Crowdsourcing an academic question

[lunabee34]

I'm teaching 19th-Century British Poetry and Prose online for the first time in the fall. It's a senior level course, and I'm super excited about it.

I'm wanting to experiment with a couple things, and I would love some input from y'all.

I'm intending to have just five grade categories: midterm, final, essay, discussions, and reading response journal.

Generally when I assign discussions to freshman and sophomores, the grading is very based on the quantifiable (make a certain numbers of posts/replies, posts have to be X number of words in length, posts have to reference the text, etc), and students generally get full credit if they meet those quantifiable metrics. I provide questions for the students to answer on each discussion board. These discussions are also not worth a great percentage of the final grade.

These discussions are generally adequate; sometimes the students get really into it and talk to each other, but mostly they make their one post and their reply, and then they're finished. I would say that most of the students make posts with appropriate (sometimes even really thoughtful) content, but I don't generally get lots of enthusiastic discussion that mimics a classroom discussion.

For this senior level course, I want discussions to be really robust and meaningful, and I'm going to assign them a pretty heft percentage of the final grade accordingly. I just learned that our LMS has video posting built into the discussion boards, so I'm going to allow students to video post if they'd rather do that than text post.

So, what I'm asking (and I'd love to hear from professors and students): What sort of directions do you give students in upper division level or graduate courses on discussions? How many posts and replies do you require, or do you leave that up to the student? Do you provide prompts/questions? What other requirements do you make for the discussion? How do you assess the discussion? What tips do you have for me for making the discussion as robust as possible?

I haven't assigned a reader response journal in a long time (more than a decade) and never in a senior level class. It's going to be worth the least of the grading categories, and I'm intending it to be an informal assignment where they turn in a short document responding to what they've read that week. I'm intending it to be a place where they can hash out their essays for the course; so it would be a place to talk about what they like, what they don't like, connections they notice to other texts/courses/their interests, things that confuse them. I intend to respond to these weekly giving suggestions about turning these ideas into papers.

Any suggestions for the reader response journal assignment in terms of directions or assessment? Is that a terrible idea? Should I just give them weekly quizzes instead? LOL

*chinhands*

Comments

[kaberett]

(for what it's worth, my brain absolutely shorts out at the idea of needing to watch video responses of my classmates and I'm not sure I'd be able to do it At All.)

[lunabee34]

*nods nods*

I completely understand that it won't be for everyone. I've never done it before, so I have no idea how many students would opt to do it. I suspect that many students would still opt to post text posts, and that there would be enough text discussion that anyone who didn't want to watch video posts wouldn't have to, but I don't know for sure. I'll have to experiment with it.

I allowed my summer class to do video post on the initial discussion board where they introduce themselves, and none of them have opted to do it.

This was helpful; thank you!

[monanotlisa]

Agreed -- I am actually fine to speak in small groups, but videos trigger my phone anxiety.

Discussions are such a good idea, though, that I would consider at least a basic structure of back-and-forth. I recall one of my instructors at Berkeley using a message board where we had to each write short answers to his questions posed, and then our fellow students in turn commented upon those answers along with him.

[lunabee34]

Yeah, I'm leaning toward using metrics like so many posts and responses plus word length like I do in my freshman discussions; I just wondered if there was some other better way to do it that doesn't lead to mostly perfunctory responses.

[lyr]

I'd suggest having them each take a turn leading off the discussion board. For their assigned day, they'd post a review of and response to the reading, highlighting points they found significant or problematic, and at least 5 serious discussion questions for their classmates.

I'm not into reader response journaling, so I've got no suggestions there.

[lunabee34]

That's a good idea! Thank you. In the other senior level class I have taught before, I did something similar with the literary criticism portion of the class where students had to sign up to present to the class an article and then come up with discussion questions and lead a discussion on the article; that was all in a face-to-face class.

I don't know if I'm into reader response journaling or not. I just wanted to try an experiment; it may not work. In my sophomore class, I have the students write four 500 word lit responses (little mini-arguments), and the idea is that they will expand one of those into their 2000 word research essay. I thought that doing a journal where the students could hash out paper ideas might be useful in this class and give me some places to help them with that and also their writing in general before they turn in that essay at the end of the course.

