How to Provide Feedback and Assign Grades
We have already talked about the importance of feedback in an online course. Students rely on your feedback to measure their progress, and it also plays a huge role in your “instructor presence” in the course. Because this subject tends to be more technical than the other lessons in this course, links are included to TIPS where you can get details and step-by-step support for the different grading and feedback features in Blackboard.
Feedback in Discussions and other Blackboard Tools
Students will view their grades in the grade book link in the course menu, and that’s where they will find the feedback you provide, while your grading tools are located in the Control Panel of your course. Grading discussion assignments is accomplished through the Grade Center. You may use the Full Grade Center view for the big picture or the Needs Grading view which only shows items in need of grading.
Quick TIP
When using the Needs Grading tool, sort by DATE SUBMITTED to make sure that you grade the oldest assignments first and save the most recent assignments for last.
To start grading from the Needs Grading view, select the options button that appears when you move your curser over the assignment name. Then select Grade All Users from the drop-down menu.
To start grading from the Full Grade Center view, note that items awaiting your attention will be noted with a yellow disk containing a question mark. With your curser over that cell in the grade center, click on the options button and then locate the student’s attempt for the assignment. Selecting this will take you to the student’s assignment where you can assign a score, provide feedback, and submit it for student viewing.
Feedback in Written Assignments
Receiving feedback on written assignments is obviously important, and doing this in an online course is surprisingly easy. Blackboard, our learning management system, includes a feature called Bb Annotate which allows instructors to give specific customized feedback. For a technical overview of Bb Annotate as well as a video demonstrating its use, visit our TIPS website and you’ll be ready to grade your students’ work in no time!
If you want to up your game and give students “next level” feedback, then you may want to investigate our TIPS article on Creating Video Feedback. You can create short screen captures where you record audio feedback as you grade the student’s paper. It’s quick to do and adds an extra level of contact between you and the students.
Now that you have a better idea about how you will assess student work in your course, it’s time to move to the last lesson Where to Go For Help For You and Your Students.
