Grading online participation

[Lisa]

Greetings everyone!
I teach an online graduate course and although I've completed several semesters, I'm still struggling with how to evaluate students' online participation.

The general structure of my course (which I run on Ning) is that each week there are 1-2 assignments that require students to participate in an online discussion - either responding to a discussion question in our forum, posting a response to a video, or participating in a small group discussion about a case study. The small group discussions are easiest to evaluate because there is a specific product expected. The students respond to a series of questions and then generate a list of recommendations.

Some of my "discussion" questions are quite specific - but what I find is that then I receive the same answer from all students and there isn't much back and forth, or after a while people start posting "I agree with So-and-So". Rather than posting a repetition of someone else's work, I'd rather them respond, even if that means taking the conversation in a different direction. I encourage students to post from different hypothetical points of view, and that helps a bit. But I'm still left with the question of how to evaluate students' participation and the fuzzier the boundaries are, the more concerned I am that students are unclear about my expectations or may feel that grading is unfair.

I've thought about developing a flexible rubric for online discussion. Does anyone have one that they've used and found to be successful?

Thanks.
Lisa

[Lisa M Lane]

Sorry I'm late coming in to this. I rearranged my discussions last summer because I too was tired of the "me too" responses. I posted the experience on my blog. It's working much better for me to have them add material at the beginning of the week, then construct something with it at the end.

As far as grading goes, I do have a rubric, but more importantly, I have the students submit a participation self-assessment based on the rubric as their mid-term. Many of them tell me if they hadn't had to do the assessment, they wouldn't have realized they weren't fulfilling what was required on the rubric in terms of quality or frequency.

[John Thompson]

PARTICIPATION:
Involvement in collegial exchanges among students and between students and the instructor is essential. Points are earned for participation in online conversations and exchanges. Besides the earning of points, active participation is in your own best interest...and in the best interests of your classmates. You should keep up with the assigned readings and be prepared to contribute to the discussions. Class discussions offer a positive way to hold you accountable for course readings and to provide a forum for the exchange of ideas. Typically, there will be 3-5 discussions in each module.

You earn one point just submitting an “acceptable” entry to one of the weekly forums. “Acceptable” does not mean replying, “I agree” or “ditto” or “I dunno.” Those types of postings will be summarily deleted by Dr. Thompson. Your reply needs to be thoughtful and insightful and pertinent to the topic to earn a point for your entry.

Avoid posting simple agreements such as "That's a good idea," "Thanks," or "Me, too." Those types of postings will be summarily deleted by Dr. Thompson. Instead, add something to the conversation; a new idea, an illustration of the concept, an experience that relates to the topic. It is appropriate to send agreements and thanks directly, off-list, to the person you wish to acknowledge.

You can earn a maximum of six participation points in any given module. (So submitting 84 replies to discussions in the last two days of the course is NOT the expectation nor will you earn more than the six possible points for that module.)

You need to submit your first entries to each discussion within the first four days (usually this means by Saturday) of the module being opened. That way, you're encouraged to participate in the discussions in the beginning of the mod. If you were to wait until the end of the module, your course colleagues would not have ample opportunity to read and reply to your postings. You will lose one point for each discussion in which you do not submit at least one posting within the first four days of a module being opened.

Discussion entries must be submitted before the next module starts in order to receive credit.

Note: If you ask a question in your discussion posting, insert a ? at the beginning of your subject line for that posting. The ? will alert others that you have asked a question in your posting.

"EOM" (or eom) means end of message. It's used to signify that the entire message/posting is contained in the subject line. Saves time that way.

During the course, the expectation is for you to post a minimum of 84 discussion entries, including a minimum of one posting in each discussion, either original postings or in response to someone else's posting.

It would be a good idea to check the discussions at least every other day, if not each day. Skipping multiple days will give you a shock when you do log in as your course colleagues, CAs, and instructor will have submitted a considerable number of postings by then and it will take you a lot of time to catch up. Dr. Thompson usually checks the discussions at least once a day.

Your involvement in the discussions is a very critical component of the course, which is why your participation is worth 84 out of a possible 200 points in the course. Your postings need to be thoughtful and insightful to earn points. "Acceptable" does not mean replying, "I agree" or "Ditto" or "I dunno." The CAs and I also will be active participants in these discussions, often asking questions that need to be asked, putting a different spin on what someone has said, or acting as the devil's advocate. The CAs and I will be replying to your entries. If we (or one of your classmates) ask a question, we expect the courtesy of a reply from you. Although I will not reply to each of your replies in the discussions, rest assured that I read every single discussion posting. In fact, I pride myself in having read every single discussion entry in every online courses that I have ever taught.

You need to be cognizant of using proper English (e.g., spelling, grammar, punctuation) in the course discussions. But feel free to use e-mail/e-chat abbreviations (e.g., BTW for "by the way"). You can use (actually are encouraged) to use informal language (e.g,, contractions) in the Discussions. However, inappropriate language will not be tolerated, no matter how passionate you feel about a topic. You can be informal, but still professional.

[Nils Peterson]

Lisa
You might be interested in a conversation getting started at HASTAC on Grading 2.0. I think its going to turn out much wider than grading... http://www.hastac.org/forums/hastac-scholars-discussions/grading-20...