How This Course Promotes “Learning Efficiencies”

1. How This Course Promotes “Learning Efficiencies” The following slide show provides an explanation of the assessment and grading process used in the Online Posting assignment. Some students are uncomfortable with posting one’s work online and having it critiqued “in public.” However, this strategy enables all students to view common mistakes made by others along with the corrective suggestion. Further, as students gain command of the skills of film analysis and interpretation, they provide positive examples to their peers. As this slide show demonstrates, this approach has resulted in improved learning outcomes and correspondingly higher grades compared to past versions of the course that didn’t use approach.

2. The “Learning Trajectory” Grading Process:Part One • Subject line of email contains the assessment of the posting • +posting: excellent/exceeds the basic criteria (3.5-4.0) • =posting: solid/meets the basic criteria (2.7-3.5) • -posting: insufficient/does not meet the basic criteria (2.6-1.7) • 0 posting: no posting that week; no useful content, posting removed from board. • Students do not receive numerical grade; it is recorded by the instructor. • Message of email contains improvement-oriented feedback for the first posting, and then each time there is significant improvement or decline (and always after they improve a level).

3. The “Learning Trajectory” Grading Process:Part Two • A “learning trajectory” grade is created by raising a previous grade to the next level’s minimum grade each time a student moves to the next level. • Students receive a “transitional trajectory” grade at midterm, computing the revised trajectory grade. This grade is almost always higher than the midterm unless a student has missed postings (graded a “0”). • A “O” posting can only be raised by completing an additional posting graded at least a “+.” • Students receive a final posting grade with their final exam grade. Example of trajectory grading vs. traditional grading:

4. Using the Weekly Posting to Create Scaffolding

5. Using Email Feedback to Promote Scaffolding

6. Comparison of Assessed Outcomes Between Courses: Midterm and Final Exam Grades t-value (testing difference between groups) -.32 (no significant difference) 7.07 (very significant difference) Statistical analysis: Cinnamon Hillyard

7. Timeline of Grades R2=.6292 means R=.7932 is a strong positive correlation—as time progresses grades on individual postings positively increase. Slope of 0.0889 tells us that for each week, we expect a grade on an individual posting to rise by about 0.08 points. Statistical analysis: Cinnamon Hillyard

8. Scaffolding, Assessment and Postings: Improving By the Week Autumn 2002: Weekly Scores on Postings • All “zero” (failure to post) scores have been deleted • Week 5 was the Midterm Exam (no postings) • Week 6 begins “ideology” section: a “+” formalist posting is now worth an “=“ without ideological interpretation • Statistical analysis: Cinnamon Hillyard