Well, I have spent last week and the past couple days of this week continuing with the reading, posting, and grading of the blogs. What a task! It seems hard to keep up with, at times. There are 15 students in this class and they are to post one reflective blog entry per week. This unit lasted three weeks. I spend about 15 minutes on each blog entry, reading and having my own reflections and offering feedback to these students. When doing the math, I devoted a little over 11 hours to this task over the past three weeks.
I am going to try to be more diligent about my own blog posting, tallying my hours each week-versus waiting until the end of the unit to count my hours. I guess I get a little worn out from blogging since I am spending so much time on blog sites in this RN to BSN course!
After reading all of the blogs and making note of who journaled each week, it was time for me to assign grades. This is fairly easy because these blogs are personal reflections. This way I can give them a grade based on whether or not they posted an entry for each week. After making a list of the grades I believed each student earned, I went over it a couple of times to make sure the grades were fair and accurate and that I was not mixing up anyone’s grades. I then made sure it was OK with the instructor for me to post these grades in the grade book. I sent her a list of the students’ names with the grades I believed they deserved for their blogs. I wanted to know whether she wanted to enter the grades or if she was comfortable with me entering the grades. She was more than willing for me to take this assignment of entering the blog grades into the grade book on Blackboard. I have never posted anything in an electronic grade book so this took a little time to learn. I used the trusty 'help' feature which walked me through a visual tutorial on how to use the grade book and post grades to individuals. This was very helpful and I was able to go into the grade book and give each student their grade for their blogs for unit 2. It was a good feeling to know that along with all the other things I am learning, I am learning some of the ins and outs of Blackboard. This is important to me being that it what the University uses as the vehicle for most online courses. I hope to continue to learn more about using Blackboard in education as I continue on with this practicum.
13 hours
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6 comments:
Shara,
I'm curious about how closely your grades coincided with your preceptor's. Did you compare what you thought each student should receive or did she just give you a "I'm sure you did fine" statement? I would consider this to be a big guide into if I was performing to the standards that she uses.
Kay
Hi Shara,
Sounds like you took the bull by the horns in learning to post those grades! Great job!
I'm with Kay and wondering the same thing about the grading. There's a term for that...how one person grades compared to how another grades and if they are congruent - I can't think of what that term is called right now(uh oh!), but that is what I'm referring to. I'm sure you did a great job!
Janice.
Interesting.....I think if the student blogs and meets that expectation (based on the criteria) since it is a reflection of their thoughts....how can their grades be any different then pass/fail? Do they have a rubric that you are grading by? Have any of the students asked for you to review their grade? Sounds like a great way to get your feet wet on grading......can't wait to hear if you get any feedback.
Way to go! You are truly learning the administrative aspects of education.
Jennifer
For reflective blogging, like Shara points out, it's more about whether or not the entry is acceptable or not. You ~can~ create rubrics and/or levels of grading, but I find this more trouble than it's worth for blog grades.
Then again, my grading philosophy is a little different than most. Grades for me do not represent the level of learning that a student has done so much as the extent to which they have met the course requirements. Some students do everything a course requires very well without going the extra mile to really make the learning personal, and if that's what they wish to do then that's OK with me. They've fulfilled their obligation, so they deserve an A if their work earns it. Other students care less about the grade and more about the learning... some of my brightest students ever have received Bs in classes simply because they were more concerned with their own learning than with following assignment guidelines and schedules.
Back to the point... I assign blog grades on a credit or no-credit basis. Some people do otherwise.
Great work using the help feature to overcome adversity rather than giving up when something didn't work. I'm not sure why, but we seem to be less persistent in persevering these days than we have historically (Americans, that is). I really value this characteristic.
It was actually interesting reading the blogs and fairly easy when assigning the grades. The students are to post each week and the grades were assigned based on completion. It is difficult (and not quite fair, in my opinion) to grade blogs based on grammar and content. I think the blogs need to be reflective. This is also the view of the course instructor, so we are in agreement that a participation or completion grade is to be given. I gave grades according to whether blog entries were done for that unit or not.
It has been a great experience to have hand on practice with Blackboard. For those of you that will be using it in the future, the Help feature is actually very helpful. Before getting frustrated, I recommend using this resource.
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