Discussion Boards and Time Management

It becomes very easy for discussion boards (an online courses in general) to take over an instructor's life, especially if you teach a large online class. I am still figuring out the most efficient processes for me, but here is what I've learned so far.

1. When it comes to managing your discussion boards, choose a frequency, length of time and time(s) of day that are manageable, and stick to them. You don't want your students to think you created the course and then abandoned them, leaving them to fend for themselves the entire semester. But you also don't want to feel that your course has taken over your life. 
• If you let your students know when, how often and in what capacity they should expect to "see" you in the forums, then you won't disappoint them and won't overwhelm yourself. 
• If you have a discussion that is meant to be student-directed (with little to no facilitation from the instructor) make sure the students know upfront so they aren't left to wonder where their teacher went. 
2. Read the posts in order so they make sense, but don't worry about grading at that time. 
• My first semester teaching online, I thought I would save time by grading as I read through the posts chronologically. This actually took more time (at least with the way Blackboard is set up) because of all the clicking and page navigation I had to go through to get from the post to where I could submit grades. 
• What worked better was when I would read through the discussions chronologically, facilitating as appropriate, and then would grade everything at once, by student, after the due date. In Blackboard, instructors can click on a student's name and view all of the posts s/he contributed to a single forum. From there it becomes easy to see how many posts s/he wrote (you my have a minimum required), whether the posts met the requirements outlined in the grading rubric, and submit a grade from there. I thought this would be confusing at first (since I am rereading the posts out of order) but since I had already read them all over the course of the week (and in chronological order) the quick review I would do for grading purposes was enough to remind me of the context in which they were written. And then everything does make sense. 
3. It is important to participate in the discussions as a facilitator, to ensure that the goals of the discussions are met. You don't have to be active in every discussion to do this (though you should be clear about when your students should expect to "see" you in the conversation, as mentioned above). You could and should follow up with lessons learned, a summary or another brief response that shows you were present for the discussion, whether or not you were active in the conversation. 
• To save time, you can have elements of the message pre-written: if you know you want to point out certain concepts, questions to ponder, etc., there is nothing wrong with having all that drafted ahead of time. But make sure that there is also an element of personalization so your students know you're truly part of their learning experience, and modify/add any details to make your message relevant to the current students and discussion.  
• In my class, I address the questions/topics discussed and may write a blog post to elaborate. If it's an issue I addressed in a previous semester, I may send a link to the archived blog post and articulate how it is relevant to the recent discussion.
  
4. Utilize Blackboard's rubric feature, which allows you to create a rubric directly in Blackboard. It takes time to create a rubric from scratch, but if you develop one that is clear and comprehensive, it makes your grading process very quick and easy. Once a rubric is created and attached to the discussion forum or thread, you simply have to check the appropriate boxes; once you hit "Submit", the grade tabulates and auto-populates in the Grade Center.  If your rubric is comprehensive, there is no need to provide much if any written feedback because the grading criteria clearly articulate why the student earned the number of points s/he did.

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!