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.

More Time Saving Tips for Online Teachers

If you are not available by phone after a certain time at night let the students know this. You may want to encourage students new to the technology, especially if they are in the class with experienced technology users, that it will be easier as they go along. You may need a phone conference with a few.  Be at your computer and encourage them to be at their computer also.

Make friends with the IT support people. 

Set limits on your time. As in life there is a “happy medium.”  If you try to respond to every post within 6 hours you will exhaust yourself. However, if you only log on once or twice a week then you will have a lot to read and respond to and students may wonder if you are reading their messages.  

Set up a comfortable place to do your computer work. Be comfortable. That’s the big advantage. Remember you do not have to dress up, drive your car, find a parking place, and walk to the office. Enjoy that freedom. 

Make up a printable list of all class assignments with due dates and tell your students where it is. Print it yourself so you can keep track of it. 

You will occasionally find a student who “over posts,” replying to every posting. Many times the other students in the class will handle this. An e-mail from you also helps. I would never make a comment to the student in the discussion board itself. 

I do find it helpful, especially for undergrad students, to have specific days assignments are due. In my case, it is Tuesday and Friday. I remind the students: “Every Tuesday and Friday you know you have an assignment. If you wake up and it’s Tuesday or Friday then you know there is an assignment due.” In graduate courses I have assignments due at the end of the week, but I do require original posts earlier than replies. 

 A good question: “What happens if we get sick or something happens in our life that means we will be away for a while?” There may be times when we can’t log on. Maybe we had a horrible thing happen in our lives: sickness, death of one close to us, an emergency at work. I think if we can manage to let the students know they will understand. I have left with my husband a list of contact people in case anything happens to me.

Use copy and paste and other functions of your Word Processor when appropriate. I know an English teacher was tired of seeing the same errors over and over again in student work so she took the time to make up Word macros for common errors like comma slice. She would then just have to press, for example, ALT-C and the information on common slice would appear. You can also use the Track Changes feature to make corrections in a different color inside student assignments. 

Let the students know IN THE BEGINNING OF THE CLASS that this is NOT an independent study course, and that they will have deadlines to meet. If you expect discussion then let them know that also. I do give a short quiz on the Syllabus, worth a few points. If students expect “fun and games” then I want them to drop the course during the drop/add period.  I allow students to retake the quiz until they get the questions correct because I want them to know the requirements.

Self Paced vs Set Schedule Online Courses

In the past, self paced credit baring online classes have shown a decided pattern of low retention. http://ncolr.org/jiol/issues/pdf/8.2.5.pdf  http://www.pearsonlearningsolutions.com/blog/2012/04/24/increasing-student-retention-in-online-courses/

 

Yet, with the emergence of the Khan Academy and MOOC courses the issue has arisen again about self paced online courses. U of Wisconsin has plans to offer a complete degree online.http://www.wisgov.state.wi.us/Default.aspx?Page=8657930e-a3ed-49a1-92f4-2b6b4dbb0838

Can online courses without discussions and community forming among learners succeed?

Proponents point to business training courses, which are usually self paced. They succeed because they are narrowly focused on learning a program or a set of rules, and are required for employment. Online courses that follow this model – short term, skill based, may succeed if self paced. One example I can think of is the student who had Algebra in high school and received a passing grade but returns later to college and cannot pass a Basic Skills test. Teachers who teach these students tell me that after a few weeks it “all comes back” and students can proceed on their own. In cases like this it seems worthwhile to let students proceed at their own pace.

However, in the traditional class, in the major and electives, a learning community helps student retention. That means students must participate in discussions and that cannot happen unless students have a definite time frame: Post a response to a discussion question by a certain date and respond by a later date.

When I first started teaching online classes I thought I had the answer to the dilemma. I told students in the beginning of the class that, although there were deadlines, they could go on three “tracks.” For example, in the Fall term, they could complete all assignments by the first week in December and I would enter their grade then. Most students would stay in the traditional schedule and complete work by the last week in December end date. However, a student could elect to go on the “extended” track and have until the end of January to complete the work. All discussions had to be on time, and the last discussion ended at the end of November, but all other work had three deadlines: early, traditional and extended. The worked for a while but then became a logistical mess, with financial aid students required to be on the traditional track, and students needing a grade for their transcript forced to avoid the extended track. I had to monitor students who were on the extended track after the course “officially” ended and enter an override grade. After a few years I reverted to one track. 

