Get Your Students Hired
This is a general discussion forum for the following learning topic:
Online Language: Communicating with Students --> Measuring Good Communication
Post what you've learned about this topic and how you intend to apply it. Feel free to post questions and comments too.
Grammar, timeliness, and relevance are important for the students to understand. As an instructor, trying not to intervene too much but encourage students when needed to further the discussion. Rubrics are important to help instructors remain fair and neutral and allow students to have a clear understanding of what the expectations are.
I've learned that rubrics are essential for measuring effective communication online, prioritizing quality over quantity. I will create detailed rubrics aligned with learning outcomes, emphasizing relevance, justification, and netiquette. Sharing these rubrics in advance will set clear expectations, and I will use them to provide constructive feedback and promote self-reflection. I'm interested in others' experiences with effective rubric criteria and ensuring alignment with learning objectives.
I had not thought about using a rubric to guide students in appropriate communication guidelines in an online course. I intend to use this idea in the future.
With online learning emails, posts, and other written communication is the best way to assess students levels of understanding and engagement.
One of the ultimate goals of effectively designed online programs from a teaching perspective should be to assess learning. As students communicate and complete assignments/projects, they must understand how they will be assessed. Criteria must be used as the basis of a framework for measuring growth in the learning process. To effectively complete assessments, rubrics are a key component.
A rubric is simply an assessment tool. Many are provided online or can be developed online through websites such as Rubistar. Rubrics should include a set of criteria that connect to specific outcomes/objectives of the course or assignment. Rubrics allow for standardized evaluation and make the evaluation process more simple and transparent. Rubrics provide students (through peer evaluation) and the instructor with a guide with which to provide feedback to others through formative or summative assessment. Rubrics should provide specific criteria, a range of performance, and a focus on the objectives.
I like the suggestion of attaching at Rating Scale for grading participation in discussions
Good communication drives student engagement in online courses. A respectful tone, clear expectations, and personalized interactions help instructors build connections and improve learning.
As instructors, we should avoid dominating discussions, instead guiding students to share their thoughts, analyze content, and reflect on their learning. This helps create a collaborative and community-driven learning environment.
Utilizing a ruberic is a very helpful tool that helps lay the groundwork for expectations of behavior and participation in the class, and provides specific details about the assignment(s). The ruberic also helps the professor provide a fair grading system that makes it easy to defend in my opinion, because its all written out in the ruberic. I also learned the term netiquette. I had never heard it used before. I will now use this terminology too when addressing online presence.
Once we put guidelines and expectations up for Students to follow; using a rubric to give feedback on their communication will guide the Student into a more positive effective communication for the work force.
A clearly outlined rubric is a helpful tool for the instructors and students to use with each assignment.
I found the information about preset objectives in a rubric regarding collaboration an insightful addition to group work to encourage participation.
Discussions in an online environment has always been difficult for me. I always have some who contribute and some that do not. I know that this builds our community and I want to build it. The suggestion on having a personal DQ post is great. It might get some students talking. I think I will also try to reward questions so students will want to respond, by using less technical more relational questions. I have a lot to learn in this area.
Using a rubric to assess students ensures consistency and transparency, creating a fair and clear evaluation process throughout the course.
The measurement of good communication among online students is a crucial aspect for evaluating the effectiveness of distance education and collaborative learning. Some strategies and tools that can be used to assess the quality of student communication in an online environment include creating rubrics that encompass criteria for effective communication, such as clarity, cohesion, respect, and active listening.
When teaching an online course it is important to create guidelines so that the content students post are on topic, moves the conversation forward, and neither too long or too short.
The instructor should monitor discussions in an online environment. Guidelines must first be provided and then the instructor must monitor the discussion to assess the direction and content. Without this monitoring, there is a risk of minimal discussion or too much unfocused discussion.
An online instructor should become a "guide on the side." The instructor should refrain from posting immediate answers to the discussion board; refrain from stating immediately whether answers are right or wrong; avoid posting too much, too often; and facilitate the sharing of ideas and opinions.