Category: educational technology

Assessment, Blackboard, educational technology, Faculty Development, Instructional Design, Online Learning, Rubrics

Single Point Rubrics

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I came across a post from Cult of Pedagogy on Single Point Rubrics. The blogger, Jennifer Gonzalez, pointed out that single-point rubrics are more efficient and more effective for teachers and for students. Who doesn’t want to be more efficient and effective? Single-point rubrics can be created in less time and allow for better feedback. They are not so wordy, so they don’t take students as long to read, so perhaps they will be more inclined to do so (Gonzalez, 2015). 

To differentiate between different types of rubrics, consider looking at an earlier blog post by Gonzales titled Know Your Terms: Holistic, Analytic, and Single-Point Rubrics. It spells out the differences between the types of rubrics and provides templates for each kind. As a user of primarily analytic rubrics, I’d like to give the single-point rubric a try. Two templates for single-point rubrics are available by clicking on the preceding link and scrolling to the bottom of the page. 

If you’d like to read more about single-point rubrics, see this study by Jarene Fluckiger (2010). For a refresher on how to create, use, and grade with rubrics in Blackboard, check out my previous post titled Blackboard Rubrics: Efficient and Consistent.

Fluckiger, J. (2010). Single point rubric: A tool for responsible student self-assessment. Teacher Education Faculty Publications. Paper 5. http://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/tedfacpub/5. 

Gonzalez, J. (2014, May 1) Know your terms: Holistic, analytic, and single-point rubrics.[web log] Retrieved from https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/holistic-analytic-single-point-rubrics/

Gonzalez, J. (2015, February 4) Meet the single point rubric.[web log] Retrieved from https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/single-point-rubric/

educational technology, Faculty Development, Instructional Design, Online Learning

Considering Open Educational Resources (OER)?

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When we choose to use Open Educational Resources (OER) for course materials, we are giving students the opportunity to save lots of money and often make materials more accessible. You may have had students who chose not to purchase the book or who had to wait until they received financial aid to purchase books. Or, students may face delayed access to materials due to availability or shipping issues. Using OER provides access to materials to all students at the same time. 

OER are educational resources that are in the public domain or have an open license and may include all types of educational materials. OER provides an opportunity to design a rich, made-to-order course that draws on a variety of authors, viewpoints, and materials.

OER are available in most disciplines. Search for OER resources such as those linked below to find resources for your courses. Many of them are very easy to use and may be linked in your LMS. If you don’t find what you are looking for, ask an instructional designer or your liaison at the library. 

16 OER Sites Every Educator Should Know

Would you like to know more about OER? Here is a link to an interesting study.

Open educational resources and college textbook choices: a review of research on efficacy and perceptions

Discussion, educational technology, Faculty Development, Informal Learning, Personal Learning Networks, Social Media, Twitter

Why Include Twitter in Your Personalized Learning Network (PLN)?

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Signing up for a Twitter account is one of the best things I’ve done for my professional learning. You may be thinking, no way! Especially with the negative attention given to politics on Twitter. However, we just need to be careful who our friends are – or in this case who we choose to follow. Alec Couros, educational technology and media professor and researcher at the University of Regina, Canada, explains it well in the video linked below.

Using Twitter effectively for education – with Alec Couros

In 2010, as an assignment at Arkansas Leadership Academy, I set up my Twitter account and began following educational leaders. I was skeptical at first. Then gradually I started following more and more leaders in education and educational technology, and I began to see the value in using Twitter to connect with educational leaders around the world. Currently, I’m following 2,222 educators, administrators, and researchers. I’m not much of a tweeter myself unless I’m participating in a live Twitter chat. Mostly, I’m a liker and a lurker when I have a few free minutes. I use the “like” feature to sort of bookmark things I find useful or inspiring, and I usually don’t have to lurk for long to find something valuable. This tweet says it nicely. 

Would you like to know more about Twitter for educators? Below are several articles on the topic.

Tiny Bursts of Learning

Edublog: Building Your PLN

Use of Twitter across educational settings: a review of the literature

If you are a Twitter user but haven’t tried Tweetdeck, consider trying it out. It’s great for following several hashtags at once and for participating in fast-moving live chats. 

Reference:

d_mulder (2016, October 23). Teachers on Twitter are the best. Take 5 minutes to read and reflect; what will you learn from your colleagues today? Approach Twitter with a growth mindset, think of it as “I have five minutes…what can I learn today?” [Tweet]. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/d_mulder/status/790298591440936960

Blackboard, Collaboration, Discussion, educational technology, Faculty Development, Instructional Design, Online Learning

Tools for Collaborative Work

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Whether our classes are online or face-to-face, our students can benefit from the use of collaborative tools. Collaborative tools may be used for peer editing, group projects, and class discussions. These tools are great for working synchronously during a class session or asynchronously according to the time each student has available. Using collaborative tools in coursework is good practice for future workplace collaboration. Many tools are easy to use, some require no account setup, and some tools may even be embedded in your Blackboard course. Below are just a few of the many collaborative tools available.

