DE RubricsCreating Rubrics for Distance Education Courses

Kasey Fernandez

Master’s candidateUniversity of Hawai’i at Manoa

Why DE Rubrics?

KauaiImage taken from Google Maps

KauaiImage taken from Google Maps

Kauai Community CollegePhoto by Christopher P. Becker (polihale.com).

http://www.hawaii.edu/dl/

Traditional College Classroom

Distance Education Classroom

The attrition rate of students enrolled in distance education programs is often considerably higher than the comparable campus based student attrition rate (Simpson 2010, Patterson & McFadden 2009, Nash 2005).

What’s the problem?

Perhaps attrition is due to a lack of: • Patterson & McFadden (2009)

– Student Interaction• Cohorts & F2F orientations

– Age & Familial Obligations

• Assignment Communication (Rippe 2008)

Dropout seems to result from an interaction of many complex variables that are difficult to delineate and determine, particularly in online environments, hence making it difficult for one comprehensive theory of dropout to fully explain the phenomenon in all situations or settings.

Patterson & McFadden (2009)

The best way to communicate these expectations is through rubric creation and implementation.

(Cindy Rippe 2008 p.3)

“Provide rubrics, or detailed grading criteria, for every assignment at the beginning of the course so students understand how they will be graded.”

(Best Practice Strategies to Promote Academic Integrity in Online Education – WICHE 2009)

What’s the difference?

• Little/ no face to face communication– Harder for teachers to identify strugglers

• Unfamiliar media – teachers & students

• e-mail• Skype• Twitter• Google docs• Forums

Aren’t F2F and DE rubrics the same?

• All rubrics should be–Specific–Self – explanatory–Self – assessable

DE courses assess skills differently

Participation• Forums

–Higher level of discussion »Penny and Murphy (2009)

• Synchronous session • Social media participation

DE documents take the place of classroom instruction.

Which tool?

www.derubrics.com

Content•Who should use rubrics?•What are rubrics?

•What types of rubrics are there? •Where?

•Face to Face•Asynchronous•Synchronous

•When should rubrics be used? •Analytic•Holistic?

•Why should you use rubrics? •How do you write a rubric?

Who?

What?

When?

Where?

How?

Step by Step

Implementation

Participants

• 14 college students– Ed Tech

• 8F 6M• 71% 5+ DE • 79% teachers

Compensation

$5 eGift

•Long module!

•Lots of participation requests

•Revised consent

•Selected addresses

Assessments

• Pass code widget • Identical pre and post• Demographics survey• Attitudinal survey

Pre/ Demographics

Post/ Attitudinal

Results

What did you enjoy about this module?

• “The presentation is very clear and concise. The layout is professional and engaging.”

• “Very graphically interactive and I liked the mini-books you made.”

• “I enjoyed learning about the resources I can use when creating my own rubrics.”

What would like to change about this module?

• “I personally would benefit from some practice activities or something to help remember what I learned in each section.”

• “If I had to change anything in the module, I would say to publish the instructions to a PDF rather than in the virtual mini-book.”

• “It would be nice to have it load faster.”

Future Improvements

• Add formative practice – Quizzes– Games– Rubric creation practice

• Increase webpage size• Mobile accessibility• Integrate into DE course

•Next time!•Visible on all devices•Faster processing

Conclusion

• For max effectiveness– Supplement– Part of a course

• General knowledge is more likely to change than attitude

• Attitude may differ with alternate audience