{"id":5738,"date":"2015-09-24T09:45:21","date_gmt":"2015-09-24T15:45:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/?p=5738"},"modified":"2015-09-24T11:29:09","modified_gmt":"2015-09-24T17:29:09","slug":"gamification-10114-5-ways-to-make-marking-easier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/2015\/09\/24\/gamification-10114-5-ways-to-make-marking-easier\/","title":{"rendered":"Gamification 101[14]: 5 Ways to Make Marking Easier&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Approximate Reading Time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 5<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes<\/span><\/span><p>This is Part 14 in my continuing saga of my current iteration of a gamified course.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/comp-1103-2014-quest-log.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-5736\" src=\"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/comp-1103-2014-quest-log-235x300.png\" alt=\"comp 1103 2014 quest log\" width=\"377\" height=\"482\" srcset=\"https:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/comp-1103-2014-quest-log-235x300.png 235w, https:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/comp-1103-2014-quest-log.png 681w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 377px) 100vw, 377px\" \/><\/a>A key aspect of\u00a0my gamified course design is that there be fast turn-around of assessment. It is not uncommon in more traditional courses for instructors to take one to two weeks to return assignments that have been submitted, sometimes even longer. This just doesn&#8217;t work in a gamified design. A typical university course is just 13-16 weeks long. Fast turn-around of marking is crucial\u00a0for facilitating student choice. When students get assessments back fast:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>They get the feedback they need to know what they should be focusing on in the course (while there&#8217;s still time to do something about it).<\/li>\n<li>They have opportunities to fix what they did (and learn from their mistakes) and re-submit their work.<\/li>\n<li>When they see their score increasing, even by small amounts, it\u00a0encourages them to complete and submit more work.<\/li>\n<li>Being able to see their score increasing steadily provides tangible evidence of their progress and underscores the idea that their progress through the course is under\u00a0<em><strong>their<\/strong><\/em> control.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>How fast is fast turn-around?<\/strong> Students should not have to wait more than 3 or 4 days to get their assignments marked.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>How do we make that work (without having to spend ridiculous amounts of time marking)?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/XSCP-10042-CM-2.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-5450\" src=\"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/XSCP-10042-CM-2-300x279.png\" alt=\"XSCP 10042 CM 2\" width=\"300\" height=\"279\" srcset=\"https:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/XSCP-10042-CM-2-300x279.png 300w, https:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/XSCP-10042-CM-2-1024x952.png 1024w, https:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/XSCP-10042-CM-2.png 1204w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>For the truly busy (or just impatient) here&#8217;s the list:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Anytime Anywhere Access<\/li>\n<li>A Single Space for all Student Assets<\/li>\n<li>A Consistent Submission Mechanism for all Work<\/li>\n<li>A Straight-forward and Consistent Marking Scheme for all Submissions<\/li>\n<li>A Single Click, At-A-Glance View of What Needs Marking<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>You might not think about this but having to click through\u00a04 or more webpages in order to get at the item you want to mark creates considerable overhead and can more than double the amount of time it takes to mark something. The longer it takes to mark something, the less likely it is that it will be marked fast. Add to that the need to open multiple applications in order to mark a single item and we quickly realize that we are actually spending the majority of our &#8220;marking&#8221; time simply trying to get AT the thing we want to mark. Here are some ways to deal with this.<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>Anytime Anywhere Access:<\/strong> First, we need a mechanism that allows both the instructors and the students to access their marks any time they want. These days that means access via a web browser. Now, course management systems already have grading applications, but they are all designed along traditional assessment lines. The next post in this series will go into more detail about this. <a href=\"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/2015\/09\/15\/gamification-10112-submission-grading-system\/\">I&#8217;ve already posted an explanation of the spreadsheets I am using currently.<\/a> As a reminder &#8211; there are two spreadsheets that get created and shared between me and the student: the quest log where the students log all of their submissions, and the scorecard which is where the detailed breakdown of their assessments &#8211; including comments &#8211; is stored. The students only have read access to the scorecard, but have write access to the quest log.<\/li>\n<li><strong>A Single Space for all Student Assets<\/strong>: Most CMS connect the files that students submit as part of their assignments to the assignment that is being submitted. This means that if I want to mark several different assignments for a single student, I have to\u00a0open\u00a0several different web pages and possibly several different applications. Again, this can add considerable overhead to my marking time.\u00a0I provide my students\u00a0with a folder (shared with just the one student and me) where they can copy any files that are associated with their quests. All they need to do is get the URL of the file (or folder if the quest includes more than one file) and paste it into their quest log. Because this is a Google drive, I can easily look at previews of anything they put in their folder. Often, that is all I need.<\/li>\n<li><strong>A Consistent\u00a0Submission Mechanism\u00a0for all Work:<\/strong> This approach allows for a wide variety of items that can be submitted without having to treat each one differently. Almost everything they submit can be accessed by following a URL on the web. My course has students submitting work in a lot of different ways, such as:\n<ul>\n<li>Discussions (and responses)<\/li>\n<li>Images<\/li>\n<li>Documents<\/li>\n<li>Spreadsheets<\/li>\n<li>Presentations<\/li>\n<li>Surveys<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>and more. Here&#8217;s another\u00a0place where Google shines. Using Google docs for as much as possible makes things more efficient\u00a0because the various applications are so well integrated it is possible to set up submissions so that everything my students\u00a0submit has a URL that can be copied into their quest logs. Each post on google groups has a URL so they can submit those in the same way.