Easy to Understand Grading System

The course design tips that have been shared over the past several days are all derived from the Quality Matters or Quality REACHE rubric, which has been shared with JCCC faculty enrolled in the iTeach Online Workshop (and its predecessor WebCeTera) since the Fall of 2005 (when we were still using WebCT 4.1). Here’s another “tip.”

As you work on creating or modifying an online course, the Quality REACHE rubric (based on the University of Maryland FISE Grant funded Quality Matters rubric, http://www.qualitymatters.org/Rubric.htm) suggests that a course’s grading policy should be transparent and easy to understand. Such a guideline can be accomplished in several ways:

• The grading policy should list all graded course activities (assessments, assignments, projects, group work, discussion postings and other interactivity with other students and the instructor) and should clearly identify the points/overall value of each activity and how it contributes to the final grade.
• The grading policy should be established and available to the student at the beginning of the class.
• The course should include a rubric that clearly describes what the student needs to do, what each activity, assignment and assessment is “worth,” and how points, grades or percentages earned for each activity equate to a final course grade.

Other course design tips are available at http://ce-annotations.blogspot.com/search/label/Course%20Design. The Quality REACHE (QR) rubric and other information about QR is available at http://cite.nwmissouri.edu/QualityReache/.