Post 15: Yvonne's Online tips: How to Quickly Grade Forum Posts

How to quickly Grade Discussion Forum Posts

1. Grade discussion question posts as soon as the students post the post.

2.When I see that a student has posted all the post for the week, then after checking if the post is on topic and fulfills all the other criteria then I give the student full credit.   So if you grade as the posts come in, then you don't have a huge number of posts to grade at the end of the week.

3. Give extensive feedback only to the students who are getting the lowest grades. In other words, give the most extensive feedback to the 20% of students who are getting the lowest grades by telling them using the Sandwich Method what they need to improve. Then, you can give the other 80% who are doing well, less feedback to save time. Use the 20/80 method to save time. Make sure to personalize each Discussion Forum post.

 4. All DQ posts for the week are due on Sunday, midnight, so I do all my DQ grading the day after it's due. At the school where I taught all the DQ posts were due midnight on Sunday of that week so typically I would write on Monday all the posts for that week.

5. I am flexible and if a student has to go on a sudden deployment or has a family emergency and needs to work ahead I let students work ahead on their forums or I let students be late if they have valid reasons such as family emergency or a sudden deployment. It is important to be flexible as an online teacher especially when you have adult non-traditional students.

6. Most importantly it is important that your grading be on time. When you give students timely feedback then they are able to use your comments to improve their grade in their next assignment.

7. You have to grade on time, so your students can have time to absorb your comments for the next assignment. Remember, you are dealing with adult students with very busy schedules so you need to hand in your grades as soon as possible to accommodate the busy schedules of adult students.

8. Use rubrics to grade DQ posts so students know the criteria for each post and they know why they got points off for their grade. And you don't have to write down the same criteria over and over again if it is in a rubric.


What tips do you have for the fast grading of DQ posts?