Nadia Omoru

Shaheen, I also believe it is imparative that our students realize their mistakes. However,grading every mistake with an explanation is very time consuming. The manner in which I grade is individualized. For example, If I have a student who usually does very well but for some reason, either due to simple oversight, or just being careless, they have multiple answers wrong, I just mark them wrong wth a red pen and let them find the correct answers on their own. On they other hand, if I have a student who always struggles to get a 70, has several answers wrong, it's most likly due to a lack of comprehension. Thats when I detail my corrections. I strongly believe its my duty as an instructor to make sure my students have a full understanding of the course and all of its material.

Herbert Brown III

Jacqueline,

There are many sites and resources to help students remediate on almost anything. What do you do if they don't take your advice and therefore don't improve or even attempt to improve?

Herbert Brown III

Jacqueline Bloink

Assisting students to identify mistakes is part of the educational process. However , I also believe in not picking on every error. If the majority of the errors are grammar... perhaps point out one mistake and then give the correct way in which the statement should have been made. Give a web link in which the student can also obtain other information about the mistake and how to improve.

Herbert Brown III

Nadia,

I see our role as guiding students in their learning process and helping them to connect their previous experiences with new knowledge. It is important to provide feedback to the students in a way that the student learns from their mistakes. We do have to be careful not to do the work for the students. For example, if students submit a written paper, I don't use track changes and make the corrections for them, because they don't learn. I use a tabletPC and "ink" comments on the document and require the students to make their edits.

Herbert Brown III

Nadia Omoru

Shaheen,
I agree, "helping students realize their mistakes in submitted work" is absolutely the perfect way to guide them towards the path of submitting quality assigments and becoming an efficient online learner. However, I feel this should only be done once and in detail so the students know exactly what your expecting from them.
After that,their answers are either right or wrong and it's up to the student to figure out why. After all, isn't our primary purpose as instructors to educate our students in a manor that would help them become productive online learners ?

Herbert Brown III

Jason,

Do you also provide them with positive feedback on their work at the same time you are providing feedback on their mistakes? I have found that students get very discouraged quickly without the positive feedback to offset the mistakes.

Herbert Brown III

Herbert Brown III

Jason,

Do you also provide them with positive feedback on their work at the same time you are providing feedback on their mistakes? I have found that students get very discouraged quickly without the positive feedback to offset the mistakes.

Herbert Brown III

Jason Ottis

I find that in most cases students benefit from having the instuctor at the very least provide feedback as to what mistakes they have made early on in the course. It doesn't mean that the instructor needs to correct their work, but it does provide students an idea of what expectations are for the course. As the course progresses I provide less feedback to encourage the student to provide polished work with the first submission.

Herbert Brown III

Michelle ,

I appreciate that you note that you work with graduate students. There are clearly higher expectations with graduate students regarding APA formatting and related written work. Have you ever used a tablet PC and stylus and the inking features in Word to provide your comments? I find that I can provide more specific details in less time using that tool. Have you ever considered turning your Word Document of boilerplate text in to an FAQ for students to head off what appears to be a list of common mistakes?

Herbert Brown III

Michelle Louch

Since I teach both the intro course and the capstone course to a grad program, I find that -- unfortunately! -- we have to at least comment on the mistakes. Both classes are writing intensive, so I save time by commenting in detail once (even with grammatical issues) and once only. My comments typically explain what is wrong and why. Depending on the error, I may or may not suggest a fix. Successive mistakes are commented upon with "see note on APA formatting" (for example).

While it sounds like a lot, I cut down on time spent with canned comments that I can cut and paste from a word document that I keep handy.

I don't fix the errors; I leave that to the student. They don't learn if I fix errors for them.

Herbert Brown III

Shaheen,

If it is a writing assignment I try to use my tabletPC and provide "inked" notes on their work as you would a normal paper to guide them with proofreading marks and written comments of what they need to fix. This requires them to go back to the original work and apply the basic formatting changes and to rethink other aspects and provide a higher quality document. I will not rewrite their document, just guide them in the process.

Herbert Brown III