Giving Proper Credit to the Creative Members of the Group

           Cooperative project is an effective way to develop the higher thinking skills of the students because each member of the group can give their ideas that can contribute to the development of their group outputs. In the group project the members have an opportunity to give their suggestions and ideas for the task given to them. As they give their opinions about the activity, there will be an exchange of ideas to one another and after they do so they will now of course evaluate on which suggestions are the best for their project. And after the layout or the blue print of their project has been set they will now proceed to the creation of their project. This project will of course be rated by the teacher and the grade of the output will be the grade of each member of the group.  The fact that the group is consist of three or more members there is the possibility that not all of them can equally contribute for the project as far as individual differences is concerned. Some may have the talent of being creative but others don’t have, so the other members can ride on the creative talent of one or some members of the group and these creative members are the key to the success of their group output. If their output becomes successful, of course each of them will be given equal score since it is a group project and those who are not creative are lucky to have a creative group mates.

             In groupings there is the possibility that one of the groups can have all group members who are not creative and the other groups which have those creative members are more advantageous than to them, even if you are not artistic, when you luckily belong on the best group then you can expect that you can earn better grades for the group project that your group has accomplish even if you contributed less. Therefore the teachers should also rate the individual performance of the group members as credit for their great performance. In order to rate each of them, since the class is divided in two or more groups, the teacher must visit every group from time to time so that he/she can monitor each student’s performances. But if the group projects are made outside the classroom or outside the school premises, the teacher cannot be able to monitor them so he/she can ask every member of the group about their rating for each of their group members or maybe the teacher could ask each groups if who are their group members who contribute greatly in doing their group project so that the teacher can give them proper credit.

            There are many forms of giving credit to those members of the group who has the best performance in making their project; it can be in the form of grades, certificate, commendation or any tangible rewards. It depends on the teacher on what kind of recognition he/she will give them.