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Online Assignments: Rational, Types, Feedback

 

Course Number	LWL107
Objectives	At the end of this course, you will  describe, 1. the elements, 2. the integration,  and 3. the feedback of online assignments.
Credit Hours and Fee	3.0 CE Credit Hours with a fee of $24.00
Instructor	Rudolf Klimes, PhD (Indiana University), MPH (Johns Hopkins University); Adjunct Professor at Folsom Lake College, Folsom CA.

Explore this course for free. Or study this web-site for an approved (RN-CEP 11430, MFT- PCE 39) 3-hours Continuing Education Certificate for counselors, social workers, nurses and other human service professionals (0.3 CEUs) and take the 12-question multiple-choice Test at the bottom of this page.   If you scored 75% or above, your CE certificate will be printed out right then on your printer 24/7. You may retake the test within a week once for free. If you paid by mistake or paid double, we refund the payment within 3 days. If you have difficulty printing your certificate, click here.

 Outline of the Course

1. Elements of Online Assignments
2. Integrating Online Assignments
3. Examples of Online Assignments
4. Feedback for Online Assignments
5. Assignment Guidelines for Students

 Introduction

World Campus 101 Course: An Introduction to Online Learning    Online Learning Overview 

Online assignments give teachers unique instructional capabilities, such as connecting students with learning tools, tracking student progress and gauging student questions and concerns, assisting students to visualize problems and solutions, and linking students with a wide variety of information resources (Roblyer and Edwards Integrating Educational Technology into Teaching).

1. Elements of Online Assignments

 Objective

The first question students have is "What do you want me to learn?" or "What is the purpose of this assignment?" State exactly what you want them to learn from the assignment. If possible, provide an example or model of a successful assignment.

Rationale

You've explained what you want them to learn. The next question in the students' minds is "Why?" This is a valid question from students who want to see the relevance of an assignment to their learning and their course grade. How does this assignment help your students achieve one or more of the course objectives? When you write the rationale, you can make the reason clear to your students.  

Directions

A third question students have is, "What do I need to know to complete this assignment properly?" Here are some suggested elements to include in your directions:

• Deadline
• Format of the assignment. Do you want a single paragraph, a single page, several pages? Is there a minimum or a maximum length?
• The kind of thinking you want to see in the assignment.
• Identifying information (name, project name, course, section, etc.)
• Whether the assignment must be completed individually, in groups, or if group work is optional.
• How they will submit their work to you.
• How you will give feedback and return the assignment to them.

If the students need technical directions, such as how to save a document as an .rtf file or how to upload and download files from the group file exchange or the student drop box, include those directions in your assignment.

Grading Criteria

"How will I be graded?" Answer this question in a way that makes clear the kinds of thinking you want to see. State the value of the assignment so that students know how much it contributes to their course grade. The grading criteria can be as simple as a list of the elements that should be included in the assignment, or it can be a rubric that lists the criteria and assigns points for increasing levels of sophistication.

SOURCE: http://wwwnew.towson.edu/facultyonline/TutorialsAndResources/helpsheets/OnlineAssignments/OnlineAssignments.htm

 

2. Integrating Online Assignments

 It is often difficult to imagine what kinds of assignments can be put online if you have never used technology in your teaching.  Basically, technology can be used to put almost any assignment online.  The key, though, is to have a clear rationale for doing so.  Below are some examples of online assignments, but they certainly do not represent all of the possibilities.

• Online discussions
• Online tests/quizzes
• Virtual tutorials or labs
• Research or literature searches on the web
• Case studies
• Practice exercises
• Essays (submit online)
• Simulations

Decision-Making Criteria
Why should we put assignments online? As mentioned above, with the use of any tools or methods in our courses, there should be a clear pedagogical reason for using them.  The following are some of the reasons for putting an assignment online.

