
 They have done everything that you asked of them?  Then what do you do for the over achievers?

The techniques that we've tried are (note, we typically have an area lead appointed over engineering, arts, and design, and then a team lead)

1) Have each area leader report whether each student did their work and how well they did it (we've tried evaluating them as: C - if they did their job, B - if they did it and did an excellent job, A - if they did B work and then went above and beyond and did more - as in worked on extra items from the sprint backlog).  For the area leads, they are evaluated by the team lead and then the team lead is evaluated by the area-leads.

2) Have each student create a gamer blog and include in it each week, what they were assigned to do.  Then make an entry at the end of the week with what they accomplished and to show evidence.  We the teaching staff then go in and evaluate it weekly.

Neither of these have been quite satisfactory.

Note from an experience point of view, it is certainly true that in business some folks work harder than others.  Management usually knows who those people are, mostly because they are all in the same environment all week long, whereas we are stuck with only really interacting with the students during class time.  Management can give raises, bonuses, whatever.  But the limited contact time is one key problem.

So, is there a technique that you have used that you feel works really well for evaluating individual student performance when working on a long term project?

Thanks.
Bob.

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