When professors calculate students’ grades they often consider whether and how often students joined classroom discussions. But with the proliferation of distance education, online discussion boards have come to replace the traditional face-to-face debates and exchanges among students. So how can a professor factor in an online post when grading a student?
The New Jersey Institute of Technology thinks it may have an answer. The institution, which trains faculty members at various colleges for teaching online, suggests that professors use a tiered point system. Kenneth Ronkowitz, an instructional-technology manager at the institute, explained the system at a session Tuesday afternoon at the League for Innovation in the Community College’s annual technology conference. Students who simply post a reply to another student’s opinion, such as "I agree," get one point. Those who respond to an earlier posting get two points. Those who use correct grammar and follow composition rules in their posting get three points. Those who refer to course material in the posting get four points. And students who express an original thought get five points.
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