• Allow for new types of assignments.  Some assignments simply cannot be done on paper.  For example, you can have students work with a simulation (in two or three dimensions) to see what happens when they change one element.  Or they can see full color pictures or artwork to analyze or critique.  Allow yourself to think beyond the limitations of paper-based assignments to create new ways to enhance your students’ learning. 
• Refocus classroom time.  As with traditional assignments, you can have students cover content and do activities outside of class time so you can spend your in-class time in other ways.  For example, students can engage in an online discussion and then be able to bring that knowledge to class for a more in-depth discussion.  Or a pre-class quiz can highlight problem areas for you to focus on in your lecture.  You may also be able to reduce in-class hours if your online activities are well-planned.
• Allow for collaboration.  Research has shown that one way to increase student learning is to promote collaboration where groups of students can interact with each other to solve a problem or discuss an issue together.  Assignments which allow for such collaboration are often more effective at positively affecting student learning than individually-done assignments.
• Encourage reluctant participants.  Online assignments, particularly discussions, can allow even the most reluctant participants to join in a discussion.  The online (often asynchronous) nature of such assignments gives students an opportunity to reflect and generate a response to a particular question – time not necessarily allowed in a face-to-face, synchronous discussion. 
• Accommodate different learning styles and levels.  Beyond encouraging participation from reluctant students, online assignments can have a multi-modal design (i.e., graphics, text, audio, virtual hands-on activities) and, if designed appropriately, can also help students reach new learning levels or think more deeply or critically about a given concept.
• Give instant feedback to students.  One of the real benefits to students of online assignments is the possibility for instant feedback on their work.  Many tools used to create such assignments can be configured to provide such feedback, instead of having students wait for assignments to be graded and returned.  This way, they know immediately what concepts they need to work on, and which they already understand.  This can also help instructors to identify unclear concepts or students who may need remedial assistance.
• Archive course information.  Online assignments also allow for an archive to be created of relevant course information and discussions.  This information can be used by students at a later date while studying for a test/exam, or by the instructor to create a Frequently Asked Questions page or to measure students’ understanding of key concepts.
• Provide students with transferable skills for other courses and in their careers.  Some instructors are interested in integrating key skills into their courses that students can use in other courses or take out into the “real-world” upon completion of their degrees.  If this is a goal for your courses, then providing some familiarity with certain technologies through the use of online assignments may be a good way to introduce students to skills they can use elsewhere.

Creating Your Own Online Assignment
Now that you have some ideas about possible assignments and have reviewed the decision-making criteria, you should answer the following questions to consider how to integrate your online assignment into your course.

1. Briefly describe the assignment. (Write 2-4 sentences)
2. Explain how well your assignment fits with the online assignment decision-making criteria and consider how it will impact your overall course design.
   Consider using these focusing questions to help you.
   Goals/Objectives:
   What do I most want students to learn from this assignment?
   Contextual Issues:
   Who are my students?  Do they know how to use the technology I’ve chosen for my assignment? 
   Content Issues:
   What about the assignment content or goal lends itself to being an online assignment?
   Teaching Methods Issues:
   How do I need to teach so my students can do this online assignment?
   Assessment Issues:
   Why would I use an online assignment?  How will I grade this assignment?  What kind of feedback do I need to provide to the students on their completed work or work in progress?
3. Students may need a rationale for having online assignments to help foster their motivation.  What will you say to “sell” the assignment to your students? (Write 3-5 sentences)     SOURCE: http://www.adm.uwaterloo.ca/

3. Examples of Online Assignments

4A. Select THREE personal assessment programs from the list below, complete the programs and printout their results. Students are to write a one-paragraph review for each of the assessments (3 reviews) and indicate how they will apply the results to their immediate lives this semester.

