Education suffers from a lag in feedback. Gamers expect real-time feedback, and when they have even a slight lag, it impairs their performance and creates frustration. Timely feedback is even more critical for functioning within a group. Yet the only feedback students provide their peers (if any) is a peer evaluation at the end of their experience. Instead of getting timely feedback to course-correct, team members receive too little too late.
We know that students hate group work, but we also know working in a group is important. Dropping students into groups without teaching how to work together or monitoring their progress is like throwing them in the deep end to learn to swim. Some will learn to swim despite this. Some will learn to fear the water. And some will learn to use their peers as floatation devices.
I think the next-generation peer evaluation tool, should be more than a peer-eval at the end. I think this service should facilitate groups from the moment they are assigned to the post-submission peer evaluation.
I think the tool should periodically check in with team members, lead them to resources for tackling specific issues, and help them draft communications with each other. And as it collects this ongoing data, UI components provide an overview of team health to the students and instructors, as real-time feedback.
Example:
When I am assigned to a group, perhaps they system suggests an introduction activity or has people agree on availability and preferred modes of communication.
Every week (or every few days, or however the instructor configures it), I get likert or slider question about how the experience is going overall, and the option to do a likert on each team member.
If I rate something extremely low, perhaps the system asks further questions about why. Based on my answer I may be directed to a helpful article or asked if I want to send a message to that team member or my instructor. It may even offer suggested wording for how to provide that feedback.
If I rate something extremely high, perhaps the system suggests that I praise someone on my team. It may even offer suggested wording for how to provide that feedback. I may even have the option to provide them a badge or special status.
My instructor can see a dashboard with ratings teams, and be able to drill down into a team to look at individual members. They can also see incoming messages, which are coded by positive or negative feedback. And the can see who has been awarded badges.