Ideas needed for Revising an Online Course that's a little different...

[franke]

Hi everyone!  If I could get some advice, I'm working to completely re-develop a relatively new set of courses within our college that is desperately seeking some help!

The courses are in a Positive Organizational Development (POD) program and the assessment and grading for the course is done through a progress-based approach that is different than most formal education programs.  Students are graded "behind the scenes" and the instructor keeps track of their grades along the way (not through Canvas) by using the following guidelines:

A – The student successfully completed all required course activities and made significant learning progress on all stated learning criteria for the course.

B – The student successfully completed all required course activities and made significant learning progress on most of the stated learning criteria for the course.

C - The student successfully completed all required course activities but did not make significant learning progress on most stated learning criteria for the course.

F – The student did not successfully complete all required course activities and/or did not make significant learning progress on the stated learning criteria for the course.

The main problem with the course from a student's perspective is that is is full of assignments that are non-submission and zero points, so as to let students know what they need to complete and by when.  For example:

1. Students have to complete a Learning Activity in the first week where they interview their partner.  This is shown as an assignment worth zero points and non-submission.
2. Students have to then post to a Discussion the results of the interview and what they learned.  This is where they are assessed for their work (granted this is behind the scenes, and not in Canvas)

There are 4 modules and 4 assignments within each module where students are asked to complete the learning activity and then post in the discussion after they've completed it.  There is one instance where the students do have to submit a file and they are graded with a complete/incomplete score.  The instructor has voiced to me that he is frustrated with the course design and often feels like he has to go in circles just to assess the student's work.  It's not clear what assignments are to be submitted and what aren't and what are just there as placeholders for the student's "To-do" list or what are actual assignments that students have submitted to.

Can anyone help to suggest a better a smoother process for this kind of course?  I've never run into this kind of course before, so any advice would be helpful to assist my process!

I can share the course to the Canvas Commons if this is something people would be interested in.  Let me know!

Thanks for the help:)

-Emily

[dhulsey]

First, I would remove anything from the To-Do" list that is not associated with an activity that needs to be completed. That way, the instructor can tell the students that everything in the "To-Do" list must be completed.

Next, everything that a student needs to complete for an assignment or discussion should be at least graded as "complete /incomplete." The only thing that might present a problem there is quizzes because I do not think they could be marked "complete / incomplete." Even the interview assignment should have a submission. Just ask the students to write a paragraph to summarize the interview or ask some guided questions to help students reflect on what they learned from the interview or ask the students to submit a recording of the interview or something the instructor can asses. Otherwise, there is nothing to assess at all.

Another option would be to grade just as in a "regular course" but to mute all of the assignments so that the students could not see any of the feedback. Then, the instructor can unmute everything at the end of the term. This might be a good way to go because the instructor could assess in Canvas, but the students would not be able to access the feedback until the end of the term: How do I mute an assignment in the Gradebook?​

If the term grade is the concern, you could also set up all of the assignments in an assignment group and set that group to zero percent of the grade. With the group set to calculate at zero percent of the grade, assignments and discussions could be set at one point each just to track submission. For the actual grade, use an assignment with no submission that is worth 100% of the course grade and mute that assignment. The instructor could then design a rubric to keep track of overall progress and / or keep notes on student progress in the submission comments for the 100% assignment. As long as the assignment is muted, the students will not see any of the feedback. At the end, the instructor unmutes and the student gets the feedback and the grade for the course. Here are some relevant resources:

How do I add Assignment Groups in my course?​

How do I weight the final course grade based on Assignment Groups?

Would any of those options or a combination of them work?

[franke]

Hi  @dhulsey ​ thanks for your prompt and helpful response!  One question I had to your:

"First, I would remove anything from the To-Do" list that is not associated with an activity that needs to be completed. That way, the instructor can tell the students that everything in the "To-Do" list must be completed."

