, Photograph by Sourav, CC0

Why flexibility?

Does the thought of giving a student a time extension cause you to bristle? How about allowing students to make revisions to work or retake exams? In higher education, we often associate the amount of time a student spends on schoolwork, performing well on a challenging, timed exam, or meeting strict deadlines with academic rigor (1). Academic rigor is often associated with rigid standards that can be unintentionally exclusionary. In fact, the core idea of academic rigor has even been argued to be exclusionary.

Indeed, the defines rigor as “harsh inflexibility in opinion, temper, or judgment: severity.” This definition is fitting in higher education if we define academic rigor as getting it right the first time, figuring out how to learn on our own, doing it fast, or spending a lot of time doing it. In their article Reframing Rigor: A Modern Look at Challenge and Support in Higher Education, Campbell, Dortch, and Burt (1) propose that notions of equity and rigor are intersectional. They propose that academic challenges that do not contribute to learning and development have the potential to be exclusionary.

In this post we, propose ways you can introduce flexibility in your online course as a way to enhance equity by reducing exclusionary course requirements disguised as rigor. Ultimately, the goal is to maintain high academic standards for learning and student achievement.

Build flexibility into the course schedule

• Have students complete 8 out of 10 weekly discussion posts during a term. To set this up in D2L, consider making all the discussion posts worth the same amount of points, and follow the instructions to.
• Drop the lowest grade in a set of repeated low-stakes assignments (e.g., weekly reading quizzes or problem sets).
• Offer an “amnesty week” during which students may submit assignments they missed earlier. To do this in D2L, set a due date but leave the end date blank. D2L indicates that the submission is late but still allows students to submit. You can do this from the assignment or from the manage dates tool.

Build flexibility into graded assessments

• Require students to write four essays but give them six or eight choices of subjects.
• Allow students to choose what kind of artifact they will turn in. For example, an instructional video, PPT, or essay. This will require planning in advance, you will want a rubric or well-defined grading criteria for each type of artifact and you will want to make sure that the effort required to complete each artifact is roughly the same. D2L can handle a as assignment submissions.
• Provide opportunities for students to redo assignments. To do this in D2L, make sure the “All submissions are kept” radio button is selected from the Submission and Completion area of the assignment. This way students can submit multiple files. You may also want to consider whether you want a due date or end date on the assignment.
• If you have a comprehensive final exam, allow students to replace a low or missing exam score with their score on the final. This way they have an opportunity to show that they have learned the required material.

Share your practice

Do you build flexibility into your course? We would love to hear what you do in your teaching practice. Please share your ideas, successes, or lessons learned in the comments below. Do you have strong feelings about academic rigor? Share your thoughts to get the conversation started!

References

1. Campbell CM, Dortch D, Burt BA. Reframing Rigor: A Modern Look at Challenge and Support in Higher Education. New Directions for Higher Education. 2018;2018(181):11-23. doi:10.1002/he.20267

Learn how implicit bias can affect grading

We don’t want to have bias influence our grading, but our implicit biases could be affecting how we score student work and assign final grades in a course. Uncovering and working toward removing bias requires looking at our biases from many angles. Inaccurate judgments have the potential not only to alter grades but could negatively affect teacher-student relationships, distort a student’s self-concept, or reduce opportunities to learn (4).

In this post, we are focused on the tools in D2L that can help reduce bias in grading. We acknowledge that technology on its own cannot eliminate bias, but it can help us respond objectively to student work. Below, we offer some suggestions that you can implement in your D2L course with little effort.

Anonymize grading

Research has indicated that biases can influence how a teacher grades student work. For example, in one study, 6th grade teachers gave lower scores to girls in math even though the girls scored better on national standardized tests (2). Another study showed that having prior knowledge of a student’s performance can bias how grades are assigned on future work (3) (also known as halo-bias).

Anonymous Marking is a tool in Brightspace which allows you to review your students’ assignment submissions without knowing the identity of the student. While it is not a one-size-fits-all solution to addressing bias, it can be a useful tool to reduce the influence of implicit bias.

• Use the for grading short answer questions in quizzes
• If you are not using the LMS to accept student work, ask students not to put names on their assignments, rather have them use their G number
• If you wish to give feedback that is attuned to individual students, consider writing personalized feedback after scoring anonymously

Grading habits

Grading can be demanding and overwhelming at times. Have you ever thought about how your mood, attitude, or behaviors around grading or toward students may be affecting how you determine a student’s grade? Below are a few tips for setting yourself up for an objective grading session.

