I was excited with the prospect of the new discussion checkpoints. It seems like a feature that should have been added years ago: include two different dates for topic replies and replies to classmates. However, this has changed the way discussions are graded for the worst.
Since there are now different points for the different replies, our rubrics do not automatically populate grades for us. Instead, if we use rubrics to provide feedback, we still have to manually input scores for each of the reply-types. This might seem meniscal if students completely meet the rubric, but that time adds up amongst hundreds of grading submissions. Additionally, students don't always meet the rubric, so that now means extra, manual calculations that we didn't have to do before. Again, a time waster.
Furthermore, since the different types of replies are now separated, if I am grading on my phone app, which I do sometimes when I'm on the go, I cannot even see what students have replied to each other. And, in the case of checkpoints, I now have to scroll on my phone between the rubric and manually inputting the total scores.
I would suggest the following to help make this user-friendly:
- Create an option for us to view student submissions the old way (where all a student's replies are on one page in SpeedGrader) versus the new way. We can then choose which version will help us with what we are looking for when grading.
- Either allow a single rubric to automatically populate a total score for discussions, or provide us the option to create separate rubrics for each type of reply: topic and classmates. Either way, make it so the rubric will populate the grade if we want it to, not forcing us to do an extra step we didn't have to do before.
This was a great feature to add, but until it has been worked out to not provide me with more work, I'll pass.
