Anna,
I agree w/ Stephen that specific guidelines help. I do an online
journal in WebCT that requires students to post each week (rather than
doing it all at the end of the term). I like it because other students
get to see/learn from the other students. Plus, it's neater (since
typed). I give the option for students to get ungraded feedback early
in the term...and offer it on an individual basis if people want it.
In terms of grading, you might consider using a grading rubric so that
you don't have to write individual feedback on *each* entry. (I
started doing this because of my carpal tunnel and poor handwriting!
Plus, it saves time!) I also have students write a short reflection
(a few paragraphs) about how they met the criteria, what grade they
believe they've earned, and what they learned. Usually we are in
agreement about the quality of the work.
Good luck!
Andi
Hi Anna-
I assign journals in my classes sometimes (with great success last
semester in an upper division class). To handle the grading problem, I
do the following....
1. I offer very specific guidelines of what I expect in each entry
(e.g. - state the author's thesis, link it to your life and
perspectives on the issue, reflect on policy, etc.)
2. Collect a journal entry in the second week of class and provide
feedback, collect another as needed.
3. Assign a couple of students (ahead of time) each class to read
(verbatim) their entry at the beginning of class.
4. Collect journals midway through the course to look at overall
quality, etc.
5. At the end of the semester, I have students mark with post-its 5
entries, spread throughout the semester, that they believe represents
their best work.
6. I also have students tally their entries on the submission day and
identify entries that they did not do. This alleviates a need to
survey all entries and count missing components (a big time saver).
Steps 1 and 2 result in good entries
Steps 3 & 4 keep them on track
Steps 5 and 6 minimize the grading time.
Hope this helps.
-steve
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:
Hello folks: I quite recently was informed that my Intro
course/s students will be given free access to the NY Times for the
semester. I am planning on incorporating the paper into the course
thru a journal and I have started an outline for a hand-out (classes
begin on Monday, wish I had the appropriate emoticon here).
However, it looks like I'm gonna work myself into a hole over the
semester (3 sections at 40 students per section...); as for the
students, well, the amount of work is ok since I was planning on doing
only this and a final exam (with a two page set of cheat notes to make
things a bit lighter and the transition in testing formats smoother.)
Now, I know that there was a discussion on Journal writing on
this list a while back but of course I didn't pay attention to it (hm!)
and now I wish I had!!! ughghg!!!
So, how have people incorporated a newspaper into the course
work? If in a journal format, then what were students asked to record
in this journal? What were your experiences when doing this?
Thanks in advance, and I'll be more than happy to share what I
have done so far for those who are interested--the price of course is
feedback, lol, lol, lol.
Anna Karpathakis
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