This is a bit challenging as the students must complete each activity, but they are not necessarily "turning in" something for each activity.  For example: the learning activity "Interview your Partner" is actually completing something and the steps to complete it, however it's not something they have to turn in, but they do have to "prove" they've done this activity by participating actively in the corresponding discussion.  So, would you suggest I remove the assignments that are non-submission and simply have a content page for this content that they are "to do?"  It's a tricky one because I do want students to be able to know what they need to complete and keep track of this (by the "to-do list" if that's how they use it) but I also think it's misleading to have assignments that are set to non-submission when they are indeed needing to complete something.

I will certainly take the other suggestions and consider them all.  I particularly like the incomplete/complete idea, and there aren't any quizzes so that won't pose a problem.  I also think the rubric idea could work as well, in order to keep all the grading/progress tracking done within Canvas and not some other place as it is currently being done.  The rubric might be attached to the discussion and then the instructor could keep track of the student's progress and that they've also clearly completed the connected learning activity.

-Emily

[dhulsey]

Hey, Emily! For the interview, I would consolidate the instructions and put them all into the discussion assignment while deleting the "assignment" that only gives instructions,  or I would moved the instructions into a page and place the page before the the discussion in the module.

Another alternative is to present the interview process as an assignment and have the student submit something. You could even have them submit a completion statement in a text entry box:

"I affirm that I have completed steps one through six of this assignment and interviewed Bob Smith at 3:00 PM on September 28."

You could have the student submit a selfie with the interviewee if these are face-to-face interviews.

Almost anything would work as a kind of checkoff to give the student psychological closure on completing the assignment.

However, it seems confusing for everyone to have an assignment with no submission in addition to a discussion that is the actual assignment submission.

[franke]

Thanks  @dhulsey  , I like your suggestion of deleting the assignment and just consolidating the discussion forum to include instructions for all to be completed.  There is an issue with student's not having that actual item in their to-do list, but I think consolidation is better (simple is best) and they will be able to figure it out based on the instructions in the discussion.  Also, having the rubric with the criteria as Kelley suggested below seems to really make it so there would be "closure" on completing that assignment and they'd get credit.

[kmeeusen]

Emily:

Sometimes it can be challenging for faculty to to convert from an on-ground pedagogy, to and online one and have it work for their customary workflow.

If I have read your descriptions correctly, this is how I would do it. My focus is always on process simplicity so that students can focus on the activities, not the technology or a convoluted grading process.

• Grade everything in Canvas. It is easier on the instructor and the students.
• Instead of creating zero-point assignments (too confusing for everyone), use content pages and the Discussion instructions to describe the activities that must be completed.
• Create a Canvas grading rubric that includes the scoring criteria for all four activities each week, and attach that rubric to the discussions.
• Use the discussion with is grading rubric to apply the final grades for each week's activities.
• If the four individual assignments are going to be treated as milestones throughout the week, that activity's portion of the rubric can be used to grade each milestone as it occurs, then the score for the week becomes cumulative (ten points today, 10 on Wednesday, 10 more on Thursday etc.)
• In the case of activities that require a file upload, students can upload file to a discussion, but if the instructor anticipates needing to annotate the file submissions, then those should be treated as an assignment in Canvas where the student would submit, and the instructor would grade.

The instructor would wind up with a very small gradebook that would be much easier for students to understand, and less for for the instructor to grade.

I actually like this instructor's approach, and have used a similar approach for  for faculty professional development courses in which all of the grading is discussion-based.

If you need more help or details, don't hesitate to ask.

[franke]

Thanks  @kmeeusen !  This is very helpful and I will certainly use your tips and advice:)  I really like the rubric idea and making it so that the "assignments" are content pages and no longer exist as placeholder assignments that aren't graded.  I might even consider moving to Learning Outcomes for the whole course, although that could be more work for the instructor.  I agree that using Canvas as the sole tracking device (I'm thinking the instructor is also using Excel...) is best for the students and easier to just have everything in one place.  Makes much more sense.

I appreciate your thorough explanation and advice and for taking time out of your day to help!

-Emily