online teaching

March 17, 2021 by Heather Mitchell-Buck Leave a Comment

a dubious anniversary

There are many days that we could claim as a milestone to acknowledge the change that COVID has brought to our lives and to our world. But today, March 17, is the one that’s most meaningful to me. On this day a year ago, I worked my last full day on campus, running workshops for my Hood colleagues as we all worked like mad trying to move our courses online. When we first started planning those workshops a week beforehand, we thought, “oh, we’ll order lunch for everyone – surely most folx will want to meet in-person.” We reconsidered and rethought that decision (and dozens, hundreds more in both the short- and long-term) and in the end, I saw only a small handful of my fellow teachers on campus that day.

When I came home to get dinner before my evening workshop, there was a flyer in our mail slot from the local Irish pub just a couple of blocks from our house, advertising a special takeout menu for St Pat’s in lieu of the usual wall-to-wall celebration that usually happens there every year. We called in an order that was the first of many takeout meals over the past year (and many more to come as we continue to support our favorite local restaurants in downtown Frederick!).

The scale of grief and loss over the past year is hard to process. None of us would have ever, ever wanted this to happen. There’s precious little to celebrate about this pandemic.

But to all of my fellow educators who are still working like mad trying to give your students the best possible education in spite of everything, I see you. I thank you. I celebrate you.

To all of the students out there doing your best to learn and grow and be stronger than this pandemic, I see you. I thank you. I celebrate you.

To everyone out there who’s still struggling to navigate everything that COVID has brought into your life, I see you. I thank you. I celebrate you.

Keep wearing your masks and washing your hands. Find a few minutes today and every day to care for others and for yourself. Get vaccinated when you can. Do all you can do so that we can all gather safely again together SOON: to be in classrooms where we can learn and laugh and move the desks around to do some group work; to have that lunch meeting that has been on hold for the past year; to hug our friends and family both near and far.

Hang in there, friends. We can do this.

March 9, 2021 by Heather Mitchell-Buck Leave a Comment

using self-graded tests & homework

*our cat Maisie helping me work on Old English*

An important aspect of “ungrading” for me in my Old English class this semester is giving students tests & homework that they grade themselves. I highly, highly recommend this strategy for any course that relies on tests, problem sets, translations, and other activities with “right” and “wrong” answers.

Here’s how this works for me

When I post a “test” on Blackboard, or assign an exercise/translation for homework, I give students the answers right away. They can check their work as they go, and then they submit their corrected work to me, along with whatever questions or comments they have about the process. This way, the students get instant feedback when they are focused on that assignment (rather than days later), and I don’t have to spend a bunch of time meticulously correcting mistakes – instead, I spend my time in conversation with the student about sticky points in their learning. It’s a much better use of everyone’s time. 🙂

Logistics for Blackboard tests

I create a “test” like normal, including feedback for incorrect answers (such as what page in the textbook they should review to see why they missed that question). Before deploying the test, choose “modify options” from the arrow next to the test title, and then in “show test results and feedback to students,” select all the checkboxes so that students can see their answer, the correct answer, and your feedback for any missed questions.

*how to set up the “test” (click images to enlarge)*

When the student takes the “test” (which is, of course 100% open-book, open-note for me), they get immediate feedback on what they missed and know exactly where to go to review the points they do not understand. All I need to do is review each test, see what was missed, and plan what we need to review either in individual conferences or as a whole class.

*what students see as they review their answers*

Logistics for language exercises & translations

I post an answer key (or my own translation of the passage they are working on) either at the same time as I post the assignment, or a couple of days later if I want them to have some time to work before seeing the answers. I encourage my students to work through all of the exercise or passage on their own before checking the answer key, but that is 100% on the honor system. I trust my students to do what’s best for their own learning, and we have lots of conversations about all the different ways they can choose to be accountable to themselves.

When the assignment is due, students upload their corrected work to Blackboard, including questions or comments that they would like for me to address. In my feedback to them, I answer their questions, provide help and examples, and so on.

