Lesson 12: Grading, Feedback, and Time Management Attention This lesson will explore the challenges of grading and providing feedback to students in a timely manner. Learning Outcomes Upon completion of this lesson's material, Faculty will be able to:
Teaching If you have ever taken a long trip in a car, you are probably aware of how nice it is to have road signs along the way that inform you as to how many miles to the next city or to your destination. With today's GPS devices it can tell you how much time and distance before you arrive. As you are driving, this feedback keeps you informed as to where you are. We do similar things in an online classroom. Students want to know how they are doing. It is one of the ways that we, as Faculty, connect with our students. One might even say that while the studying and completing of assignments is important to learning, getting feedback on performance is vital for learning to occur. College Policies KVCC holds that we should provide "timely feedback" on all graded assignments in our courses.
Grading Assessments When you create any assessments (tests, discussions, assignments, etc.) there are tools within Bb that allow you to provide all sorts of feedback. You can, for instance, provide detailed feedback on every question in a quiz (test). You can also create elaborate grading rubrics that allow not only for accurate and consistent feedback, but much quicker grading time! Grading Rubrics For all of my written assignments (research papers, reflection papers, lesson assignments, etc.) I create a grading rubric. I use this as the primary means of feedback on these assignments. Below I will be asking you to create a grading rubric for an assignment in your class. To do so, follow the steps below (keep in mind that when you create an assessment there are options for creating a rubric right there...you can create rubrics while you are creating the assessments):
When you have created an assignment and you want to add a rubric, you can create a new one or select from a menu of existing rubrics that you have already created. This allows you to use ONE rubric for many different assignments. So, if you have 5 article reviews for your class and you grade them all the same...you can create ONE rubric and assign that same rubric to all 5 assignments! How cool is that!!?? Other Forms of Feedback Other ways that we provide ongoing feedback is through email or messages. We can also be active in the Discussions. I post announcements when I see certain things going on (good or bad) in the class. We can comment on questions that they answer in tests...students want to know why they got a question wrong. We need to tell them. We can also meet with them using the synchronous tools of the chat room or Collaborate. Grade Book Structure While a full discussion of the grade book is beyond the scope of this course, let it be known that there are ways to create calculation columns that inform students how they are doing in all the assignments they have completed to date. You can also create "Grading Periods" (such as one for Mid Term and one for the Final) These take some time to figure out so if you are interested in looking into advanced grade book management, see about taking some special training or refer to the Bb Basics orientation in the Faculty Senate's online Faculty Orientation course. Time Management As Faculty we can be our own worst enemy! We only work as much as we determine we want to grade (most of the time). Since we can control the assignments and expectations in our classes, we are able to make decisions about how be efficient with our grading. We have to balance our time management (to get grading done in a timely fashion) with the need for quality and authentic assessments! We will discuss this notion a bit in the Lesson discussion below. Assessment Lesson 12 Discussion Use this discussion to ask questions about this lesson and to discuss the content. Include your thoughts about how you intend to manage your grading and feedback needs in your online class. Lesson 12 Assignment For this assignment I would like you to create a grading rubric for your class. Post the grading rubric in the Rubric tool and/or attach it to an actual assessment. Email me when this is complete.
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