#peer grading

Just an update of what the fuck is happening in my life right now. One, my job was robbed yesterday. Which is absolutely crazy to me. I work at Panera Bread! LMFAO! He stole the tip jars that were MOUNTED to the countertops. hahaha, He completely ripped through a steel cable too. Drugs will have you on that hulk shit. In his hot pursuit to leave the store, the thief managed to knock over an elderly man. That was a crazy way to start my morning. Two, I’ve been at home these past couple days, working on my English/ Wrt classwork. Its funny to see how difficult writing is for others. I guess its not so much as a joke as it is silly. If you can speak, you can write.  And in my opinion, the best writers sound like they are simply speaking. No one wants to listen to a speaker who constantly throws out nonsense words when there are plenty of other options. And lastly three, I had a peer from that same writing class, read my last post. He tried to tell me that he would've written my post in a different way, but he felt I had the best response to our readings. Which is 100% true. 

Oh dear lord it really is resurging in popularity isn’t it.

Okay, a few things.

First off, anything that applies to public schools as educational regulations does not apply to private schools. Other things such as laws regarding working with children, sanitation, etc still aply. But education regulations for private schools are different.

Secondly precedent stands against the “peer grading is illegal” interpretation of the statute: courts have ruled that peer grading is acceptable. If you are going to take this complaint to your teachers, you must be prepared to argue against precedent, and will need appropriate citations and evidence to do so.

Offered by the University of Michigan, Internet History, Technology and Security is one of the first humanities courses run by Coursera. That means it is an early proving ground for Coursera’s peer-grading system—the company’s answer to the challenge of running a course with tens of thousands of students and only one professor. For every essay they submit, students in the course have to read and evaluate four others written by their classmates.

Students’ testimonies highlighted the challenge of teaching a MOOC that deals heavily in writing assignments to an open classroom that includes a high rate of non-native English speakers. Coursera estimates that about 62 percent of its 1 million registered students live outside the United States. ... Coursera and its partners are preparing to roll out a dozen courses in the humanities and social sciences that will probably rely on peer grading.

However, after experiencing a nearly 75% drop-out rate, the professor teaching the Internet history course changed the assessment criteria to exclude participation in the peer-grading system as a requirement. Instead, there will be a certain number of points students will have to accumulate in order to pass, all of which can be earned via multiple-choice quizzes. 

  But for his colleague Eric Rabkin, essays are impossible to avoid. Rabkin, an English professor at Michigan, is teaching Coursera’s first literature course, Fantasy and Science Fiction. Rabkin says he does not know how many of the 39,000 people who originally registered for the course, or the 8,000 who are still submitting and grading essays, are non-native English speakers—nor whether English-speaking students in the course worry that the subtleties of their own essays are being lost on ESL classmates who are grading their work.

Rabkin himself is not worried. While he takes care that his lecture videos and syllabus reflect the rigor of a University of Michigan course, he has no illusions that a peer-grading system will accord with his own standards for academic achievement. “I believe that we are going to get a standard of passing work that is appropriate for this community,” he says. That community includes students who might not have full command of the English language.

And here is where the philosophy of MOOCs collides with the idea of certifiable achievement in a literature course: “If we’re going to keep this completely open,” says Rabkin, “then no credential can have a well-understood meaning.”

Daphne Koller, one of the co-founders of Coursera, says that the peer-grading experiment is still very much a work-in-progress. "We will undoubtedly learn a lot from the experiences of our instructors as they encounter this phenomenon, and then have a better sense of where exactly the tensions lie and how one might deal with them," she says. "We also have some ideas of our own that we'll throw in the mix and evaluate as we plan the next phase of this experiment."

Offered by the University of Michigan, Internet History, Technology and Security is one of the first humanities courses run by Coursera. That means it is an early proving ground for Coursera’s peer-grading system—the company’s answer to the challenge of running a course with tens of thousands of students and only one professor. For every essay they submit, students in the course have to read and evaluate four others written by their classmates.

Students’ testimonies highlighted the challenge of teaching a MOOC that deals heavily in writing assignments to an open classroom that includes a high rate of non-native English speakers. Coursera estimates that about 62 percent of its 1 million registered students live outside the United States. ... Coursera and its partners are preparing to roll out a dozen courses in the humanities and social sciences that will probably rely on peer grading.

However, after experiencing a nearly 75% drop-out rate, the professor teaching the Internet history course changed the assessment criteria to exclude participation in the peer-grading system as a requirement. Instead, there will be a certain number of points students will have to accumulate in order to pass, all of which can be earned via multiple-choice quizzes. 

  But for his colleague Eric Rabkin, essays are impossible to avoid. Rabkin, an English professor at Michigan, is teaching Coursera’s first literature course, Fantasy and Science Fiction. Rabkin says he does not know how many of the 39,000 people who originally registered for the course, or the 8,000 who are still submitting and grading essays, are non-native English speakers—nor whether English-speaking students in the course worry that the subtleties of their own essays are being lost on ESL classmates who are grading their work.

Rabkin himself is not worried. While he takes care that his lecture videos and syllabus reflect the rigor of a University of Michigan course, he has no illusions that a peer-grading system will accord with his own standards for academic achievement. “I believe that we are going to get a standard of passing work that is appropriate for this community,” he says. That community includes students who might not have full command of the English language.