• Keirsey Temperament Test
• Life Expectancy
• World's Smallest Political Quiz
• Basal Metabolism Rate
• A quick ready reckoner to calculate your daily energy and fat intake.
• Target Heart Rate Calculator
• Calorie Calculator

SOURCE:  http://wellness.uwsp.edu/Healthy_American/2ndEight.htm

4B. Personal Aerobic Exercise Program (2000 points)
Each individual is to plan a course of activity which serves their individual exercise goals. Students will carry out their exercise plan, analyze progress and plan for new efforts.

Each person selects an aerobic exercise program that can be carried out for at least a 6 week period, beginning no later than Feb. 17. Students are then expected to carry out their plan for at least 6 weeks and keep information in the log form. To complete an appropriate exercise program, the following criteria must be met:

1. A minimum of 35 minutes - 3 days per week.
2. Must include adequate warmup and cool down activities.
3. Activity records must be kept throughout.
4. Logs must be for aerobic activities only. No weightlifting, karate, taekwondo, etc. Be sure your activity is aerobic in nature.

Each student will receive aerobic program exercise logs to be used to record your individual activity progress. It is expected that you will spend a considerable amount of time accurately logging your activity progress. Logs that reflect poor record keeping will be reduced in point value accordingly. You are reminded that failure to complete this assignment will result in failure of the course. Samples of the log are available here and here. If you want full credit for your activity, make sure your log is at least as good as the samples!! The log should include the following information:

1. Concise records of the date, duration, intensity, frequency, progression and mode of activity.
2. Personal evaluation on a daily basis of how one is progressing towards meeting individual goals.

SOURCE:  http://wellness.uwsp.edu/Healthy_American/2ndEight.htm

4D. Summarize US assertions (rationales) of its right to intervene in Latin American affairs. Second summarize Latin American criticisms of and arguments against US interventionism. Quote directly from primary sources to support your analysis. In your conclusion, indicate which arguments you find most convincing and why.

4E Health Education Assignments: http://www.grossmont.net/bushrajonna/hed120/OnlineAssignments.htm

4F More examples:

• Michael Caruso's Online Chapter Quizzes for Lifespan Developmental Psychology
• Kristin Bates's Level of Measurement activity;
• Gary Bradshaw's Muller Lyer Illusion Experiment
• University of Georgia's Work Ethic site, with online tutorials and assignments
• San Diego's SWB: Sociology WorkBench, an online survey creation and analysis tool
• Women Artists of the American West
• Marketing 440: Advertising and Promotion Exercises
• Susan Neary's American History Research Assignment
• Lynn Chrenka's Exploring "Difference": A Sense of Place Assignment
• Todd Karnas's Problems of Representation Assignment
• Maria Torres's Modernism Assignment
• Tamba M'bayo's Europe & The World: Research & Quizzes
• Luz Maria Gordillo's Latin American & Latino Art History Assignment

SOURCE: http://oldwww.matrix.msu.edu/educonsult/online_mm.html

4. Feedback for Online Assignments

Feedback needs to be valid, justified and specific. Consider the following types of feedbacks:

• Grading on a point basis. If each question is worth 10 points, you may assign a question 8/10.
• Positive, neutral or negative feedback like "nice job, follow through, not to the subject."
• General feedback. You may use terms such as good, well done, excellent, poor, incomplete etc.
• Feedback commenting on the assignment: Use a phrase like "not followed all parts of assignment."
• General feedback commenting on the student's work: Use phrases like "lacks detail," or "lacks data."
• Specific feedback on the student's work: Use a phrase like "your cholesterol data are usually not possible."
• Follow-up questions that may or may not need answers. Like "What did you do about that problem?"

Four Basic Criterion Questions for Writing Feedback:
1.      What is the quality of the content of the writing? The ideas, the perception, the point of view.
2.      How well is the writing organized?
3.      How effective and specific is the language? How does the paper flow?
4.      Are there any mistakes or inappropriate choices in words?

Types of corrective feedback:

Explicit correction: You mean “saw me”
Recast: He saw you yesterday?
Clarification request: What?
Metalinguistic feedback: That should be in the past tense
Elicitation: What’s the correct way to say that?
Repetition: He see you?

