When an assignment does not have a rubric, what is it that earns a response a perfect score? Conversely, why are points subtracted on a response? Here are some of the criteria I apply when scoring your reflection pieces like the “Personal Experiences with Technology” we just completed.
1. Did you carefully read the assignment? Most of the assignments have several parts, and each part might have several questions. Imbedded in your work I should find responses to all parts of the question.
2. Length: Your response should be long enough to adequately answer all parts of the question. Usually, that means one or more sentences per question. In addition, written work often includes introductions, conclusions, topic sentences, and transition sentences, and reflections of this type often also include short stories (called “anecdotes”) which help illustrate your thoughts.
3. Paragraphs: Sentences should be grouped together according to their topic. Sometimes a paragraph can contain lists; these paragraphs still have a topic sentence and the list is then either numbered, lettered, separated by commas, or even bulleted.
4. Correct spelling: If it helps you to type your response into Word and do a spell-check before pasting into the discussion board, please feel free to do so. If you prefer to work in Word and attach a document to the discussion board, that is also fine (although it’s a little harder for your reader.) I did finally find a spell-check button on the discussion board post window: it’s just above the typing screen on the lower left of the editing tools.
You can see the spell-check button circled above, and below is a shot of the spell-checker at work.
5. Correct Mechanics: Names and titles of things are almost always capitalized. Thus, we work in Microsoft Word or Powerpoint or Excel. We do, however, use our iPads, an example of a non-standard capitalization. (If in doubt, check it online. Googling the question “is ‘microsoft word’ capitalized?” does not generate any first-page results about the capitalization of the title, however, the first few results are from the Microsoft Corporation and the annotations all show them referring to “Microsoft Word” in capitals. One can infer that if the company who makes the product uses capital letters, we should too.)
6. Interesting content: Finally, the best responses are written by those that do all of the above well, and who make the extra effort to personalize or add interest. Perhaps the author has chosen a quotation to illustrate a thought; maybe a theme has been utilized or a title adds to our interest. Take a look at my reactions to your “personal experiences” essays on D2L. Notice that I changed the title of my responses? I was hoping to pique your interest, and to make my comments more memorable and easier to find if we want to look back at them.
A good teacher models for her students, so at this point, I should write my own response. However, life is calling. I’ll try to get to it later. Have a great weekend and write some great responses!
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