Rubrics

I like rubrics because in my long career as a student I often did not know what the teacher expected. I would ask and get vague answers. 

Rubrics should tell students what is expected. Students want to know how long an answer is required. Have you ever asked that question and received an answer like: “As long as necessary” but then, when the answer is submitted had points taken off because it was too long or too short? I have. 

Students should also know what is how they will be graded. I have found that including examples of good and poor submissions from past classes really helps students. 

Common rubric mistakes:

• Adopting a rubric from an online site that does not fit the assignment.
• Too detailed.
• Being so inclusive that it makes the assignment time consuming for the teacher to grade.
• Going from low to high instead of high to low in the scale.

I do not think rubrics are the complete solution. For several years I was a reader of grants. There were usually 4-5 people on a team, and we had a rubric, and we scored individually first sand then came together and compared our answers.  Although we all had the same rubric our scores often were very dissimilar. So, rubrics yes, but also written feedback to students. I think every rubric should include a column for teacher feedback, explaining why the grade was given. More work for the teacher? Yes. More fair to the students? Definitely. 

Adding Pictures to Your Online Class

IMPORTANT note on pictures of people: You should also be careful of including pictures of people in your online course. HIPPA and FERPA guidelines should be followed.

You should have their written consent to do this. I know it is done all the time, but it only takes one time for somebody to get upset and then you are in trouble. Also some students copy pictures from our classes and post them on sites like FaceBook, and that can be a problem.

I would suggest that you start with graphics from a public domain site. One site is http://antiqueclipart.com/ or http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/clipart/default.aspx

NOTE ON COPYRIGHT:  

The CONFU (conference on Fair Use) has established the following guidelines for what you can use following the guidelines:

·         For motion media -(e.g., video clips) up to 10% or 3 minutes, whichever is less.

·         For text- up to 10% or 1000 words, whichever less.

·         For music - up to 10% or 30 seconds, whichever is less.

·         For photos and images

·         Up to 5 works from one author.

·         Up to 10% or 15 works, whichever is less, from a collection

The reference is http://copyright.lib.utexas.edu/confu.html

 Criteria for Adding Multimedia in the Online Classroom

Adding multimedia to the online classroom can enhance student learning. It can also distract from content and be a time waster.  In making decisions as to what multimedia to add I use the following criteria:

• 1.       Does it add a missing piece to the content?
• 2.       Is it easy for the students to access?
• 3.       Is it relatively easy for me to create, or to find on the Web?
• 4.       If it is on the web is the source reputable?
• 5.       Is there a text alternative, which is required by ADA?

#1. As a teacher of teachers I see a lot of multimedia being added to class because it is “glitzy.” A certain amount of “glitz” does make the class interesting. It is, however, easy to go overboard. One teacher put an emoticon in every message posted. After a while it was too much and a distraction. 

#2. I realize that sometimes students have slow connections, and multimedia takes a long time to load. Recently I was away from my home computer and, although I could get WiFi, the connection was dial-up. When I tried to access a video I could get to it, but received the message that a 6-minute video would take an hour to download. This is not acceptable for students. There must be an alternative.

#3. While I believe every teacher should have the support of an IT department usually the Instructional Technologists are overloaded. Teachers must be trained to do a lot of the work themselves, and often some will enjoy developing multimedia content. However, there is much already on the web, and teachers just need to know where to find it. I have a Diigo.com account that is a web site exchange where teachers share web sites. I find it very useful.

#4. However, not everything on the Web is worthwhile. Just as we tell our students to only use academic sources we should always check the author of any web-based multimedia creations (videos, games, graphics) that we share with the class. And, as teachers, we should be aware of Copyright law. We cannot just download and use without permission. We can link to web sites, but downloading to our computer is often not compliant with copyright.

#5. Not all students can profit from multimedia. A text alternative is required for ADA.  This also helps students with slow connections, or computers without sound cards (yes, there are some of those still around).

Online discussions and rubrics

Microsoft clip art

  One way to establish community in an online class is to require challenging discussion questions. These questions should test whether the students have read the material, but also if possible allow them to apply to their own life. It is not always easy to develop good discussion questions.  

