Blog Period 2

Three of us grade the class blog.  We were pretty disappointed over all.

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Results: A, 1; A-, 15; B+, 15; B, 17; B-, 24; C+ 22; C, 14; D, 12, Fails, 50 (people who did little or nothing). The mean grade was 77% among those who did enough to pass. That is almost the same as last time. Fourteen people made a big effort and shifted their grade to an A.  
Among the top scorers were some excellent efforts, not least Fashion, Are Smart People Happy?,   Celebrity Health Trend, Single Sex Education, Do old people smell?, Crunch, and Feeling Good isn’t always Good. I particularly liked Do midlife crises exist? — I recognized the issue.  Some really engaged with things using the skill set I have been trying to get across in class (e.g. Childhood Obesity, Marijuana).
But there were a lot of people making minimal effort, and that is reflected in the grades. Many people seem to be trying to achieve the relevant number of posts, not paying much attention to the quality issue. As it says in the grading rubric, for an A,
Entries are conceptually sophisticated, engaged in a substantive way with the material
and
Posts draw directly upon the material to make a creative and substantive point that extends beyond the material
I am not sure how many times I wrote that into the feedback. Of course huge numbers of posts happened at the last minute – 182 in the last 24 hours. Those last minute posts were almost without exception unimpressive. There is no question the better posts happen earlier.  Good posts take time, both to write well, and more importantly to research and think about.
So, SC students, how to get a better mark on the blog? See links in my Blog Period 1 post. And hit the ‘Get an A on the blog’ link. And get creative, conceptually sophisticated, and substantive, and extend things beyond a single source. In other words, think.
So, Andrew, how to motivate the majority of the class to move beyond Facebook-like efforts and really engage with blogging? It evidently is not enough that 40% of the final grade rides on it.

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