And here is where the philosophy of MOOCs collides with the idea of certifiable achievement in a literature course: “If we’re going to keep this completely open,” says Rabkin, “then no credential can have a well-understood meaning.”

Daphne Koller, one of the co-founders of Coursera, says that the peer-grading experiment is still very much a work-in-progress. "We will undoubtedly learn a lot from the experiences of our instructors as they encounter this phenomenon, and then have a better sense of where exactly the tensions lie and how one might deal with them," she says. "We also have some ideas of our own that we'll throw in the mix and evaluate as we plan the next phase of this experiment."

Offered by the University of Michigan, Internet History, Technology and Security is one of the first humanities courses run by Coursera. That means it is an early proving ground for Coursera’s peer-grading system—the company’s answer to the challenge of running a course with tens of thousands of students and only one professor. For every essay they submit, students in the course have to read and evaluate four others written by their classmates.

Students’ testimonies highlighted the challenge of teaching a MOOC that deals heavily in writing assignments to an open classroom that includes a high rate of non-native English speakers. Coursera estimates that about 62 percent of its 1 million registered students live outside the United States. ... Coursera and its partners are preparing to roll out a dozen courses in the humanities and social sciences that will probably rely on peer grading.

However, after experiencing a nearly 75% drop-out rate, the professor teaching the Internet history course changed the assessment criteria to exclude participation in the peer-grading system as a requirement. Instead, there will be a certain number of points students will have to accumulate in order to pass, all of which can be earned via multiple-choice quizzes. 

  But for his colleague Eric Rabkin, essays are impossible to avoid. Rabkin, an English professor at Michigan, is teaching Coursera’s first literature course, Fantasy and Science Fiction. Rabkin says he does not know how many of the 39,000 people who originally registered for the course, or the 8,000 who are still submitting and grading essays, are non-native English speakers—nor whether English-speaking students in the course worry that the subtleties of their own essays are being lost on ESL classmates who are grading their work.

Rabkin himself is not worried. While he takes care that his lecture videos and syllabus reflect the rigor of a University of Michigan course, he has no illusions that a peer-grading system will accord with his own standards for academic achievement. “I believe that we are going to get a standard of passing work that is appropriate for this community,” he says. That community includes students who might not have full command of the English language.

And here is where the philosophy of MOOCs collides with the idea of certifiable achievement in a literature course: “If we’re going to keep this completely open,” says Rabkin, “then no credential can have a well-understood meaning.”

Daphne Koller, one of the co-founders of Coursera, says that the peer-grading experiment is still very much a work-in-progress. "We will undoubtedly learn a lot from the experiences of our instructors as they encounter this phenomenon, and then have a better sense of where exactly the tensions lie and how one might deal with them," she says. "We also have some ideas of our own that we'll throw in the mix and evaluate as we plan the next phase of this experiment."

Click here to see all posts related to week 3

Our goal for this week is to build our understanding of the underlying technologies behind wireless mobile communications. This base understanding is important for several reasons:

learn the basic terms and concepts of mobile communications so that we can understand the literature and take part in the conversation of mlearning

evaluate the feasibility of implementing a mobile design

use technology in new and creative ways (for learning)

develop a critical understanding of (mobile) technology:

why do Google and Verizon claim that they cannot support net neutrality for the wireless internet?

can you be tracked by the GPS in your phone? really? how does that work?

how come my Sprint "4G" service is awful? and drops my connections when handing off between 4G and 3G cells? (well, that might be too specific)

Keep in mind, we are not looking for an engineering report. Rather we want to build a common, functional understanding.

how it will work

Before class, you should decide on a topic that you would like to know more about. Post your topic on your blog. Try to find 2 other people interested in the same or similar area, so that you can create a coordinated report. You should work together to prepare for class. You do not need to meet in person — you should try to work it out online as much as possible. Once you have a topic and a group, you should start doing your research and preparing your presentation. On one of your blogs, post a list of annotated resources: the websites, press articles, scholarly papers, videos, and other materials that you think the entire class (and the world at large, remember we're on the open web) would find useful if they want to know more about your topic. Use the tag #mlearning tech

Someone in your group should post, 1) the topic you are reporting on & 2) the members of the group. I will create a master list, so that we aren't overlapping and everyone has a group.

What you need for class. Your group should prepare a 10-12 minute presentation. You can do a live demo, use slides, show video, talk, do an exercise with the class, or anything else that you think will be an effective means for communicating ideas about your topic. After your presentation, we will have a few minutes to ask open questions.

For each presentation, your classmates will fill out a brief evaluation, with the following questions:

Clarity: On a scale of 1-5, how clear was the presentation?

Knowledge: On a scale of 1-5, how knowledgeable were the presenters about their topic?

Teaching: Indicate (on a scale of 1-5) how much do you agree with this statement? "I know significantly more about the subject after this presentation"

Appeal: On scale of 1-5, would you like to have this group present again?

Grades will be calculated from the average scores. The instructor's score will not have special weight for this assignment -- the report should benefit the class, not me.

Grades:

A 18-20 points

A- 16-17 points

B+ 15-16 points

B 14-15 points

B- 13-14 points

C+ 11-12 points

C- 9-10 points

F <9 points

0 late work will absolutely not be accepted for this assignment and will result in a zero (not an F - which I average as 65)