Subject: [IFETS-DISCUSSION:3947] Assessment Discussion Extended/Grading Issues
From: Brent Muirhead (bmuirhead@email.uophx.edu)
Date: Sat 05 Oct 2002 - 16:35:28 MEST
From: "Brent Muirhead" <bmuirhead@email.uophx.edu> Subject: [IFETS-DISCUSSION:3947] Assessment Discussion Extended/Grading Issues Date: Sat, 5 Oct 2002 10:35:28 -0400
Greetings Colleagues!
I will be extending my online discussion on "Effective Online Assessment
Strategies for Today's Colleges & Universities." I want to thank Dr. Kinshuk
for providing the additional time for my discussion.
The HTML version of my pre-discussion paper is available at:
http://ifets.ieee.org/discussions/discuss_september2002.html
Please send your comments on the paper to IFETS list at
ifets-discussion@catfish.valdosta.edu
Assessment is an important aspect of the teaching and learning process.
Students are anxious to receive feedback on their work because it helps them
have a picture of strengths and weaknesses. As a veteran online teacher, I
have noticed that students really appreciate having timely and descriptive
feedback on their class work. My weekly email notes from students often
involve thank you notes for providing insights into the quality of their
work. In fact, an excellent research study would involve studying online
classes from different distance education schools and compare their
assessment procedures and grade reports. At the University of Phoenix,
teachers are expected to provide weekly grade reports. Students who want to
take an incomplete for a class will lose one letter grade and they have a
limited amount of time to make up their class work. This academic policy has
several positive benefits:
1. students avoid having several classes that are not completed which often
can lead to them dropping out of school.
2. students learn to manage their time and class work to complete their
classes which helps them develop effective study habits.
3. teachers are not burdened by numerous students who have taken incompletes
because it is often more difficult to grade papers when they are far removed
from the actual class.
Now, a disturbing trend at the University of Phoenix (UOP) has been an
increase in plagiarism among all of our students, both undergraduate and
graduate. The school has taken a variety of steps to educate and warn
students about this problem. For instance, doctoral students are given
specific instructions about the importance of citing sources in their papers
during their first residency. Please feel free to share your thoughts and
ideas on the vital academic issues of grading and plagiarism.
I am looking forward to a great week of dialog!
Brent Muirhead D.Min., Ph.D.
Area Chair, MAED Curriculum & Technology
University of Phoenix Online
bmuirhead@email.uophx.edu
770-751-1783 (EST)
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Details of current discussion: http://ifets.ieee.org/discussions/discuss.html
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