From Lyster and Ranta’s 1997 study of corrective feedback in communicative classrooms

 

5. Assignment Guidelines for Students

• Writing Quality Counts!
  Formal written assignments and such things as readability, spelling, punctuation, etc. do count much.  Therefore, please proofread your essays carefully.  Double check grammar, spelling, and punctuation. 
•  
• Use full citations
  Web research pages generally have URLs, authors, titles, dates, etc. All the proper information may not be there but please cite the information that is available rather than just the URL.   Consult UC Berkeley's Resource Page for Citing Electronic Sources - an index of links to academic style manuals including  MLA  and APA.   Also check Ben Attias's Internet Style Guide for some tips on formatting citations, as well as formatting papers for posting.   
   
• Clarify your Claims and Support Main Points with Evidence
  Be sure that the topic of your work is significant and that you are thorough and rigorous. Be sure that the substance of your argument is logical and persuasive.  Avoid relying on unsupported assertions. At the very least cite specific examples and other forms of evidence to support your points.  
   
• Title your presentation
  Try for something interesting and thought-provoking. Titles like "Censorship and the Internet" provoke a barely stifled yawn whereas titles like "iMac: Technological Eye Candy on the Cusp of the Cuddletech Revolution" make me want to read more.  
   
• Write Scholarly Essays, not Advertisements
  It is fine to talk about the wonders of iMacs or NetNannies, but please remember that your overall goal is to assess the significance of the issue you're addressing in a scholarly context (focusing especially on the impact on communication.)  You are not getting paid by Intuit or Microsoft to proclaim the wonders of their products; you're a researcher and analyst, an academic working for and with the class.  
   
• Post to the proper section (topic heading) of the newsgroup
  Please be sure you post your assignments to the correct section of the course newsgroup in order to receive credit for your work.   Each assignment should be posted to a separate section (topic heading) of the newsgroup.   Also, please include your full name on your post.  
   
• Do Adequate Research 
  The Topic Report and Final Project are all research assignments.   These are meant to be more than your personal reactions to the issue (although these are important too).   Please show that you have surveyed relevant research on the topic as indicated by the assignment.  Add a bibliography or a list of links to relevant sources to your work.  These links can be incorporated into the text as it is organized or included in a list at the end.  Use full web addresses using the http:// format and doublecheck for typos (see below).    
   
• Pay attention to formatting.
  Try to organize your thoughts logically and format them using double carriage returns between paragraphs or items in a list.  Readability is important, and does count in your grade. Consult Professor Attias's Internet Style Guide for further details and formatting tips.  When including links, use the "preview" function or post first to the "for practice only" section of the newsgroup.  In all cases, test your links to make sure they work.

• Remember, these assignments are graded!
  Thus, treat them seriously, as you would any other written assignment. Double check grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Be sure that the topic of your work is significant and that you are thorough and rigorous. Be sure that the substance of your argument is logical and persuasive.

• SOURCE: http://www.csun.edu/~vcspc00g/454/tips.html 

 Library and References

Writing Assignments: http://www.umuc.edu/prog/ugp/ewp/design.html

Types of Assignments: http://www.pbcc.edu/faculty/ottp/WebCT_site/9_Assignments/assigneval1.htm

Web-site Evaluation etc. http://oldwww.matrix.msu.edu/educonsult/usability.html

Students doing Assignments: http://www.csu.edu.au/division/studserv/online/assignments.htm   http://web.pdx.edu/~bowersn/right.html

Free online Assignment Page: http://www.homework-online.com/index.asp

 Test for the Course

Study this web-site for 3 hours for an approved (RN-CEP 11430, MFT- PCE 39) 3-hours Continuing Education Certificate (0.3 CEUs). Then take the Test.  Click here for the self-correcting test & online payment, and 2) receive your certificate immediately online. All is online, nothing by post-mail.