[lyr]

That kind of response journaling sounds like a good idea for an online class. Maybe each one could be an attempt to respond to the reading through a particular critical lens to help solidify the direction of the mini-argument.

[lunabee34]

That's a good idea, too!

*hugs*

[cathexys]

I like the idea of mini essays/response essays, though 500 words is really short. I do about 1000 words and usually 5-6, but I don't ask for a long essay.

is whether you need the exams or can just replace the exam with expanded essays? (Because the one things that are tested in exams--timed and making ure the student knows the things--is not really as relevant in upper level classes and harder to control in online only courses)

[lunabee34]

*nods nods*

That's a good point re: exams. I know it's harder to prevent cheating in online classes (which is one of the reasons I wanted to replace quizzes with discussions and the response journal). I need to think about whether I really need those categories.

[princessofgeeks]

All I know is, if you don't grade them on it, they won't do it.

I assume this is true for grad students as well as undergrads.

[lunabee34]

Ha! That is 100% true.

[oracne]

Not a teacher, but if I was a student stuck at home in a pandemic, I would appreciate and enjoy increased ineractions.

[lunabee34]

We'll see. I hope they feel that way. :)

[cathexys]

I tend to just give short prompts, because I want them to go off on their own ideas. I also tell them that this is their chance to give me new ideas, funky stuff, connecting our readings to things in their lives or in other classes. Regurgitation of learned material is for the exams. This is to stretch your imagination. Nevertheless, i've noticed that more prompts are usually better for the students. I'll sometimes offer a couple per response paper, and they have drop grades. (So I give them 8 potential response essays, and the best 5 get grades, for example.)

I'd hate to make or grade video responses, so...you can't skim as easily :)

As for response essays or quizzes, I'd do both! One's for checking reading and can be really simple. In fact, I make mine purposefully simple, but you need to look through the actual reading. In that way, it kind of forces them to read stuff... That works especially well for secondary texts! So unlike the AR tests, which I loathe, you KNOW you're looking for which color the door is in that scene with the neighbor, so you can go back to that scene or pay attention as you read. Not try to recollect it.

I've never used discussion before, but M. had it in his AmLit class last semester, and the system locked it until he'd responded to the prompt (that teacher was really specific and as a result the responses looked an awful lot alike!), and after you'd submitted you could read everyone else's and respond. She didn't require responses, but a friend does (G. took his online only ethics class), and there was a number of responses and a number of responses to responses required. But the overall options were definitely larger, so students weren't required to answer every single one. (and the systems are great to let you drop x lowest number, which means when they don't submit those 0s just get dropped).

[lunabee34]

I suspect I also will hate to grade video responses. I made a lot of videos this past semester, and I'm fine with making them myself. But you are totally right that it will change grading and slow it down. I still want to try it at least once, though, and see how it works. If it's a huge pain in the ass, I don't ever have to do it again. LOL

I also like your idea of only requiring a certain number of responses (X out of X) instead of doing all of them. If I do that instead of having them turn in one weekly, then I can make them longer.

When I do discussions, I do make students post first before they can see the rest of the board; otherwise, you get a lot of students essentially copying each other's answers. All my questions are open-ended, though, and designed so that everyone posting should have a different answer (at least a little bit). I'm thinking of actually NOT having them have to post first for these discussions just because I really want them to talk to each other, and just like in class face-to-face, I want them to be sparked by what others are saying. I'm really intending the discussions (and to some degree the journal) to take the place of quizzes. The discussions have to demonstrate that the assigned reading material has been read, and it would be the place where the learning for the week is taking place just like it is face-to-face. I would make the discussions weekly as a result.

Thanks for responding! Good ideas here.

[chelseagirl]

I mostly do discussion posts, honestly. For semester-long classes I usually also have them do a video presentation -- powerpoint with soundtrack (we use Kaltura) just like I do for my weekly updates. It is sometimes hard to get solid exchanges, but my current Summer I class is just knocking it out of the park.

I do have a rubric for discussion posts, and I make it a large part of the grade because it is the only way I have of reinforcing that they're reading, since I don't give tests in a senior seminar, only a final paper (or last spring, they had the choice of a paper or a website).

[lunabee34]

*nods*

This is really helpful.

I'm glad your students are rocking the discussion this summer.

I think I am going to end up doing something similar.