Hi Emily, A few thoughts.
1. What do you want to assess the blogs for? Are they high-stakes pieces, where you're focusing on many dimensions of a rubric and expect excellence across the board? Are they low-stakes along some dimensions, but not others? https://blogagogy.wordpress.com/assessing-blogs/ I like the list of dimensions here: ideas, comprehension, critique... each of these could be a focus for the writing of a blog post. "For your first post this week, I'd like you to compare and contrast the documentation for Projects X and Y. We'll assess this post using the CRITIQUE rubric." That declares to the student that you'll be using your CRITIQUE rubric to assess the quality of the post. 2. How do they fit into process? Sometimes they'll be reflective, sometimes they'll be preparatory. For example, the critique post might prepare them for discussion and layout of their own documentation. But, the next post might reflect on something that already took place, and is intended to just spur new thought. (The rubric, then, would be a REFLECTION rubric.) 3. Keep it simple. Each post should have one dimension. It will keep them focused, and make your life easier. See an example at the bottom of this note. (At least, I find their writing improves when they have more focus.) 4. Have a default. If the typical goal is 2x posts/week, then have a default: one Comprehension or Analysis post at the start of the week, and one Reflective post at the end of the week. That way, you can declare "this week follows our standard pattern." Or, at least, give them some word lengths to aim for; I usually tell them they should be consistently hitting within +/-10% of the target length. Generally, more is always good; substantially shorter is probably a problem. 5. Integrate them into the course. http://www.chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/how-are-you-going-to-grade-this-evaluating-classroom-blogs/24935 I have used all three of the strategies discussed in that post before. Make sure you're coming back to the posts on a regular basis; it helps if you're blogging too. Your blogs, however, could be about your own work... this might help move other process along. (Don't do this if it is a distraction to you, but it is nice to model the behavior if you can.) This post ( http://www.chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/a-rubric-for-evaluating-student-blogs/27196) has a sample generic rubric that you might use for all posts (and simply declare one post to be CRITIQUE and another to be REFLECTION), or you might develop different rubrics for each kind of post. 6. Automate. Finally, I have a quick-and-dirty post/word counter. https://bitbucket.org/jadudm/feed-content-scanner I (or my TAs) run this after posts are due. It's a quick way to find out who is keeping up, and who isn't. 7. Make it relevant. If you can get members of the community reading some of their blogs, and comment even *once* during the term, the students respond incredibly well. When they know someone other than you is reading, they see it as important in a way that just blogging as part of the class does not seem to engender. I have never done a good job of cultivating community to dive in, but some communities have done so of their own accord. All of this is subject to debate/discussion/disregardtion, of course. And I made up the word "disregardtion." Good luck, Matt REFLECTION --- EXCELLENT (4): The student reflects thoroughly on the three essential dimensions of a reflective blog post: their learning, what remains unclear or needs to be learned, and what make good next steps in their learning process. GOOD: (3): The student provides some reflection on each of the three dimensions of a reflective blog post, or is inconsistent in their thoroughness. AVERAGE (2): The student reflects on some, but not all, dimensions of reflection. POOR (1): The student fails to reflect in any depth on all three dimensions, or ignores one dimension completely. And, adjust the rubric as you see what comes in, until you have something that works for you and the students. On Wed, Aug 30, 2017 at 3:29 PM, Emily M. Lovell <emily_lov...@berea.edu> wrote: > Hi all, > > I’m teaching a new open source class this fall and plan to heavily weight > blogs in calculating students’ course grades. I know that other instructors > have successfully used this approach to assess process, but I haven’t found > much online about how to actually implement this. > > Would anyone be willing to share their rubrics, criteria, or more general > approach for how you have done this? > > Thanks! > > Emily > _______________________________________________ > tos mailing list > tos@teachingopensource.org > http://lists.teachingopensource.org/mailman/listinfo/tos >
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