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6. What if one member of our team does not contribute his or her fair share to the project?
Use laboratory sessions to collaborate on the portfolio project because your team will be together. Not all labs take the full two hours to complete, so use all of your extra lab time to discuss portfolios and question the teaching assistants. Get together in the lab during the weekly open lab session or meet at a computing site.
Take the positive step of duplicating all of your research efforts. Each person should investigate all three natural disasters, then pool the results regularly to identify the best material. This is critically important for two reasons. One, four people will find more information, and you can discuss your different findings - this promotes exploration and learning. Two, it prevents the following situation: "Dr. Smith, the group member responsible for volcanoes did virtually nothing. We were stuck without decent data."
In science, it is unethical for a person who fails to contribute to an investigation to take credit. Similarly, it would not be fair for someone who contributed little or nothing to a group effort to be awarded the same grade as team members who did the work, or a person who did much more than their share of the work to not be rewarded for it. At the time of the portfolio presentation, each person will fill out a secret ballot ranking their own and their teammates' contributions to the presentation and the report. The process will be used to adjust individual grades for the portfolio project. A copy of the ballot is contained in this handout and will be explained in class.
Finally, I use the following as a motivational tool to encourage collaboration and ensure individual accountability: the instructor reserves the right to pose an essay question on the final exam such as: "outline your contribution to the portfolio project" or "outline why Delaware is likely/not likely to experience a hurricane/volcano/earthquake by citing evidence you gathered and contributed to your team report/presentation."
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