Do I think that self paced courses will work? Maybe, for the very dedicated, mature students, who have a definite goal in mind. For the traditional college aged student, taking course toward a degree, I have my doubts.

Free Online Books About Online Teaching

Even though web sites are a wonderful reference sometimes it is nice to read a book. I keep a list of free online books about online learning and am sharing. If you have any suggestions please share them.

http://www.col.org/resources/crsMaterials/Pages/edDigitalWorld.aspx Harper, David G. Education for a Digital World: Advice, Guidelines, and Effective Practice from Around the Globe. Vancouver: BC Campus, 2008

Things about browsers I need to know http://www.20thingsilearned.com/home

 

Teaching with Style http://ilte.ius.edu/pdf/teaching_with_style.pdf

 

Books online http://www.elearningguild.com/content.cfm?selection=doc.545

 

Theory and Practice of Online Learning, 2^nd Edition http://cde.athabascau.ca/online_book/second_edition.html This is a major book. 

Learning and Teaching in Cyberspace http://home.sprynet.com/~gkearsley/chapts.htm (not a true book but there are links included).

Bloom’s Taxonomy Original and Revised http://www.merlot.org/merlot/viewMaterial.htm?id=85752

Assessing Student Work

Assignments and Quizzes in Online Learning

Teachers have a choice to make when they want students to demonstrate what they have learned in a one-to-one fashion. They can construct an assignment or a quiz/test. These are both assessment tools which are seen only by the teacher and the student, but they have very different functions.

The assignment is poorly named because some students use “assignments” as any activity that they are required to do for a grade. However, in Moodle, Blackboard and other Course Management Systems (CMS)  the “assignment” has a different meaning.  It means that students submit text answer to questions. This function is ideal for papers or essays. It really isn't suitable, despite its name, for short answer questions. Since other students cannot see work submitted it is not useful for discussions.

To me, the Quiz tools should be used for mostly formative evaluation unless there is a need for mathematical operations. I pick questions that the computer can grade, and often, if the information is important, I let the student retake. I like the feature to scramble question order, and if I use multiple choice, I also use scrambling the order in which the choices are presented provided that one of the choices is NOT “all of the above.” I think the quiz feature does not do a good job with fill in the blank or essay questions, and I do not use them.I use multiple choice, True False, and matching. There are other types of questions such as the "hot spot' in Blackbord that may be appropriate in certain circumstances.

Timing in an online class

In an online class there is the question of timing. Should the class be kept to a schedule? Can students work ahead? What happens if the student’s work is late and handed in at the last minute?

In considering this question we need to consider if this is an independent study class or if students will learn from not only the material, but also from each other. Will we strive to form an academic community? Learning communities do foster collaboration, cooperation and community http://frank.mtsu.edu/~itconf/proceed01/19.htmlhttp://frank.mtsu.edu/~itconf/proceed01/19.html  and unless there is a compelling reason to allow students to work at their own pace it is worthwhile to have them engage in discussions. To do this we must require that students be in the same time frame.

Students need to know this at the start of the class. There is no guarantee that merely noting this requirement in the Syllabus will result in students realizing it. A quiz or a “Scavenger Hunt” can engage students in reading the Syllabus.  In my undergraduate online course I require students to return to me a “Letter of Agreement” in which they acknowledge that the assignments are time sensitive and that credit will be deducted if late. Those strategies usually take care of most lateness. Of course, once in a course the student may have a problem, and if they contact me I usually work with them, but only once.

What about the students who want to work ahead? I will usually allow this but I will not grade their work until the due date. I explain to students that I like to grade all homework assignment together because I believe I can be more objective when I do. In the very first assignment if students submit before the due date I usually acknowledge the receipt of the assignment because I want the student to know that it is in the right place. 

What about discussions? In online discussions I require two separate dates. I usually pick Wednesday for the first response and Sunday for the replies. I do have the discussion available on the previous Saturday so if students want to submit their work early they may. I realize some students do not want to do any work on the weekends, and having the discussions up early allows them to post on Monday, and usually they can reply to others before the weekend. The Sunday date for replies is problematic because I recently had one student reply at Sunday midnight and of course by that time the class had gone on to the next discussion. I am thinking of changing the deadline for replies until Sunday at 3 PM.