Reduce Student Anxiety About Grades Simply by Articulating Your Grading Process

This week, a couple questions came up in my online course about grading. Specifically, some instructors only received half credit for their work and were wondering why. The fact is that at the time of grading, I may have only seen half of their work for the week. They may have received 100% on that assignment, but it looks like they only got a 50%. This happened because I have a couple designated times for reviewing work and grading, and grade everything I can at those times.

I grade this way for two reasons:
1. It is more efficient for me to grade what I see during the times I designate for grading (rather than wait for all work to be submitted) so that I don’t have to repeat the process and double the time I spend grading.

2. The other reason is to bring to light just how sensitive grades are to students. It is easy for us teachers to grade using a process and at times that meet our schedules and needs, and overlook how this may affect our students. When we have classes that meet in person, you either hand back everyone's graded work at once, or you don't give grades to anyone. But it is very clear to the student if their work has been graded, what they were being graded on, and whether there are aspects of their work that are still yet to be graded or can be resubmitted for a chance at a higher grade. In an online class, you may be in the middle of grading when a student looks at his or her grade. That student may be alarmed to discover a 50% grade, which is due to the fact that you only graded 50% of the work. Or, it may be four days after a major assignment was submitted and your student is anxious because he or she does not see a grade in the Grade Center.

To ensure that your students don’t have the anxiety my instructors experienced when they did not see their complete grades posted when expected, be sure to clarify your grading process. A lot of instructors put a disclaimer in their course overview stating that they look at the discussion boards X number of times per week, or on specific days of the week, and need X number of days to grade assignments, etc. so that students know what to expect. Furthermore, it is good to use the grade notes and feedback sections to elaborate on grades if it is not clear why a student got a certain grade. To save time, I typically won't leave feedback or notes when students get 100% since it is clear how they did (unless they usually get poor grades, whereas then I would congratulate them for their improvement). However, if I deduct points and it is not clear from the rubric why points were deducted, I will explain in the notes section. After all, students will have a hard time being successful if they do not understand where they should focus their efforts for improvement. So, empower your students to "Go Forward" with success and confidence!

Peer Reviews and Post Replies... Facilitating Effective Student-to-Student Interactions

So you have this great idea... you'll exercise your students' critical thinking skills while asking themto apply what they learned in class by having them complete peer reviews. Nice! Just make sure to work out all the kinks so that the process goes as smoothly as you had hoped.

The Scenario:

I developed a project for my Teaching Online students that involved completing an assignment, posting the assignment to a Blackboard discussion board, and reviewing one other student's assignment. I also specified that students should review work that has no feedback before reviewing any assignments that have already been reviewed. Not only are the students required to reflect carefully on their own assignments, but they are asked to make effort on behalf of their classmates. One of the nice things about projects like this is that if an online community has been developed, students will put extra effort into their peer reviews, because it is not solely about the grade... it's also about helping another community member attain success.

Challenges:

Peer reviews require completed assignments to be reviewed. Only two students were able to complete their assignments well before the due date (Sunday night at 11:59pm); the rest submitted their work late Sunday night, which means that only two people were able to review those assignments, following the directions specified above. Other students were forced to review assignments that already had reviews or face the penalty of late assignment completion. (Of course, I don't penalize my students for being unable to complete the assignment as specified, but I don't let my students know that: A core goal in this class is to develop sensitivity to course structure, delivery, and expectations, and recognize how these factors affect  students.) Students who regularly go above and beyond will most certainly review some of the later submissions, even if they had already reviewed one of the original two, but since we can't count on that, potentially there could be students who receive no peer feedback.

Solutions:

Although many online courses are run by week, you may want to create a midweek deadline for any assignments or discussion threads that need peer reviews or replies. This way, students know that after that deadline, there will be plenty of fodder for their critique, and they can schedule their participation around that date.

Part of the value of this activity is the autonomy to choose the assignment to review (which can mean a wide selection of topics and areas of interest.) Students are often more engaged with an assignment when they have an element of choice. However, depending on your subject matter and class dynamic, it may make sense to assign students as partners. When the students know that they are accountable to one another, they will more likely complete their assignments on time so that their partner will have an assignment to work from. Again, this kind of camaraderie and accountability is more affective when effort was made to build classroom community.

Finally, if for some reason there is a student who does not receive a peer review, I may offer extra credit to students who review any remaining assignments that still need feedback, and I may contact individual students to ask them personally for their feedback. Some students may reluctantly turn me down due to time constraints, but generally, students are flattered that their teacher counts on them when help is needed and want to go the extra mile for that reason. Often times, this personal requests lead to even more commitment on the part of the student because s/he feels personally invested in the course and its success.

Getting Students to Use Blackboard (or other LMS systems)

I have found that instructors who require their students to take quizzes online through Blackboard have a greater success rate in terms of having students acclimate to using Blackboard in general. Since there is no way to score points on a Blackboard quiz unless they enter Blackboard to take it, they are more likely to learn the skills needed and develop the comfort required to log into Blackboard regularly. If they can take a quiz, they can learn to download a file, view a file or upload an assignment in Blackboard. However, if you only use Blackboard to provide course readings or copies of PowerPoint presentations, your students may not make the effort to learn how to retrieve these pieces of information, and my either rely on a classmate or will try to make do without them. The same is true for submitting assignments. If you only use Blackboard for assignment submission, you may find a number of students will simply email you their work. However, the more value they find in Blackboard (that they cannot access otherwise) the more likely your students will take the time to acclimate to the technology. And once they start to use it, they do get comfortable, and in may cases begin to rely upon and value it.

I know that Blackboard can seem intimidating. Where do you start? I would go to Blackboard On-Demand, where you can watch quick how-to videos and even engage in self-assessment practice activities. Find the skill you want to learn and follow the link to a brief but effective tutorial (e.g. uploading course content, which is under "Understanding and Building Your Course" or creating a rubric, which is under "Assessing Learners").