Teaching in Higher Ed

Productivity

Feedback and grading workflow guest on Mac Power Users

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feedback-workflow

A couple of weeks ago, I was the mini workflow guest for the Mac Power Users podcast, episode 240.

Katie and David were in rare form. It was David's birthday and perhaps nearly the last episode he recorded prior to announcing that he was going solo with his law practice…

I spoke about how to use screencasting to give feedback to students in a way that students report seems more authentic, honest, and helpful.

It's the first 15 minutes of their live show, recorded live on February 7, 2015, episode 240.

Listener Follow Up

I heard from a couple of Mac Power Users, after the episode, which was so rewarding.

David M. from Qatar wrote to say that he purposely doesn't include a track changes document for his students, as he wants to be sure they listen carefully and digest more of the feedback that way.

I hadn't clarified on the episode that I don't do track changes for the purpose of making corrections to the students' papers, either. I use the Word (or other) documents to place written comments or to highlight things.

David described more of his process for me:

Amongst other areas of EFL, I teach a lot of writing classes.

I am always concerned about the level of feedback I give students in their drafts. Too much and I am basically writing it for them and too little and I am not helping them.

I began to do feedback by screen cast using Camtasia and MS Word or PDFPen.

I read the essay before casting and then go through it asking for clarification, correcting errors and pointing out poor vocabulary, grammar, etc. I do type into the Word file but importantly I do not send them back the file with corrections, in fact I do not save my changes.

This forces students to listen, understand and fix their own errors.

I post the videos on Vimeo with a password only the student knows. Vimeo is great because I can track how often the students watch the video (up to 8 times). I do have a paid account and uploading can be a little slow but those negatives are not outweighed by the ease and tracking functions.

Tom S. also wrote to say that he uses screencasting in his business. He finds the feedback gets followed through on much more like his original intent when he uses this form of communication.

Tom wrote:

I am a Sales Vice President for a mid-sized electric manufacturing company in Connecticut.

Over the past year I’ve been using Tapes as a mode to provide feedback to not only my direct reports (regional sales managers) as well as my peers on the executive team at the company.

I do this often with financial reports such as excel documents as well as detailed word documents such as contracts and strategic planning documents.

The feedback that my team has about the process is incredible and I’ve found that the understanding and implementation of the feedback I provide is faster and more in-depth.

Reaching Out

I even got to touch base with Betsy Weber, Chief Evangelist for TechSmith (the makers of SnagIt), who I knew way back in my days in the computer training industry.

She thanked me for the mention of SnagIt on the show and also inquired as to whether or not I had any additional feedback for them.

SnagIt is, and has been for years, a fantastic piece of software. The only minor complaint I had was that it would be nice is there was greater parity between the Mac and PC versions.

Even More Tools

As I mentioned on the live MPU show, I reached out to the Mac Power Users Google Plus community for help on another grading-related workflow.

On the thread, Soram K. from UCLA Medical School reached out to share about other annotating tools he discovered from others in the community that meet his needs and augment the power of SnagIt.

He wrote:

I did find iAnnotate in my own research but do not like to convert the Word file my students send me to PDF. Too many steps!

I am looking at the following as a way that I think will be easier with a desktop screen writing app that will record in Snagit.

Here are some links…

Next Steps

As those of you who know me (or are getting to know me through the podcast and the blog) will predict, I am thrilled to discover these new tools.

However, I am going to force myself to hold off until after the semester ends before doing too much experimenting. It is too easy to go down a rabbit trail and lose time on the most important priorities for now.

I just finished reading the book Essentialism and am even more reminded of the importance of saying no to things. I've added the suggestions to my Evernote list of tools I want to try in the future.

Summer will give me opportunities to play a bit with technology, especially going to read some of the older posts on The Digital Researcher blog.

Inviting more ease into your week

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ease

I enjoyed the conversation with Natalie Houston immensely, which aired this past week in episode #034. She reminded us all to find ways to have more of a sense of ease in our lives.

She said:

Productivity, to me, is not about doing more things faster. It is about doing the things that are most important to me and creating the kind of life I want to have…

Here are a couple of opportunities for having more ease in my life that I discovered this week:

Set a timer to better enjoy breaks and conversations with students

Since the conversation with Natalie, I've been setting timers like crazy. While I had used this approach previously, she shed new light on the practice and inspired me to take more regular advantage of the focus on the moment.

I found a Tweet where Natalie coached a colleague who wanted motivation and concentration to:

I met with a few students this week and really felt more connected with the conversations in those times when I remembered to set a timer. There was one time when I neglected to do so, and I both wound up completely throwing off my schedule for the latter part of the afternoon, and wasn't as engaged as in the other “timed” conversations.

Natalie also offers these tips about using a timer while grading.

