Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Midterm Blogging Assessment Complete

I have completed the midterm assessment of all course-based blogs, according to the original rubric, viz.:

"I will assess the quality and frequency of blogs twice during the semester: once at midterm, and once during finals week. You will receive a grade of A-F on both occasions. At the time of assessment, blogs that (a) contain the minimum number of entries (# required weeks of blogging x 2); (b) contain the right number of appropriate kinds of entries (that is, # required weeks of blogging x 1 “open” entries and # required weeks of blogging x 1 reply entries); and (c) incorporate an appropriate, yet not outstanding, degree of substance (insight, creativity, depth of analysis, etc.) will receive a “B.” Those blogs that satisfy (a) and (b) above and reflect an exceptional degree of substance will receive an “A.” Those blogs that fail to satisfy conditions (a) and/or (b) will receive a grade of no greater than “C,” regardless of their otherwise substantive natures. The grades of “D” and “F” will be applied to those blogs that both fail to satisfy conditions (a) and/or (b) and, to one degree or another, fail to reflect sufficient substance."

I have not focused on condition (b), since, to my mind, it has served its basic purpose (i.e., to promote interblog communication). I've fallibly assessed condition (c) with a check, check-minus, or check-plus, the latter two designations capable of adjusting grades down or up from the base grade I assign on the basis of condition (a), that is, the number of postings over the review period. The review period encompassed 7.5 weeks. I used the following guidelines for assigning a base grade (you will notice that I deviated slightly though generously from my initial demand that a bare minimum of 15 (7.5 x 2) posts would be required to earn a grade of B or above:

(# of postings/base grade)

12 or greater/B
9-12/C
6-9/D
less than 6/F

Actual grades for blogging will of course depend on my assessment of condition (c). I will inform students of their actual grades during class.

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