Group items tagged

Rating Characteristics 4 Exceptional. The blog post is focused and coherently integrates examples with explanations or analysis. The post demonstrates awareness of its own limitations or implications, and it considers multiple perspectives when appropriate. The entry reflects in-depth engagement with the topic. 3 Satisfactory. The blog post is reasonably focused, and explanations or analysis are mostly based on examples or other evidence. Fewer connections are made between ideas, and though new insights are offered, they are not fully developed. The post reflects moderate engagement with the topic. 2 Underdeveloped. The blog post is mostly description or summary, without consideration of alternative perspectives, and few connections are made between ideas. The post reflects passing engagement with the topic. 1 Limited. The blog post is unfocused, or simply rehashes previous comments, and displays no evidence of student engagement with the topic. 0 No Credit. The blog post is missing or consists of one or two disconnected sentences.

I strive for as much transparency as possible, so it’s essential that my expectations (i.e. the rubric) are explained to the students early on, and always available for them to review later. I also let the students know what their grades are for each post, using my university’s officially sanctioned method of transmitting student grades (that is, Blackboard).

in order to deepen students’ understanding of their own work, I comment on every student’s blogging at least twice throughout the semester.

Third, dividing the class into blog groups provides ready-made groups for in-class work as well.

Bringing the blogs to the center of the classroom experience does a couple of things: it highlights good student work (I try to talk about everyone’s blog at least once per term), it creates the impression that the blogs really are a crucial part of the class, it’s a good way to revisit issues that went either unexplained or underexplained in the previous session, and it makes future blog posts better when blog authors believe that their work might be discussed in class.

I started writing “In the blogs” posts, digests of what caught my eye that day, and a brief description of why. I’d generally try to post this at least twelve hours before the class session where the posts would be discussed.

Near the beginning of the term, I deliberately overdid it with In the blogs, in order to give students the sense that the blogs were really significant intellectual spaces and important to the class. See, for example, digests from the beginning, the middle, and the end of the semester.

he purpose of the blogs in these classes is to give the students a space for reflection that they take seriously (publicness does this) but that is low-stakes enough to allow for risk-taking and experimentation. Thus my pass-fail grading: if the blog post is on time, and demonstrates even a modicum of thought, you get full credit.

The happy byproduct of this arrangement is that a close reading of every blog entry and comment is not necessary.

Early in the semester I try to read every post relatively carefully and comment on most of them – largely so that I can model the kind of thoughtful but not-too-formal commenting that I’d like the students to adopt – but as the term progresses the community generally takes care of itself pretty well.