There is a big discussion in online teaching as to whether the discussions should be set up so that most students get full credit, or if the discussions should require research.  If you do require research it is a good idea to ask the students in their initial post to cite references.  Creating good discussion questions is an art, but you do get better as you teach. I am still learning. 

Rubrics are important in grading any work, but are especially helpful to you and the students for group work grading. I like rubrics that go from high to low. I also like rubrics that are not too complicated – no more than 5 categories. In advanced classes I grade using the rubric, and give my grade with the rubric to the student. It looks like this:

Rubric category 1 ( I copy it from the rubric)

·         Points

·         My comments in red

Rubric category 2 (Copied from the rubric)

·         Points

·         My comments in red

That takes a lot of time, but students do see why they got the grade they did

Using the Blackboard Assignment Tool

 Microsoft Clip Art Image

The Assignment tool is, without a doubt, THE MOST DIFFICULT TOOL TO FIGURE OUT IN BLACKBOARD. It is powerful, however, it is tricky. It is also confusing to grade. It is suitable for short essays and papers, not quizzes or discussions.

You can weight grades. You do this through the grade book. There is an option at the top of the grade book to weight each grade individually.

Once you get the purpose and the way to handle this you will be fine, but is not intuitive. It is not intuitive for the students either. You will help your students when you give good directions.

Also – you can give feedback with your grade. I don’t know if students look at the feedback, but you can give it to them.

 I now realize I need to tell students where to find the Grade book.

1.      What type of comments should be in the instructor reply in the Blackboard assignments? I would say anything you would normally tell the students in a face-to-face class. If you have them upload a file with their answers then you can use the “track changes” feature of Word (it’s under the Review button in Word 2007) to comment inside the paper. Then you upload the paper for them. Alert them that the Blackboard Assignment is there. You need a calendar somewhere in the course that gives dates needed. You can include an announcement about the assignment. Unfortunately, announcements are often missed. Be sure to move the current announcement to the top of YOUR announcements (just use the little numbered box in front of the announcement) but the institution will always be able to put an announcement higher than yours.  

2.      Warn students about the ! so they don’t think it is a 1. One student was very upset that I only gave her a 1 in the assignment until I reassured her.

3.      Put the Blackboard assignment inside the folder for the week or unit. Once you have deployed it becomes hard to move.

4.      Once you make a comment on the assignment the student can no longer reply to you there. They would have to email you. That’s why I wish Blackbaord had a Journal feature where there could be a conversation. It’s in the newer versions of Blackboard. Now I include my email in my comments. Yes, I have given students my email in the Syllabus and the faculty profile, but I repeat it at the end of my comments.

5.      Is the assignment is appropriate for multiple choice questions? The answer is NO.

Blackboard has a “quiz” feature that will allow us to do that. 

6.      Notice that when you develop a Blackboard assignment it goes DIRECTLY INTO THE GRADEBOOK. You do not have to manually do this, which is a big plus. The grade you assign is automatically added to the total grade.

7.      You can give an example of what you want students to do in the assignments. I like this idea. I know some educational psychologists (especially Ellen Langer from Harvard) believe that giving an example limits students but I disagree. I have been in classes as a student and remember thinking: “What does that teacher want?” When I tried to pin down the assignment I was often told that I had to “be creative.” That’s ok but then I would not want points taken off because of creativity. What I often do is ask students who have submitted good work if they would allow me to use their answers as examples. I give them credit. So far, no students have refused this. They seem happy to do this. By law, you cannot use student work unless you request because it is copyrighted once it is entered by the student. 

8.   There are positives and negatives in giving students a guide to the length you expect. Look at this from a student's viewpoint. If I am asked a question I have no idea how long the answer should be. Personally, I believe it is fair to give them some guidance in this issue.

9.      Students have problems with APA. There are web references you can refer them to if you wish. There is the Flash tutorial  http://flash1r.apa.org/apastyle/basics/index.htmhttp://flash1r.apa.org/apastyle/basics/index.htm and the Citation machine http://citationmachine.net/ . If students do their assignments using the iPad there is no facility for italics. I wonder what APA will do about this.