<\/li>\n<li><strong>A Straight-forward and Consistent Marking Scheme for all Submissions:<\/strong> this helps both us and the students. While I really like the idea of using <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Rubric_(academic)\" target=\"_blank\">rubrics<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/2013\/03\/13\/intelligent-vs-thoughtless-use-of-rubrics-and-models-part-1-granted-but\/\">most instructors actually get them wrong most of the time<\/a>. It turns out that <a href=\"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/2014\/08\/20\/students-drop-a-bomb-at-the-gafesummit-vancouver-we-dont-like-rubrics-a-stick-in-the-sand\/\">many students don&#8217;t like rubrics either<\/a>.\u00a0Rubrics can stifle creativity by standardizing the responses too much.\u00a0I have tried to address that by instead creating a variation that lists a number of criteria I think are important and then associating a <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Likert_scale\" target=\"_blank\">Likert<\/a>-style scale with each line item rather than trying to describe what exemplary, average, etc. looks like. Every single line item in every single quest assessment is worth either 5 or 10 points. I&#8217;ll get into more detail on this in my next post.<\/li>\n<li><strong>A Single Click, At-A-Glance View of What Needs Marking<\/strong>: In my gamified design students can be submitting a variety of different quests (assignments) all at the same time. In any given marking session, I could be marking a dozen or more <em>different\u00a0<\/em>quests.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>In <em>Blackboard<\/em>, for example, these are the steps I need to go through to do a round of marking:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Log into <em>Blackboard<\/em><\/li>\n<li>Find the class I need to mark and open it.<\/li>\n<li>Click on Grade Center<\/li>\n<li>Click on Needs Grading &#8211; this provides me with a list of all of the items that need grading.\u00a0There is no easy mechanism for re-assessment of things already submitted.<\/li>\n<li>If my class is large then the list may span several pages so there will be extra clicking and loading here.<\/li>\n<li>Click on the item that needs grading.<\/li>\n<li>If there are any files associated with this item then I need to:<\/li>\n<li>Download the file\u00a0to my computer (this involves several steps &#8211; and clicks).<\/li>\n<li>Open the file &#8211; which will likely involve launching a different application.<\/li>\n<li>Grade the item &amp; record the grade<\/li>\n<li>Find my way back to the list of things that need grading (could be several clicks).<\/li>\n<li>Repeat steps 5 thru 12\u00a0for every item to be marked.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 60px;\"><strong>Contrast this with what I do using Google:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Open the folder that contains all of my student quest logs. I have a bookmark for it so can access it directly. Since I use Chrome as my browser, and I log into that browser (so that I have my own customized set of plugin&#8217;s and bookmarks), I will almost certainly have already logged in. Since each quest log is a separate file the folder listing shows me which files have been modified by students since my last round of marking. Those are the ones I need to mark.<\/li>\n<li>Open the Quest Log of a student who has edited it since the last marking round.<\/li>\n<li>Check to see if a new item has been submitted (or resubmitted). If so, open the student&#8217;s Score Card\u00a0(there&#8217;s a link right in their quest log).<\/li>\n<li>Click on the first item to be marked. If the student submitted it correctly, the item to be marked will open in a new tab.<br \/>\n<strong>NOTE:\u00a0<\/strong>I now have all three things open in different tabs. Switching between them takes very little time because they are all loaded\u00a0in the browser. <em>Blackboard<\/em> makes this very difficult.<\/li>\n<li>Grade the item,\u00a0record the comments &amp; grade in the Score Card, record the total score and date in the Quest Log<\/li>\n<li>Repeat Steps 4 &amp; 5 for each item the student has submitted.<\/li>\n<li>Repeat steps 2 thru 6\u00a0for each student.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>There is rarely any downloading, and almost everything I do can be done in the browser &#8211; meaning I never have to worry about which computer I&#8217;m on. I can even do this from\u00a0most mobile devices. Because it is so easy I can get a few students&#8217; submissions marked even if all I have is 5 or 10 minutes.<\/p>\n<p>I have also set up a &#8220;master&#8221; grade book that automatically collects the scores of all my students so I can see how the whole class is doing any time I want.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Easy-peasy.<\/p>\n<p>At least as easy-peasy as marking dozens of items from dozens of students can get.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-5461\" src=\"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/gamification-300x205.png\" alt=\"gamification\" width=\"300\" height=\"205\" srcset=\"https:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/gamification-300x205.png 300w, https:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/gamification-1024x701.png 1024w, https:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/gamification.png 1073w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>If you are interested in following my course\u00a0journal, watch for the &#8220;Gamification 101&#8221; heading.<\/p>\n<p>Also, for more information on gamification, <a href=\"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/Gamification\/doku.php\" target=\"_blank\">check out my website here.<\/a><\/p>\n<div class='wp_likes' id='wp_likes_post-5738'><a class='like' href=\"javascript:wp_likes.like(5738);\" title='' ><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-likes\/images\/like.png\" alt='' border='0'\/><\/a><span class='text'>Be the first to like.