{"id":890,"date":"2023-02-02T15:02:45","date_gmt":"2023-02-02T23:02:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/teaching-in-dornsife\/?page_id=890"},"modified":"2023-02-06T13:58:07","modified_gmt":"2023-02-06T21:58:07","slug":"blog-post-21","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/teaching-in-dornsife\/faculty-blog\/blog-post-21\/","title":{"rendered":"Grading with Blackboard"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n \n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
\n\n \n \n
\n\n \n
An efficient grading method that will lead to more personalized feedback for students<\/em><\/h5>\n

By Iva Bozovic, Ph.D., Associate Professor (Teaching), Political Science and International Relations – April 17, 2020<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The idea of grading 48 individual op-ed pieces in my political economy class conjures up an image of tall stacks of papers, colored pens, and crumbly snacks strewn all over my work desk.\u00a0 With the move to online teaching, snacks can still be procured, at least for now, but hard copy paper assignments are the thing of the past.\u00a0 So not only is our teaching practice changing on the fly, our grading has to adapt as well.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I grade better in pen and paper, or at least digital pen on digital paper.\u00a0 There probably are more than a few articles our colleagues could cite to explain the psychology behind this habit.\u00a0 Suffice it to say that I find it faster to understand the student\u2019s work, process their arguments or train of thought, connect the dots they are trying to make, especially if work is not well written, offer commentary in the margins, draw arrows and squares to move their work around, and highlight editing issues all over the page.\u00a0 I cannot do any of this in Blackboard.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When using Blackboard to grade Turnitin papers, I find the options limiting, time intensive and thus inefficient to use.\u00a0 In the grading window within Blackboard, you have the option to provide rubric elements, written feedback, or quick marks.\u00a0 I do offer my students a rubric, before they even start working on their assignment, but they want to know why or how points were awarded.\u00a0 Offered QuickMarks do not resemble anything that applies to my students\u2019 work.\u00a0 So my only option is to type up all the comments and also spell out for which specific part of their essays those comments are relevant.\u00a0 Some of my students want editing suggestions and comments for improvement because they intend to work on these opinion pieces for publication. \u00a0Turnitin and Blackboard options, I feel, leave those students shortchanged.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"
Image 1 – Blackboard written feedback option<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"
Image 2 – Blackboard QuickMarks Options<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Luckily, there is way to grade like we used to but deliver the papers back to students via Blackboard.\u00a0 Here are the steps if anyone is interested in streamlining the process while sticking with some of their \u201cold\u201d routines. \u00a0\u00a0To pull this off, you will need 3 things: computer with Blackboard access, tablet and stylus.\u00a0 In my case, I use any computer that is otherwise not occupied at home plus an apple ipad pro with the apple pencil.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Step 1: Collect papers form students<\/h4>\n

Your students should turn in their papers using TurnitIn.\u00a0 It allows you to check for plagiarism and offers the set of options for grading that was illustrated above.\u00a0 If you are not familiar with Turnitin assignments see USC CET links<\/a>.\u00a0 Once the students upload their written papers, you need to download all of them into a cloud folder.\u00a0 In my case, this is a course folder in Google Drive because I can easily access it from any desktop and tablet I use for grading.\u00a0 See instructions here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Step 2: Grade<\/h4>\n

In this step you need to use an annotation app on the iPad (tablet) to grade and mark up student work.\u00a0 If you use an iPad and the apple pencil, more than likely you have already used it to markup documents that come in email or papers you are reading for research.\u00a0 My favorite is iAnnotate but many choices<\/a> exist.\u00a0 I like that iAnnotate is free, allows me to share marked-up documents with students via email and connects seamlessly to cloud storage space.\u00a0 That is precisely how I grade.\u00a0 I link iAnnotate to the Google Drive folder where I have stored all my students\u2019 work.\u00a0 I open each paper and grade with the freedom of writing all over the paper, in many colors if I chose to, and as many arrows and lines as the grading requires.\u00a0 Don\u2019t judge! Once, I am done, the marked-up document is seamlessly synced with its Google Drive location.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Step 3: Return papers back to students<\/h4>\n

