Mark's Rubric

Mark's Rubric

by Mark Wilson -
Number of replies: 6

I'm an adult student and working as an intern Learning Designer\Technologist at a small research institute in Berkeley, California. The Western Institute for Social Research (WISR) is preparing to move online and become accredited as a distance education graduate school. While I was traveling all summer to classes, workshops, and education conferences, the Director of WISR was creating online courses despite never having taken or taught an online course. My rubric is an attempt to distill 2,100 words on posting and collaborating online into one page a student can refer to as their coursework progresses. The 2,100 words describe all the multiple assignments a student is expected to create to demonstrate their critical thinking, reflection, collaboration with students and faculty, and engagement with the course materials and online forums.

I chose the single point rubric because WISR is so small that all a student's work is evaluated by their faculty advisor. I'm hoping to introduce peer reviews and a simple rubric supports the student creating assignments, the students reviewing them and the expectations of the faculty member assessing the work. The comments area can be used to assess exactly what the student needs to do to improve or to acknowledge the student's strengths. And I may get to use my rubric as a WISR student in the future!

In reply to Mark Wilson

Re: Mark's Rubric

by Doug Strable -

Hello Mark, 

I read through your rubric a number of times but I am having a little difficulty understanding the learning objectives the students are to develop in the course. What about the quality of the posts in the forum? Rather than a fixed number of posts, developing a conversation on a theme may be more suited to the learning goals mentioned. 

Here are some ideas for the next revision.

1. The two Engagement topics could be combined into one, and I would suggest putting the Optional Assignments as one of the goals and again combine all the Engagement options in a single engagement block as well. 

2. The "actionable" items are listed but are missing the learning objectives. Could you add these to each of the boxes under Required Assignments?

3. My view of "optional assignments" is, " which is it?". an important part of the course or not. Probably not, since it is an option so it is best to ignore.  Students rarely do these because they are too busy, so I would leave them out or just simply add them to the course assignments. 

I find the information posted by Humber College very helpful when evaluating my rubrics. 

http://www.humber.ca/centreforteachingandlearning/assets/files/Teaching%20Resources/Intro%20to%20Rubrics(2).pdf

http://www.humber.ca/centreforteachingandlearning/instructional-strategies/teaching-methods/course-development-tools/creating-assignment-rubrics.html

I hope you have time to share any updates, 

Doug 



In reply to Doug Strable

Re: Mark's Rubric

by Mark Wilson -

Hi Doug

Thanks for your thoughtful feedback. This is a general rubric that applies to all courses. The context is having individualized studies students engage with coursework for a minimum number of hours to comply with a distance learning accreditor's standards. This first attempt is just aggregating all the possible assignments to offer many ways for students to 'engage' with course materials, faculty, and each other while creating evidence of their time spent. These options need to remain separate and I changed "optional" to "additional" to reflect the fact that the required assignments are only one-third of the required hours, which will vary from program to program. I included the institutional goals in this general rubric, I'm assuming each faculty member will add their own learning objectives, either in their syllabus or in their own rubric. WISR is a unique institution, a former "University Without Walls" that has survived nearly fifty years. I'm working to ensure it survives the transition from a state approved to a nationally accredited institution while retaining the "WISR Way."

Best Regards

Mark

In reply to Mark Wilson

Re: Mark's Rubric

by Leonne Beebe -

Mark,

This is an ambitious project to reduce so many words into an easy-to-follow functional rubric.

Being more specific may help students achieve the activities and outcomes.

For Engagement, do you mean one post for 10 separate discussion forums or 10 posts in one large discussion forum?  Does 10 replies mean responding to one response posts for 10 discussion forums, or  responding to 10 other students posts in one discussion forum?  For example, some teachers ask for 3 - 5 response posts per each weekly discussion forum. 

For Collaboration, what is the purpose of and learning outcomes for the collaboration?  Is there a collaborative group project assigned, or is this for visiting and discussing specific topics? Does it need to be  synchronous and/or asynchronous? Do  you have a specific format for students to record their hours and the content of their collaboration, and with whom?

The Optional Assignments as outlined in your rubric is an interesting and intriguing concept: gaining extra credits within a course to apply externally to the total program credits.  I agree with the comment about the optional assignments; unless they are for needed additional marks or credit value within the course, most students won't have the time or a reason to do them. However, if the learning outcomes for these optional assignments are important, as they seem to be by giving them credit value, could they be better served as non-optional requirements and included in the required section and increase the credit value of the course,.. unless as your rubric says, they could be used as separate external elective credits.  If you can get 5.5 hours of external credits for Optional Assignments, how many credits is the course worth? Still thinking on this one...

Enjoy re-designing your rubric to meet your specific course needs; you have a good start.

Out of confusion comes clarity.

Leonne

In reply to Leonne Beebe

Re: Mark's Rubric

by Mark Wilson -

Hi Leonne

In the context of the thousands of words describing what is required of students, it is clear there is only one institution-wide Forum. WISR only has thirty students, but plans will have to be made for the growth necessary to survive the expense of accreditation. Perhaps there will be one Forum for each degree level or program. As I said in my reply to Doug, this rubric has institutional goals and I'm assuming faculty will add learning outcomes. I also changed "optional" to "additional" to reflect the fact that students have to do much more than the "required" assignments to log enough hours in each course. The "WISR Way" is to let students direct their own learning paths and create their own assignments to fulfill coursework requirements. Revised rubric attached to the previous reply.

Best Regards

Mark

In reply to Mark Wilson

Re: Mark's Rubric

by Jacquie Harrison -

Hi Mark,

Great suggestions from Leonne and Doug! 

I can see your need to develop something  that will be easy and useful for quick review.

Descriptive feedback is the most useful for students and in your tool, they can get that from the comments on the side. Rubrics are so useful because the describe the quality of work done is each criteria. Maybe add some descriptive words of the quality fo performance. If the course is mostly complete/incomplete you could use a checklist instead of a rubric. 

Thanks for sharing this rubric. 

In reply to Jacquie Harrison

Re: Mark's Rubric

by Mark Wilson -

Hi Jacquie

Yes, Leonne and Doug's feedback is very helpful. This is the early stages of an institutional transformation and I will share my (revised) rubric and all the comments with faculty. My POV is always as a student, despite often being the oldest person in the room. WISR being an institution of individualized and self-directed learning, my intention is to encourage faculty to use this rubric in addition to their ongoing conversations about the content and the quality of students' work. This "WISR Way" is based on the agency of the 'actors' and the relationships we create across the institution. Quantification and checklists are avoided while narratives, personal and otherwise, are encouraged. My revised rubric is attached to my reply to Doug.

Best Regards

Mark