Install a custom style in Zotero, which enables you to create an annotated bibliography

This one is really more for my doctoral students than for me, though I treasure the opportunities to bring more ease into other people's lives. As a part of their program, they're asked a number of times to develop an annotated bibliography.

We also strongly encourage the use of the citations manager, Zotero. The annotated bibliography assignment hasn't aligned well with using the automated features in Zotero, since until now, I thought it could only “spit out” a list of sources, not something that included annotations.

Thanks to Emory Libraries and Information Technology, I found out I was wrong. Turns out, you can create a custom style in Zotero, or download one from their repository and leave the heavy lifting to others.

[reminder]How are you inviting more ease into your life this week?[/reminder]

Assessing and tracking blogs

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I made the move a few years ago in my hybrid classes to stay mostly away from discussion forum posts. They tended to generate more of a transactional perception of the assignments.

Blogs seem to inspire people to do their best work, given the public nature of the assignments.

assessing and tracking blogs

Plus, if a person takes their blog seriously, they can be on their way to building a strong personal brand. Their data isn't locked behind an LMS, but is theirs to do with it what they want, after the class has ended.

Audrey Watters has been an advocate for providing students their their own online presence, one that isn't trapped in an LMS. On episode 18, she describes the University of Mary Washington's “A domain of one's own” initiative, in which they provide all incoming students their own website that gets transferred over to their ownership upon graduation.

Anyone who has made the switch from forums to blogs knows that it isn't anywhere near as efficient for the professor. You need to subscribe to all the students' blogs, manually, and commenting is nowhere near as easy as on an LMS.

The benefits far outweigh the challenges, though, so I continue to make use of blogging as an assignment in many of my courses.

Assessing blogs

The vast majority of the assignments in my courses are evaluated using a rubric. I've seen my fair share of atrocious blog rubrics and am continually striving to make mine better.

The best approach to assessment of blogs seems to be that they should be geared toward the learning outcomes for the course (as in that a generic blog rubric could not be used to adequately assess a blog).

This is a blog rubric that I've created for a doctoral course on leadership and technology in which the students develop a personal knowledge management (PKM) and use their blog as a means of sharing their work with others.

A new approach to tracking blogs

I use Feedly to subscribe to the cohort's blogs and then Newsify to actually read them. However, since the rubric calls for different types of posts each week, it is difficult for me to quantify them at the end of the term for grading purposes.

I wind up having to go back and manually count the students' posts to see if they blogged each week. It is also difficult because they don't always categorize their posts, according to the rubric, so I make my best effort to guess which type of post they were intending, a method that no doubt has its weaknesses.

Richard Byrne inspires

rbtweet

Relief came when I saw a Tweet from Richard Byrne about his approach to tracking blogs using a Google form.

I wish I would have implemented his approach over the summer and used it with my undergraduate students in the Fall. However, I didn't invest the time and wound up having both inefficiencies and needless student conflict without a more reliable means for tracking.

blogformsmMy Google form for tracking blog posts

I have modified Richard Byrne‘s approach slightly. Since my students are asked to write three posts per week, they have three places in which to paste their links.

Additionally, there is a place for them to indicate the type of post they are submitting. This should help steer the students toward the types of posts they're required to write each week, as well as making it easier for me to determine their intent.

I'm already excited about the time saving possibilities that this approach will provide.

It also seems like it will help reinforce the expectations for the students.

[reminder]Are you trying out any new approaches in your teaching this year to try to add some efficiencies into the grading process? [/reminder]

How to keep course files organized

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I never realized that I was “different” until my friend showed such an interest in how I organized my files and folders for my academic life.

keep-course-files-organized

My Mom was always a person with a fond appreciation for file cabinets and keeping articles of interest around various topics. She definitely passed that on to me.

Now, neither of us wants that many physical files cluttering up our home. However, since storage space on our hard drives and/or in the cloud is relatively inexpensive today, it makes sense to hang on to stuff, in case it winds up being useful in the future.

The search features on computers today are so robust, that you could argue that having a good folder structure is no longer necessary. Some time ago, I trimmed the number of folders in my email program, so that I didn't have to scroll through so many when I was looking for something via my iPhone.

However, I still find it helpful to have a basic system of folders on both email and on my hard drive to accommodate those times when search doesn't get me what I need.

Keep course files organized

In any given semester, there are two main directories (folders) that I spend most of my digital time in:

Screen Shot 2014-12-12 at 12.29.11 PM 1) Semester-specific folder

This folder contains data related to a specific semester. For 2015s, I have my class rosters (which are also sign-in sheets), my schedule (which gets printed and hung up outside my office), and a folder for students' work in each of my classes that semester.

Screen Shot 2014-12-12 at 12.29.32 PM

In addition to the schedule that hangs on my wall, I create my version of Michael Hyatt's ideal week template. This exercise enables me to see how I want to invest my time throughout the semester and identify any barriers, in advance.

I spoke about how I use the ideal week template on episode 23 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast.

