Improving efficacy of peer-evaluation in team project scenarios

A vast majority of engineering programs now include one or more project courses in the curricular core, in which students work in teams to solve realistic engineering challenges. Although team projects undoubtedly have strong potential for developing critical teaming skills, individual performance in these skill areas is not easily accessible to the instructor; monitoring and documenting the extent to which individual learning actually occurs in team project contexts represents a difficult challenge. In this paper, we describe an effective system we have developed to gain insight into internal team dynamics and individual performance based on an integration of structured task reports and anonymous peer evaluations. Benefits include early detection of internal team difficulties, an effective system for documenting individual contributions in team contexts, and a strong mechanism for differentiating student grades based on individual performance. Despite the minimalist philosophy shaping the evolution of our approach, truly effective use of the system developed requires substantial time investment by the instructor; we close by outlining an online system we are developing to largely automate the team management process. Benefits of automation include real-time feedback to instructor and team members, automated flagging of potential trouble, and automatic documentation of contributions/performance for individual team members.