New Grading Scheme (for me)

I'm teaching a blended adult accelerated (5 week) course. Just started last monday - which was the last time we meet as a class face-to-face. The rest of the course will be completed online. Angel is our LMS of choice at the College and so that's our launch pad and organizing utility. That much was obvious. What was not obvious was how to re-organize and re-structure my activities for the online portion of the course. Which is a little funny since it's kind of my job to help other instructors re-discover their own materials in the light of an online delivery format.

I typically stress the importance of thinking in terms of activities - final projects and working backwards to include the building blocks that will help students achieve these goals (I know the word is scaffolding, but I'm weary of this term as it applies to education). So I did that. No problems there really... I'm sure I could probably provide more blocks for some... but they can ask for them.

Where I then struggled was a point system. I had all these activities leading to various goals and no point scheme. And then a late policy needed to be crafted that would encourage completion of these activities. I thought about dividing the 15 or so assignments into 100 points so that the more difficult assignments were 10-20 points while the easier assignments were less. And then the usual late policy of 10% deduction per day - up to 3 days or something like that. Boring. I've done that before. Late work is still all too normal and I want to encourage early work - especially on discussions.

As this only just started, I have no idea how it may play out and I have no control group, so this won't be a true study. But here is what I came up with. I'm starting everyone out at 100%. For each assignment, there are chances to gain bonus points as well as incur losses. Points are lost if directions are not followed or performance does not meet expectations of the assignment. Points are gained for early submissions (particularly on discussion forums) and for going beyond the expectations of the assignment. As for late policy, a -2 point deduction occurs on any late submissions and submissions can be up to 24 hours late. Beyond that, the assignment is not accepted and a -10 point deduction is recorded. That might seem harsh, but there are plenty of opportunities to gain bonus points for other assignments.

So far, and it's still early, I do not see much early posting going on in the discussions. Perhaps my bonus is not high enough. Perhaps these students (who all have other jobs), have other higher priorities than this class. But the submissions received have been great. And over half of the students chose to answer a bonus question on a reflection writing assignment. It's interesting at this point.

The gradebook is a bit of a challenge. I created an assignment and gave everyone 100 points/percent. Then I created individual extra credit assignments to hold the point loss/gain for each assignment. Angel seems to support negative points just fine, so this is working quite well. When I look at the gradebook, I can only see net performance on individual assignments, so I am thinking I will need to keep track of losses and gains in another spreadsheet. I sound like an accountant. Yikes. I could have split it out and done a column for loss and gain per assignment, but that seemed ugly. I do wish there was a way to show labels to students instead of points, so I could show something other than zero when they break even or meet the expectations.

So there is the new scheme. I'll post again mid-way through on any thoughts and then again at the end with some stats on early vs late vs non-submissions as well as how many bonuses were achieved through additional time and energy with the material and experiences.

Why I want to be a VIP BbWorld Blogger

Sharing - that's my platform. As bloggers, we share our thoughts and reflections and sometimes opinions with the world as it flies past on its high-speed Internet connection. As an Iowan, I know what it means to be flown over. Visits are rare, so when they happen, take advantage! Share experiences and knowledge and make connections with people.

At BbWorld, users, developers, administrators, vendors and executives gather to share an experience and make these connections. I want to capture these intersections of passion + excitement + ingenuity + intelligence and share them with a larger audience.

I like to blog in ways that entertain and inform. I'm an aspiring visual note taker and often post these doodles on this blog. Doodles like this one:

Doodle from Distance Learning Conference. Madison, WI
(Click the image for a larger view)

As an Angel administrator and trainer for Kirkwood Community College, I publish the KirkwoodLMS blog. As an instructional designer for Distance Learning, I join Emily McWorthy in creating our video blog: Technology for Learners and Teachers. And as a teacher, I speak with Nicole Forsythe in a new audio podcast/blog on EducationIS.us. I'm a blogger.

See you in New Orleans!

zefrank on tech and humanity

ZeFrank is publishing new episodes of A Show! Makes the world a better place. In this episode, he shows how technology assists in making him and his videos more humanistic. I just shared this with my Culture and Technology course.

SquadMail

This could be a promising little app for committee work, support staff, ... https://www.squadmail.com?u=3a625e6.

Stanford's Education Experiment - Wired Article

I am a big Wired fan. So I was excited to see this article covering Stanford's open course offering: The Stanford Education Experiment Could Change Higher Learning Forever. Plenty of concepts to think about - but mostly I am now even more inspired to open my own courses, starting with Chinese.

I was also really taken with the quote attributed to Mark Twain in the article. While I am not a fan of quotes in email signatures, this would make a good one: "Education is the path from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty."

checkthis.com

An intriguing little web app that allows you to create a single webpage. Simple, clear and useful. Nice concept if you have a quick invite or product to sell. Could be a useful tool for a student project.

checkthis.com

iPad Screen Recorder

I really want these kinds of apps to flourish and improve. Haven't tried this one yet, but it stands apart with the addition of image importing.

http://edudemic.com/2011/12/educreations/

It's free. Good price. I wish they would let me load the video to YouTube. Maybe there is a way.

You-R-Here

Another whimsically named web tool - this time in the form of a Google Chrome add-on. If you spend any amount of time reading blogs or articles online, or half-reading blogs and articles, this will prove interesting.

http://yourhere.gandtblog.com/

Simply double click the text to highlight and mark where you are in the material. Return at a later time and find your spot. A web-based textual marker. I could see this expanding with more features... a library perhaps that would list all I am reading.

Remind 101

I'm not a big texter anymore, and maybe I never was - there was a period, while dating my now wife, when I gained some thumb typing skills, but now it's a fairly rare occurrence. That said, I still find it to be one of the best reminder type notifications - especially for those who use their phone a bunch. I've heard of enterprising instructors collecting cell-phone numbers of students who want to be texted about class activities and events. I've also heard of instructors weary of sharing their private phone numbers with students -- and I often sing the praised of Google Voice to those who will listen. With Remind 101, a slick alternative is available. Simply sign up on Remind101.com, share your class code with your students and they can opt in to receive reminders from you. Scheduled texts are also a feature. Looks promising.



Remind101 from remind101 on Vimeo.

Workflowy

I do enjoy a good productivity app with a silly name. This seems to meet both criteria.

http://workflowy.com/

No native mobile app, but they say it works on mobile browsers just fine.