Canva – Canva is an easy-to-use graphic design website. Collaborate on professional-looking infographics, documents, presentations, comic strips, and marketing materials. There is a free version and a paid version, however much can be done with the free version.

Google Docs, Slides, Sheets, & Forms – Many students in K-12 schools use G-Suite tools, so a number of our current and future students are already accustomed to collaborating with these tools – some begin doing so in Kindergarten. The products are user-friendly, so new users can adapt quickly. Collaborators may work simultaneously and see changes in real-time. In Google Docs there is a chat feature, version history, and for peer review, a comments feature. A bonus – student work will be available to the students long after graduation. For collaboration, these need to be shared with the setting “anyone with the link may edit.”

Office 365 products may available to students for free. These documents also may be shared for collaboration. To embed in Blackboard, click File, Share, and Embed. Copy the embed code. Create an item in Blackboard and click on HTML, then paste in the embed code. Those with JBU accounts will be able to edit. Bonus – The ITS Help Desk provides support for these tools. 

Padlet – Create attractive collaborative boards, documents, and web pages. Students may create them, collaborate, and share. Or the instructor may create them and embed them in Blackboard for everyone to contribute to. Text, photos, documents, web links, video, and music may be added to the boards. There is a free version and a paid version, however much can be done using the free version.

Zoom – Not only is Zoom for web-conferencing great for synchronous online class sessions or for hosting remote students and guest speakers for face-to-face classes, but Zoom is also great for small group collaboration. Consider using the break-out room feature during online or blended synchronous class sessions or you might use Zoom for small group meetings at the student’s convenience. Zoom allows for sharing documents, web pages, a whiteboard, and slides – perfect for collaborating. Class sessions, meetings, and group presentations may also be recorded, however, recordings are not available for break-out room activities.

These are just a few of the collaborative tools available. Many online applications now have the capability of adding collaborators.

Assessment, Blackboard, educational technology, Faculty Development, Instructional Design, Rubrics

Blackboard Rubrics Help Make Grading Efficient and Consistent

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If you’ve never tried using a clickable Blackboard rubric for grading, you’re missing out! 

Video: Why use a rubric?

Not only do rubrics provide students with clear expectations for their work and how it will be evaluated, but well-designed rubrics can also be a timesaver and make grading more consistent. Making them clickable – even better!

You may already have some favorite rubrics saved as Word documents or PDFs that can provide a head start with Blackboard rubric creation. If not, a quick search will yield a number of examples, or perhaps colleagues or departments have common rubrics for papers, discussions, and projects available. Once you have your rubrics on paper, or as digital files, or just some general rubric ideas, you’re ready to create rubrics in Blackboard that may be utilized in all of your courses. Then when students click on an assignment in Blackboard, they will be able to access the rubric associated with the assignment and see the expected criteria and varying levels of achievement. In addition, it’s a good idea to include the rubric file in Course Documents and add the file to the assignment instructions.

Video: How to Create a Rubric in Blackboard 

Steps: 

  • In the Control Panel under Course Tools, click rubrics 
  • Select create a new rubric 
  • Add title
  • Choose points, percentages, ranges
  • Add criteria descriptors
  • Submit
  • Edit the rubric as needed

Once you’ve created your rubric, you can use it with assignments. To do this, you’ll need to associate the rubric with the assignment or discussion. You can associate the rubric with the assignment when you’re creating the assignment or you can go in and edit the assignment and add a rubric.

Video: How to Associate the Rubric with an Assignment

Steps:

  • Associate the rubric with a gradable assignment, discussion, etc. by clicking edit assignment
  • Select add rubric. 
  • Select the desired rubric. 
  • Select how you want students to view the rubric. 

For grading with a Blackboard rubric, watch the video and follow the steps below.

Video: How to Grade Using a Rubric in Blackboard 

Steps: 

  • Access the Grade Center – Needs Grading or Full Grade Center 
  • Select a student’s assignment to grade 
  • Click the little white square to access the rubric 
  • Grade the item by clicking on the applicable levels for each criterion
  • Provide feedback and save the grade 

Select a level of achievement for each criterion and provide feedback for specific criteria and add overall comments if desired. Students can easily see why they received a particular grade because it’s all laid out in the rubric, perhaps with personalized comments. Blackboard calculates the score and enters it in the Grade Center. Students will see the scores and the feedback provided in My Grades.

If you would like to use the same rubric in another course, watch the video and follow the steps below.

Video: How to Reuse Your Rubric in Another Course

Steps: 

  • Click on Course Tools in the Control Panel. 
  • Click on Rubrics 
  • Check the box next to the rubric you want to move 
  • Click Export (Export to the local computer) 
  • Click Submit 
  • Click Download 
  • Go to the new course 
  • Click on Course Tools in the Control Panel 
  • Click on Rubrics 
  • Select Import Rubric 
  • Browse to your Downloads to find the file for the rubric that was exported and downloaded 
  • Click Open and then Submit 
  • Associate the rubric with desired assignments, discussions, etc.