Nick Hart

I learned about the importance of developing and refining rubrics. 

I learned about the types of assessments I primarily use in my courses, while also learning about types of assessments that I do not use as often. 

I learned about ways to refine assessments I can use throughout my online courses. 

I learned about the different types of assessments instructors can offer in their online courses. I learned about the advantages and disadvantages of each type. The content I especially enjoyed learning about was the type of assessments I primarily use, (performance) their advantages, and disadvantages. I had not previously considered the disadvantages of performance-based assessments. 

I learned there are many ways to develop rubrics, and the process never stops when it comes to improving and refining rubrics. However, at this point I am not convinced that allowing students to develop rubrics is the best practice. There are other ways to incentivize students without ceding so much control. 

I have learned that there are different ways to build rubrics, and each course/assignment will have different needs to effectively measure students' abilities. I also learned that it's not only important what you say when constructing rubrics, but it's important how you craft your language and categories. 

In my experience self-assessments and peer-assessments are challenging requests for students, mainly because they do not have the acumen to provide the necessary feedback to succeed in assignments. For peer reviews of rough drafts I always provide an extensive checklist of criteria that I will use to grade students' final drafts. Every semester there is a group of students that go through the motions during the peer reviews, so they are unpleasantly surprised when final drafts are returned to them. 

I learned that there are different types of rubrics that have different strengths and features. While I was familiar with the benefits associated with creating rubrics, before reading this section I hadn't considered the shortcomings associated with rubrics, such as the time spent to create them, the lack of explanations they might fail to provide, or their stifling of students' creativity.