<\/span><\/p>\n<div class='like' ><a href=\"javascript:wp_likes.like(5738);\">Like<\/a><\/div>\n<div class='unlike' ><a href=\"javascript:wp_likes.unlike(5738);\">Unlike<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Approximate Reading Time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 5<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes<\/span><\/span>This is Part 14 in my continuing saga of my current iteration of a gamified course. A key aspect of\u00a0my gamified course design is that there be fast turn-around of assessment. It is not uncommon in more traditional courses for &hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/2015\/09\/24\/gamification-10114-5-ways-to-make-marking-easier\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,9,352,369,81,24],"tags":[386,126,387,55,16],"class_list":["post-5738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academia","category-educational-technology","category-gamification-2","category-higher-education","category-information-technology","category-teaching-learning","tag-comp1103","tag-gamification","tag-gamification-101","tag-google","tag-instructional-design"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Hsb6-1uy","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5580,"url":"https:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/2015\/09\/10\/gamification-10110-getting-a-gamified-course-up-and-running\/","url_meta":{"origin":5738,"position":0},"title":"Gamification 101[10]: Getting a Gamified Course Up and Running","author":"Katrin Becker","date":"September 10, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"This is Part 10\u00a0in my continuing saga of my current iteration of a gamified course. The design of this class is more complex than most other classes. Remember that I have 20 different kinds of things that students can do. Some of these are repeatable which means that if a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Academia&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Academia","link":"https:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/category\/academia\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"XSCP 10042 CM 2","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/XSCP-10042-CM-2-1024x952.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6409,"url":"https:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/2017\/04\/03\/gameful-learning-table-of-contents-for-gamification-101\/","url_meta":{"origin":5738,"position":1},"title":"[Gameful Learning] Table of Contents for Gamification 101","author":"Katrin Becker","date":"April 3, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Here is the current Table of Contents for Gamification 101 (Book 1) Gamification 101: An Inquiry Based Journey Part 1 - Background Prologue What s Gamification? A Description of the Course Part 2 - The Journal Reflecting on Previous Versions Module Maps Scoring It All Adds Up On The Randomness\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Educational Technology&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Educational Technology","link":"https:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/category\/educational-technology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/snap03222-300x212.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5449,"url":"https:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/2015\/08\/28\/gamification-101-preface-to-the-start-of-term-with-a-gamified-course\/","url_meta":{"origin":5738,"position":2},"title":"Gamification 101[1]: Preface to the Start of Term with a Gamified Course","author":"Katrin Becker","date":"August 28, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm just about to start term with a gamified course.\u00a0I've been developing this design for a number of years now and thought I'd provide a bit of a journal on what we I am doing and how it's going. My department has a tradition of having every instructor fill out\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Academia&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Academia","link":"https:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/category\/academia\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"badge01","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/badge01-300x290.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5464,"url":"https:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/2015\/08\/29\/gamification-1012-reflecting-on-previous-versions\/","url_meta":{"origin":5738,"position":3},"title":"Gamification 101[2]: Reflecting on Previous Versions","author":"Katrin Becker","date":"August 29, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"This is Part 2 in my continuing saga of my current iteration of a gamified course. Last time I mentioned one of the changes I implemented last year was to offer small bonuses for getting things in by a particular date. That worked quite well and so I plan to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Academia&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Academia","link":"https:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/category\/academia\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"gamification","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/gamification-300x205.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5777,"url":"https:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/2015\/09\/28\/gamification-10116-end-of-week-two\/","url_meta":{"origin":5738,"position":4},"title":"Gamification 101[16]: End of Week Two","author":"Katrin Becker","date":"September 28, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"This is Part 16 in my continuing saga of my current iteration of a gamified course. SO at the end of week two I have a greater % of students with \"points on the board\" than I ever have. This is encouraging. I still don't know if it is because\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Academia&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Academia","link":"https:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/category\/academia\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"gamification","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/gamification-300x205.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5866,"url":"https:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/2015\/10\/08\/gamification-10118-end-of-week-three\/","url_meta":{"origin":5738,"position":5},"title":"Gamification 101[18]: End of Week Three","author":"Katrin Becker","date":"October 8, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"This is Part 18 in my continuing saga of my current iteration of a gamified course. Most of my students are well on their way. We have spent a lot of time talking about the way the course is organized and the tools we are using. While it may seem\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Academia&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Academia","link":"https:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/category\/academia\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"gamification","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/gamification-300x205.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5738"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5738\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5759,"href":"https:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5738\/revisions\/5759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}