Rubrics, Feedback, & Grade Planning

Introduction

Have you found yourself thinking any of the following?  

• "I wish I knew how my instructor was going to be grading me for this assignment."

• "Can't my instructor just give me a checklist of expectations for this assignment?"

• "Why did I get this grade?"

• "What can I do to improve my grade?"

• "How will this assignment affect my overall grade in this class?"

• "What score do I need to get on these next few assignments to raise my overall grade in our class and achieve my grade-goal?"

Maybe you have even expressed some of the above thoughts directly to your instructor, classmates, and/or loved ones.

There are solutions to each of those thoughts: rubrics, feedback, and overall utilizing the features embedded in the Grades tab in Canvas.  These are tools to help you gain even more control over your grade and help you with your goals for the course.

Awesome!  Let's explore these tools.

Intro to Feedback

If you usually just look at your score on assignments (whether it's the numerical score, percent, or letter grade you earned) and you are also not reviewing feedback, you are missing-out on additional learning opportunities from that assignment.  Feedback are comments and marks that point-out areas to improve, what is done well, and other items to consider for your success.

You will be provided a lot of feedback within our class to better help you improve within our course and to help you better reach your academic goals.

If in the past feedback has made you anxious, defensive, or attacked, try shifting your outlook next time you receive it to viewing feedback as another tool for success.  I usually like to explain that feedback and critiques are not created to put you down; rather, they are there to help you.  

• Think about it: Why would an instructor take all that time to provide you with feedback if they didn't care about your education and goals?

• Let's look at feedback another way, from the instructor's perspective: After spending all that time providing students feedback, how do you think the instructor would feel if they did not utilize or acknowledge it?  How do you then think that will affect your success?

Now that we have a positive outlook for what feedback is and its usefulness, let's find-out how to view feedback within Canvas as well as strategies for utilizing it.

Reviewing Feedback

Before we get started-on reviewing feedback for different types of assignments, let's get to know the different parts of the Grades tab a bit better by reviewing the guide linked here.

Use the links below to learn how to view feedback from me and your classmates, depending on the type of feedback tool. 

Feedback for Papers, Projects, and Discussion Forums

• Assignment Comments

• Annotated Feedback

• Rubric

Feedback Just for Essays & Other Written Assignments

• Embedded Turnitin.com Feature (checks for sentence mechanic errors and plagiarism)

Feedback for Quizzes

• Quiz Results

• Quiz Comments

Feedback from Peer Reviews

• Reviewing Peer Review Feedback

Applying Feedback

When you review feedback and results for any assignment, answer these 4 questions to utilize "metacognition" strategies that we will practice in this course:

1. What did I do well?

   • This is so you repeat these habits the next time.

2. What can I improve on?

   • This is so you can set a plan for improvement by not repeating mistakes.

3. What did I have control over?

   • This is so you only focus on what is in your control.

4. What did I not have control over?

   • This is so you do not worry about elements that you have no control over.

The answers to these questions will help you brainstorm a plan for success.  Once you have created this plan, don't forget to execute it.

What-If Grades

Have you ever wondered how an assignment will affect your overall grade in a class?  Maybe you are a planner and want to know what grades you need to minimally achieve on upcoming assignment to get the grade you want in a course.

There is a way in our class where you can take control over these thoughts to get answers for yourself.  All you have to use is the embedded "What-If" feature in the Grades tab in our Canvas course.  This feature allows you to enter hypothetical grades for any assignment--past, present, or future, graded or ungraded.  Canvas will then calculate what your overall grade will be in the course if you got those scores.

You are basically asking, "What if I got _____ points on this assignment?"  Then, Canvas gives you the answer!  Find-out how to use this tool by reviewing the guide linked here.

When I was an online student, I utilized this feature often.  It was so helpful for me with setting and achieving my goals.