Group Assessment

After your group has finished their thematic leadership, each individual member of the group should separately send me an email with a short assessment of the performance of themself and of each of the other members of the group. You can send this in a .docx file with your name and group name, or in the body of the email.

For this group assessment, you should provide a “score” for yourself and each of your peers, from 1 to 7, along with a short explanation of why you gave that score. In scoring your teammates, you should focus not merely on specific content that group members may have contributed, but also to the effect that the group member had on the dynamics of the group. (A brilliant interpreter of Leibniz who is hostile and uncooperative may get a 1. A student who struggles to understand very basic arguments in Sor Juana but is able to ask questions well and get their teammates to cooperate in completing the assignment well might get a 6 or 7.) Be fair with your assessments, both of yourself and of your teammates. You should give at most one score above five (and even that, only if truly warranted).

Here is the meaning I intend for you to give to the scores you assign:

1 = Unacceptable performance. This group member did not contribute to the success of the group, and/or may even have slowed us down.

2 = Poor. This group member contributed something, but either the quantity or the quality of their contributions were weak. Virtually none of their contributions showed up in the final result, or if they did, group members regret not having the time to change these contributions.

3 = Below Average. This group member made real and positive contributions that improved the final product, but not in ways as significant or pervasive as one would expect of a typical Whitman student.

4 = Average/Good. This group member did their duty, contributing a reasonable amount of reasonably high-quality insight, thought, hard work, and cooperative engagement with the group. Their ideas made a significant and positive contribution to the final product. (This should be the default score.)

5 = Very good. This group member went above and beyond what one would expect of a typical member of a group. They had insights far beyond other members of the group, and/or raised important questions that focused on key issues, and/or explained difficult material to other group members in particularly clear and helpful ways, and/or helped organize or motivate the rest of the group in particularly important ways. (You should give at most one score above 5.)

6 = Excellent. This group member transformed the group in a way that made the final product and the overall experience manifestly better than they would otherwise have been. They were a de facto team leader, motivating and organizing us, and they contributed in essential and irreplaceable ways to our performance as a team. (You should give at most one score above 5.)

7 = Extraordinary. I could not have imagined a team member as valuable as this one. They should be hired as a Whitman professor, or at least as TA for this class next year.

I may use anonymized positive comments about your peers in letters of recommendation for those students, so please do not include any positive comments you would not want me to use in that way.

I may share anonymized comments with group members and/or express general complements or concerns with them. If you would prefer that I not share your comments with your peers, please indicate that in those comments.