• Don’t grade hungry – when we are tired and hungry we fall back on our defaults which may include biases (1)
• Take breaks while grading (1)
• Don’t always grade in alphabetical order

Share your practice

We hope this series has been helpful in providing you with actionable suggestions for increasing equity in your courses. Do you have suggestions or methods you want to share about how you have worked to reduce bias in your grading practices? We’d love to hear what you’re doing! Please make a comment below to start the conversation.

References

(1) Gordon, Anne, Better Than Our Biases: Using Psychological Research to Inform Our Approach to Inclusive, Effective Feedback (February 1, 2021). 27 Clinical Law Review 195 (2021), Duke Law School Public Law & Legal Theory Series No. 2021-28, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3777546

(2) Lavy, V. and Sand. E. 2015. On the origins of gender human capital gaps: short and long term consequences of teachers’ stereotypical biases. National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA. http://www.nber.org/papers/w20909.

(3) Malouff, & Stein, Sarah & Bothma, & Coulter, & Emmerton, Ashley. (2014). Evidence showing that keeping students anonymous helps prevent halo-based grading bias. Cogent Psychology. 1. 10.1080/23311908.2014.988937.

(4) Cohen, G. L., & Steele, C. M. (2002). A barrier of mistrust: How negative stereotypes affect cross-race mentoring. In J. Aronson (Ed.), Improving academic achievement: Impact of psychological factors on education (pp. 303–327). Academic Press. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-012064455-1/50018-X

Last week we shared some tips on how to improve your course organization by creating consistency within modules and naming conventions and by using dates on assigned materials. This week we share a few more ideas on how to improve consistency and navigation in your course.

Why target the LMS?

D2L Brightspace is the common denominator among almost every course offered at PCC. We are all using the LMS for, at the bare minimum, grade reporting, and PCC offers support to faculty who are using and learning D2L for online teaching.

In a recent survey given by the Online Student Services Team, students were asked “What has made you feel successful in one of your classes?”. The overwhelming majority of responses related to course organization. It was clear that courses with consistent organization and a clear schedule with a consistent rhythm to each week provided the most support for student success.

Why not meet students where they are at? Below, we give some tried and true ways you can use the tools in D2L/Brightspace to improve the organization and consistency of your course.

Course introduction video

Provide an overview video with a “tour” of how to navigate your course in D2L. What you think is intuitive may not be. Some things to include in your overview video are:

• Here’s the syllabus, here’s why it is important
• Here’s the gradebook and how to read it from the student view
• Assignments are due every Monday…
• Here’s how the units, weeks, etc. are organized
• Here is the list of required course materials
• Here’s how to contact me

Check out Media Options from Instructional Support for more information on making a course introduction video. Record your screencast using the student view in D2L so it looks the same as their experience.

Checklists

There is a checklist tool in D2L that has the ability to link to assignments, quizzes, and most other content in your course. Students can check off what they have done in that week or module. If you are linking to publisher content and are unable to add due dates to assignments, you can put the assignments in a checklist to help students know when they are due. Read more from D2L/Brightspace on the .

The screenshot below shows detail of the student view of a checklist in a module in D2L. Students can see a progress bar (1), can checkboxes for the items they have completed (2), and can follow hyperlinks to the activities in the list (3).

Below are some ways you can use checklists in your course.

• Use in each module in the course
• Create module introductions and conclusions with written checklists using “Create a file”
• Create a PDF with a checklist of important dates for the entire course

Organize your Gradebook

You can improve the transparency of your expectations for graded work in your course by using some of the gradebook tools in D2L. The gradebook is one area for which the Faculty Help Desk gets many calls. We know the gradebook tools aren’t always self-explanatory, so we hope these ideas help you create consistency and clarity for students around graded work. First and foremost, make sure all graded work is represented in the gradebook in D2L before the start of class so your students don’t have any surprises. The following resources will help you get your gradebook set up before the term starts.

• Choose how you are going to set up the gradebook, you can use .
• Set the course grade to show from the start so students know where they are throughout the course. There are a lot of nuances with this step so take your time and call an ITS if you need guidance.
• to the gradebook

This wraps up our focus on how to create consistency in your course using tools in D2L. We would love to hear how you create consistency in your course. Please share your ideas and questions below. In our next installment, we will be sharing tools in D2L to help you reduce bias in grading.

Image courtesy of pixabay.com

Why enhance equity?

One of the priorities of the strategic plan is Belonging:

Create a sense of belonging in our learning environment as a college priority, and as a key factor in equitable student success.

In our last blog post, we offered some suggestions for using rubrics in D2L to enhance equity. This week we will explore how course organization and consistency can be used to reduce cognitive load and enhance equity.

Good teaching = inclusive teaching.

Why target the LMS?