In your Blackboard, you start at Assignment Inbox page to get access to TurnitIn report and feedback tools.\u00a0 If you have never used TurnitIn, I recommend this video<\/a> for familiarizing yourself with existing grading options.\u00a0 Once I am grading in Blackboard, instead of typed-up comments, I simply provide the link to the marked-up paper in the Google Drive and submit the grade in Blackboard.\u00a0 To make sure that students see my attached document, in the comment field I type \u201ccomments here\u201d and I hyperlink [here] with the Google Drive link for their marked up paper.\u00a0 The Google Drive location of their paper can only be accessed by those who have the link, and have a USC username, so this protects the privacy of the student whose work I am sharing.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Is it as quick as handing back a stack of papers at the end of a lecture?\u00a0 No, but your other option is to email 48 individual students with their marked-up PDF papers and still have to enter grades into Excel or Blackboard gradebook.\u00a0 Seems like this COVID-19 workaround makes for a greener and more sustainable grading practice.\u00a0 The psychology behind our habits will take a lot more to update.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n <\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":260,"featured_media":0,"parent":220,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-890","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nGrading with Blackboard - Teaching at Dornsife<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/teaching-in-dornsife\/faculty-blog\/blog-post-21\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Grading with Blackboard - Teaching at Dornsife\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/teaching-in-dornsife\/faculty-blog\/blog-post-21\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Teaching at Dornsife\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-02-06T21:58:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/teaching-in-dornsife\/faculty-blog\/blog-post-21\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/teaching-in-dornsife\/faculty-blog\/blog-post-21\/\",\"name\":\"Grading with Blackboard - Teaching at Dornsife\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/teaching-in-dornsife\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2023-02-02T23:02:45+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-02-06T21:58:07+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/teaching-in-dornsife\/faculty-blog\/blog-post-21\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/teaching-in-dornsife\/faculty-blog\/blog-post-21\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/teaching-in-dornsife\/faculty-blog\/blog-post-21\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/teaching-in-dornsife\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Faculty Blog\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/teaching-in-dornsife\/faculty-blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":3,\"name\":\"Grading with Blackboard\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/teaching-in-dornsife\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/teaching-in-dornsife\/\",\"name\":\"Teaching at Dornsife\",\"description\":\"USC Dornsife Sites Teaching at Dornsife\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/teaching-in-dornsife\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Grading with Blackboard - Teaching at Dornsife","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/teaching-in-dornsife\/faculty-blog\/blog-post-21\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Grading with Blackboard - Teaching at Dornsife","og_url":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/teaching-in-dornsife\/faculty-blog\/blog-post-21\/","og_site_name":"Teaching at Dornsife","article_modified_time":"2023-02-06T21:58:07+00:00","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/teaching-in-dornsife\/faculty-blog\/blog-post-21\/","url":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/teaching-in-dornsife\/faculty-blog\/blog-post-21\/","name":"Grading with Blackboard - Teaching at Dornsife","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/teaching-in-dornsife\/#website"},"datePublished":"2023-02-02T23:02:45+00:00","dateModified":"2023-02-06T21:58:07+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/teaching-in-dornsife\/faculty-blog\/blog-post-21\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/teaching-in-dornsife\/faculty-blog\/blog-post-21\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/teaching-in-dornsife\/faculty-blog\/blog-post-21\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/teaching-in-dornsife\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Faculty Blog","item":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/teaching-in-dornsife\/faculty-blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Grading with Blackboard"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/teaching-in-dornsife\/#website","url":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/teaching-in-dornsife\/","name":"Teaching at Dornsife","description":"USC Dornsife Sites Teaching at Dornsife","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/teaching-in-dornsife\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/teaching-in-dornsife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/teaching-in-dornsife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/teaching-in-dornsife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/teaching-in-dornsife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/260"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/teaching-in-dornsife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=890"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/teaching-in-dornsife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/890\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1096,"href":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/teaching-in-dornsife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/890\/revisions\/1096"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/teaching-in-dornsife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/teaching-in-dornsife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}