Inside each of the semester-class folders will be the students' work, as the semester gets under way.

As I begin a new semester, I move the previous semester's folder into a directory named z-Archive. The naming convention on that folder allows for it to be listed at the bottom of my main university folder, since I don't need to access it often.

I use Dropbox for almost all my files now. They now offer 1 terabyte of data on their pro plan, so it makes good sense to invest in the service. I appreciate how I can create a link to a file with a right mouse click and choosing “share dropbox link.”

When you move a folder (to an archive folder, for example), any links that you provided to students for feedback are then broken. That's why I wait until a few weeks into a new semester prior to moving/archiving the folder.

Screen Shot 2014-12-12 at 12.46.32 PM 2) Course content folder

This folder has directories for each of the classes I have taught previously. The PowerPoints, exams, and other class resources are kept in the folders. The publisher materials also go here, though I tend not to keep archives, since much of the information is redundant and some of the files are quite large.

Screen Shot 2014-12-12 at 12.39.53 PMNote that the name of the courses folder begins with a 1-. Since I spend so much time in the semester-specific folder and the courses folder during a given semester, it helps to have them appear toward the top of the list of items, so I can get to them quickly.

Within the 1-courses folder is also a folder called z-Class ideas. This has course descriptions for electives that I have proposed previously, as well as class resources for courses that I was potentially going to teach down the road and needed a place to hang on to such materials.

Other tips

When people have asked me for guidance on file organization in the past, they have often shown me their current structure (or lack of it). It is hard for me not to turn in to a major back-seat driver in these cases, as they often show themselves to be working far harder than they need to…

Here are a few other suggestions for keeping your class resources organized:

Screen Shot 2014-12-12 at 2.01.19 PMUse aliases or favorites

On the Mac, there's a favorites list over on the left-hand side of each finder window. I keep my most commonly used folders there, including my semester-specific and course-content folders.

On the PC, you might consider using aliases, which let you create a link that takes you to the folder, which you can then place wherever you want to have easy access.

Avoid punctuation in file names

It pains me when I see a file name like: assignment.smith.final.pptx

Punctuation was never meant to be any part of a file name. While some operating systems allow for punctuation better than they previously did, it still isn't a good idea. Somewhere down the line, your file could encounter a system that doesn't like punctuation in file names and you may not necessarily catch why the error is occurring right away.

Direct students on what to name their files

It can be a big help if the students are told what to name the files that they submit for your courses. Yes, they may forget, and you will still need to tweak some of them. However, most of them will remember and it will save you that much more time in your grading process.

[reminder]What techniques do you use to keep your course files organized?[/reminder]

Bringing life to this time of the semester

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It is a tough time of the semester. The grading pile is stacked high (in my case, virtually). Energy levels are low (my whole family just spent the last few weeks passing an illness to each person who lives in our home).

Bringing life to this time of the semester

While this is not my favorite time of the year, I do have a few techniques I use to bring a little life into my days and to keep myself plugging along.

Take regular breaks

While I don't typically adhere to a strict Pomodoro technique, I do try to remember to take a break every hour. My wrists are really bad, too, so I incorporate stretching in as often as I can into those breaks.

Use music for inspiration

NPR is a great source for finding music for every desired mood. If you need a reminder to avoid worry, Playing for Change has this great version of Don't Worry Be Happy.

If you need a good laugh, Weird Al Yankovic has a great grammar-related spoof called Word Crimes that is perfect for all the grading we're doing this time of year.

Track your progress

Sometimes it can seem like we aren't getting anywhere. I follow my Mom's advice from when I was a kid and would get overwhelmed. She recommended that I create (or revisit) a list of everything that needed to get done. Then, I could prioritize the most important item on the list and get moving toward done.

stickiesI use OmniFocus for tracking all my tasks, which really helps me feel like things won't slip through the cracks during the busier seasons (or, at least I'll know that they have been missed, if I am not able to get to everything). I also like to break tasks like “grade business plans” down into even smaller tasks and have a visual reminder on my monitor of how much further I have to go.

Each time I finish grading a business plan, I remove the sticky note from the bottom of my monitor. That process gives me a visual indication of just how far I've come and how much there is left to grade on that particular piece of the virtual pile.

Establish a reward

Walter Mischel, the researcher responsible for developing the marshmallow test, reminds us of the importance of self-discipline and delayed gratification.

I find that when the temptation to stop what I'm working on and to “eat” my marshmallow early starts to crop up, it helps to have already considered what reward I will give myself when I've accomplished the end-of-semester tasks.

As geeky as this is, I think for me it is going to be to dive in to watching videos on how to learn OmniFocus better and also to start playing with the CATME tool, introduced to us by Dr. Chrissy Spencer in episode 25.

[reminder]What will you reward yourself with, once you're done with the grading and all the other end-of-semester tasks? [/reminder]