Students at PCC in 2021 reported high importance and low satisfaction with the consistency in the quality of instruction from one online course to another. We can use the tools in D2L Brightspace to address consistency and quality very easily. Additionally, leveraging the LMS is a low cost, high impact strategy for faculty to save time and energy in delivering consistency and reducing cognitive load.

Editor’s note: Our students have also indicated many times that they prefer consistent navigation and layout in online courses.��

The approach

A simple definition of cognitive load is the amount of information being processed in a person’s working memory at a given time. Generally speaking, if your students spend a lot of time finding content in D2L, trying to decipher instructions for assignments, or finding their grades, there is less cognitive “bandwidth” for understanding new information. You can make intentional decisions about course organization that will reduce cognitive load no matter your skill level with D2L.

Here are a few suggestions for reducing cognitive load through consistent course organization.

Weekly or module structure

Create a weekly or module structure to organize content items in sequential order. We recommend chronological order. Additionally, avoid using sub-modules. A module or weekly structure may include:

• Learn (lectures, readings, articles, notes, video)
• Connect (discussions, low stakes questions, journaling prompts)
• Demonstrate (graded assignments, low stakes practice, labs)
• Feedback

This can be especially helpful to new students and .

Naming conventions

Create meaningful names for your content items and repeat the conventions throughout the course. For example, if you have weekly discussions, you could name them Week # Discussion: Topic. (i.e., Week 5 Discussion: Igneous Rock Formations in the Columbia River Gorge). When you create the gradebook item for a graded activity, give it the same name (or as close as possible) so students aren’t confused about what grade goes with which activity.

Put dates on everything

Adding a start date, end date, or due date to assignments, quizzes, or discussions will automatically add the item to the course calendar. The calendar is an often-overlooked tool in D2L that can save you time answering questions about when things are due, and can give students a sense of autonomy and control over their schoolwork. Take time at the start of the term to show your students how to adjust the and how they can access content and assignments from the calendar. Include reminders for long term projects to break them into pieces – first draft, peer review, editing, etc.

Editor’s note: You don’t need to add start/end dates to every file in the content module though. Focus on the important activities

Here are some resources for adding dates to content items in your D2L course.

• Setting due dates and late submission dates for an assignment
• Using the manage dates tool
• Setting start and end dates for discussions

We hope you are enjoying our series on how to use the tools in D2L to enhance equity in your course. We love your feedback and want to hear what you think! Please share a comment below to get the conversation started.

References:

1. Wyatt, MA/MFA, PhD, C. S. (2020, April 14). ONLINE EDUCATION & AUTISM. Organization for Autism Research; Organization for Autism Research.
2. Sweller , J., Ayres, P., & Kalyuga, S. (2011).Cognitive Load Theory. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-8126-4
3. From the presentation by Amy Ort given at the Peralta Online Equity Conference on April 23, 2021,
4. Day, Alyson. (2021). .

One of the strategic priorities of the strategic plan is Belonging:

Create a sense of belonging in our learning environment as a college priority, and as a key factor in equitable student success.

The goal of this series of blog posts is to set an intention of moving toward all teaching being inclusive and equitable, and away from having to define what inclusive, equitable teaching is. In our last blog post, we offered some suggestions for using announcements in D2L to make connections with students. This week we will explore tools in D2L Brightspace that can be used to enhance equity using feedback.

Feedback can Enhance or Diminish Equity

Research has confirmed that feedback is not reliably equitable. For example, in early academic life, female students are more likely to receive feedback on their learning, while male students are more likely to receive feedback on behavior (2). Additionally, research has also confirmed that African American and Hispanic students are less likely to receive targeted feedback that fosters growth than their White peers (1). The suggests that “Students from racially minoritized backgrounds may even hear ‘I am criticizing you because I hold prejudices’” when they read feedback on assignments. They further suggest that referencing the standards you set for the work along with your assurance that the student can meet them can increase the likelihood of students using feedback to improve.

Using tools in D2L can provide you with a means to give objective feedback in three ways:

1. Regarding the content of student work
2. When the feedback is delivered
3. Who receives the feedback

Recall that for all Remote and Online courses, there are for use of D2L that include things like announcements to students, course information/syllabus, and grade updates so students can track progress. Furthermore, Students at PCC in 2021 reported high importance but lower satisfaction with the quality of online instruction, feedback, and consistency in the quality of instruction from one online course to another. We can use the tools in D2L Brightspace to provide feedback easily, at once meeting requirements and addressing student needs.