How it’s going

So far, I’m loving this system. I have very few classes in which my assignments have a “right” or “wrong” answer – I never quiz students on names of characters or authors or dates, for example. But when you’re teaching and learning a language, it’s important that everyone understands each step along the way so no one falls behind. Especially because this is a hybrid class that only meets once per week for 75 minutes, we can’t use our valuable class time “correcting” work, and I never, ever want students to have to wait for me to find out “how they did” on an assignment.

My students have told me that they appreciate this approach too. They feel empowered to find the answers they need and figure out the “whys” for themselves before asking me, and I can already see that they are retaining the material well and know exactly where to look up what they don’t know. not to mention that it’s a great feeling to see a question in the margin of a student’s work, and then a note next to that question saying, “Never mind! I figured it out for myself!!” 🙂

December 7, 2020 by Heather Mitchell-Buck Leave a Comment

organizing online content

Now that final grades are submitted for the Fall 2020 semester, we can all breathe a little easier … and everyone should take some time to relax, breathe, and enjoy a well-deserved break!

a computer with a lightbox that reads "you got this" — *image by prateek katayal on unsplash*

But if you’re already thinking about your spring courses and ways to improve on the great work I know you have been doing, here’s my #1 suggestion: put some serious thought into how best to organize your content … and your Blackboard site (or whatever LMS you are using).

The #1 comment I heard from my students this semester was that they appreciated how I’d organized everything to make it quick and easy for them to find what they needed. All of this represents a BIG change from how I used to organize everything for F2F classes – but I think I will continue to use much of what I’ve outlined below, even when we’re all back to “normal.”

Now, of course every class is different; this is what worked for me and for my ENGL 405 students – feel free to adapt any of this in a way that works for you!

(nb: you can click on any of the images below to see a larger version)

main course menu

I gave my course menu a lot of thought. Rather than just using the default Bb categories (most of which, let’s face it, are actually not super-helpful), I broke things up. The syllabus, college COVID policies, etc., went into “Policies & Expectations.” All the nuts-and-bolts info is in the “How to…” section (including everything from simple stuff like how to login to our weekly Zoom meeting, or add a profile picture to Bb or Zoom, to assignment-related stuff like how to post to Flipgrid or how to write an excellent essay).

I won’t go through each area in detail, but let’s look at “Planning your week” next.

weekly plan

The absolute best thing I did for my class was choose a regular weekly schedule in advance and stick to it the entire semester. Students always knew what time every week their materials would be available, when their reflections and assignments were due, and when we were meeting for synchronous classes. Y’all, I CANNOT EMPHASIZE ENOUGH how important this was. Were there weeks when I did not have a reflection and/or assignment due? Yes. Did I give loads of extensions? You betcha! But making this schedule and sticking to it every week gave my students a feeling of normalcy and routine, and made sure I always had my sh*t together to post materials when they were expecting them.

(and yes, I also made a visual timeline of the week for them in Canva to make it easy to get a sense of this – and I even color-coded it for my first-year students – but that is 100% optional!)

schedule, readings, & assignments

The other section I want to dig into here is the main content area of my Bb site, which I called “Schedule, readings, & assignments.” This section started off with an overview of the topics for each week:

In my FYS, this overview also listed out the Sunday assignments for each week, but for the 400-level students in this class, I was less concerned about them keeping up with their work. 😉

Above this overview, I added a folder for each week, with the most recent info at the top to eliminate extra scrolling:

These folders followed the same formula every week:

details for each day
a subfolder with everything students needed to read / watch / do that particular week
a link to their Wednesday reflection (I did these on either Padlet or Flipgrid)
a link to submit their Sunday assignment

The contents of the “To read & do” folder changed significantly every week based on what we were doing – it’s where I listed readings from our course texts, uploaded PDFs, embedded YouTube or course videos, posted links to other materials, etc. But keeping that material in its own subfolder made it easy for students to come back to the main weekly folder and submit their assignments without having to scroll past all of the materials they had (hopefully!) already read and watched during the week.

concluding thoughts…

Overall, I was really happy with this system, and based on the feedback I got, my students were pleased with it too. I know I’ll have to make some modifications for next semester, but I feel good about building on this foundation.