While incredibly informative, this week's lesson by the Food Group was a tad overwhelming. As someone who's just getting used to eLC, I'm now open to a whole new world of online learning management systems. I mean, before yesterday, I still couldn't figure out how to use the gradebook feature. (Thankfully,someone else must have been wondering the same thing as it immediately went up on the whiteboard.)
In fact, right this literal minute, I am typing my blog post (quietly) as my students are taking their midterm exam. And if the grading feature hadn't come up in class yesterday, I would certainly have singled out Dr. Clouser before or after the class to figure things out. Talk about a nice, timley coincidence.
[Side note: As this is the first exam I've created for a class, I'm a bit nervous I made it too tough or too long. But I figured I'd rather err on the side of "difficult" and provide bonus points after the fact, rather than make it too short and too easy. "Hey, Adam, how'd your first exam go?" "Well, Professor, they all got 100s!" "Um, ALL of them?" Yeah, that seemed to be a far less interesting conversation than "You know, you might want to consider easing up on some of your questions, amigo..."]
Anyway, I'm all set to spend the next few days grading these midterms and setting up a gradebook on the good ol' electronic Learning Commons.
And you know what, I'll probably try to spice some other things up as well.
Until next time, sayonara!
I love a timely topic! Glad to oblige.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your comment about being overwhelmed - that is one reason why we have one centrally-supported LMS. It has many features, but you can choose which of them will work best for you and your students. And for the students, they can count on a familiar interface for all (or most) of the classes. Take your time with the tools, and let me know if I can help.
I love the gradebook feature. One thing I haven't been able to decide yet, though, is how many (if any) grades I should release to students throughout the course of the semester. When I post everything, students are always complaining about a less objective grading scale such as participation or low-stakes writing. When I only post exams, students demand more so they can know how they're doing. From a students' perspective, it's always nice to know where you stand. From an instructors' perspective, I don't want 100 kids breathing down my neck every time I grade (or don't grade) something. My best solution to this point: only post the big grades like exams on eLC for students to see, and do the rest "behind closed doors." I think transparency and consistency is important and should be evident tot he students, but they don't NEED to see EVERYTHING. Just my thoughts... I'd be interested to hear what others think about this.
ReplyDeleteGood luck figuring out the right balance for your exams Adam. I feel like every instructor walks that fine line between being difficult and downright grade inflation. Let us know what the class averages are...
ReplyDeletei've never designed an exam for my students yet, as we use a common exam. but even that is tweaked EVERY semester based on student and TA feedback. one of the biggest complaints we get is that it's too long but i guess that's one of the skills we're trying to assess---it's important for students in our field (and i bet yours too) to be able to articulate themselves in a concise manner. and they have the entire (essay, case study) exam for 10 days before the test to prepare! interested to hear what kind of feedback you get. have you thought about doing a mid-semester evaluation? it not only gives you good feedback but gives the students a real sense that their perspective is being heard. when you summarize it for them, you could say "75% of students thought the exam was too hard and requested a practice exam for the next test so i'm going to give that to you!" Or whatever reasonable concession you can make. then they'll be more at ease when it comes to the end of semester evals :)
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