Rubrics

Using a grading rubric can address all three ways to give objective feedback by providing students with explicit expectations for assignments, and indicators for both the strongest and weakest ways to complete an assignment within given skill areas (3). The rubric tool in D2L can also help you deliver feedback consistently across your roster. When you grade an assignment in D2L with the rubric tool, feedback is delivered immediately to students, and they will see exactly which level was met for each criteria in the rubric. (see screenshot below). You can additionally add individualized feedback to the assignment for each student to further build connections.

More Feedback Tools in Brightspace

The following provide details on how to use rubrics and other feedback tools in D2L including annotating written assignments and adding audio or video recordings in the feedback area.

• Use a Rubric to Grade an Assignment or Discussion
• Add annotations to student submissions in D2L Assignments
• Leave an audio or video recording in the feedback area using Video Note

We hope you are finding our series on enhancing equity in your D2L course helpful. Please share any ideas or anecdotes you have from using rubrics or other kinds of feedback in D2L in the comments below. Come back next week to read about how you can use D2L to increase equity through consistent and intentional course organization.

References

1. Harber KD, Reeves S, Gorman JL, Williams CH, Malin J, Pennebaker JW. The Conflicted Language of Interracial Feedback.��Journal of Educational Psychology. 2019;111(7):1220-1242. doi:10.1037/edu0000326
2. Irvine, J. J. (1986). Teacher–student interactions: Effects of student race, sex, and grade level. Journal of Educational Psychology, 78(1), 14–21. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.78.1.14
3. GORDON AD. Better Than Our Biases: Using Psychological Research to Inform Our Approach to Inclusive, Effective Feedback. Clinical Law Review. 2021;27(2):195-252. https://search-ebscohost-com.libproxy.pcc.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=149934602&site=ehost-live

One of the priorities of the YESS initiative and strategic plan at PCC is

Diversity, equity, inclusion, and social justice. Reinforcing racial justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion as core to improving student outcomes.

The goal of this series of blog posts is to set an intention of moving toward all teaching being inclusive and equitable, and away from having to define what inclusive, equitable teaching is. Additionally, we strive to move toward a framework where equity and inclusion inform everything we do as instructors and faculty support. We want to embrace equity as the framework from which we make decisions, create resources, and interact with students. In this three part blog post, we will explore tools in D2L Brightspace that can be used to enhance equity and also make life easier for instructors!

Good teaching = inclusive teaching.

Why Target the LMS?

D2L Brightspace is the common denominator among almost every course offered at PCC. For all Remote and Online courses, there are for use of D2L that include things like announcements to students, course information/syllabus, and grade updates so students can track progress. PCC offers support to faculty who are using and learning D2L for online teaching. Students at PCC in 2021 reported high importance but lower satisfaction with the quality of online instruction, feedback, and consistency in the quality of instruction from one online course to another. We can use the tools in D2L Brightspace to address consistency and quality very easily. Lastly, leveraging the LMS is a low cost, high impact strategy for faculty to save time and energy in delivering strategies for students that increase equity and support organization.

Use Announcements to Build Connections with Students

Whether students have a connection with faculty is one of the most important factors in whether or not they persist with education. A sense of belonging is an incredibly important factor for students whose identities are underrepresented in college. In her book , Tina Stavredes notes that “the quantity, timeliness, and quality of your interactions with learners are critical to helping them persist in the course and achieve the course outcomes.”

The Announcements tool in D2L enables you to create news items that help communicate course updates, changes, and new information to your students quickly and effectively. You can use Announcements to welcome students to the course at the beginning of the term, and let them know of any important deadlines or materials that have been added to the course. When you write announcements, think about the tone are you conveying and use encouraging and welcoming language.

Here are our recommendations for using the Announcements tool:

• Keep announcements short, think of them as headlines. Give detailed instruction in the course content area, or on individual assignments.
• Send a weekly announcement early in the week (Sunday or Monday) sharing what students will be working on that week.
• Depending on length, keep 2-3 announcements visible at a time.
• It’s best to set an End Date for announcements that you would like to keep for future use.
• Teach students to use the announcements tool for updates by avoiding sending email to the whole class. Reserve email for one-on-one interactions.
• Use the replace strings feature on your announcements to personalize your messages.

Read the Online Learning documentation about Using the Announcements in D2L to apply our suggestions to your course.

Check out these other opportunities to learn about building connections with students through equitable communications.

• OLC Increasing Interaction and Engagement ()��
• Creating Presence in your Online Course  ()��

We hope our suggestions are actionable and helpful, and inspire you to think about simple changes you can make to your course to enhance equity. Look for the next post in the six part series on how to use feedback to build connections with students. Please share your experiences using announcements in the comments below!

• This post was inspired by a presentation given by Amy Ort given at the Peralta Online Equity Conference on April 23, 2021.
• .