Self Assessment of Discussion on Unit Topics

At the end of each block, each student is asked to assess how her/his comments have added to the knowledge base of the course and have contributed to the learning environment for classmates. You are encouraged to use the criteria of knowledge-building discussion to self-evaluate your own contributions to the electronic dialog on the unit topics. In other words, each student is asked to demonstrate how he/she has used brainstorming, articulating, reacting, organizing, analyzing and/or generalizing to contribute to the discussion during that particular block.

Self assessment is a good way to learn from your successes and failures. You are encouraged to be frank and open with your self assessment. Acknowledge your shortcomings and identify areas of improvement for the next block. Honest and constructive self-criticism will get you a high mark on your self assessment even if your postings were mediocre.

You should note that all electronic entries carry a time stamp, so making all your entries at the block deadline and then failing to recognize why you get no responses will not generate sympathy.

Example of Good Self assessment for Block 1

"For my first post, I used brainstorming when I asked the question about using windmills in the tropical ocean to pump nutrients to the surface to promote plant growth and sequester carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. My second entry was a social comment commending and thanking Michele for her interesting post on the atmosphere of Mars. My third post was a calculation I did to see how much sea level would rise if all the ice on Greenland melted. When I posted it I labeled it as articulation, but probably should have been labeled as analysis. In my next post I reacted to John?s comment on feedback by raising the possibility that more methane would be released. This was my best post and created some good discussion. My fifth post was a question about how nitrates get into Saylorville Reservoir. This wasn't a very good post and really bombed since I didn't do any research ahead of time. My last post was a social comment to give Mike a pat on the back. Overall, I think my posts were pretty good except for the disaster on Saylorville. I didn't generate much discussion with my posts (except for the one on methane) so in the next block will be try to solicit more comments from others."

Example of Poor Self Assessment for Block 1

"My first post commented on the use of hydrogen cars. In the second post I praised Tricia for her carbon cycle post and in the third post I raised a question about carbon dioxide on Mars. A fourth post gave a response to Robert on the hydrogen car topic. For my last two posts I summarized web sites from NASA on satellite observations of vegetation. My posts were pretty good this block."

This SA merely summarizes the topics of comments posted. It contains no analysis of how they related to class material, how they contributed to the knowledge base of the course, or how they contributed to the learning environment for classmates. No assessment is given of strengths and weaknesses of the contributions to the dialog of Block 1.

Grading of the Self Assessment (SA) for Blocks 1 and 2 will provide reasons for less-than-expected performance, with challenges for improvement on subsequent blocks. I will look for your own acknowledged shortcomings and will affirm yours and maybe add to the list. These goals will be a basis for evaluating dialog and the SA in the following blocks. Grading of the SA for Block 3 will be simply a numerical score.