Please find below feedback on the Discussion Post (and peer responses). The rubric was used to assess this students work: 

Strengths:

1. Your initial post thoroughly addresses the discussion prompt, demonstrating a clear understanding of the advantages and challenges of online and blended learning.

2. You provide thoughtful insights into the advantages and challenges of online learning, drawing on personal experiences and course materials. Your response was clear, well-organized, and supported by examples.

3. Your reflections on the iNOCAL standards and the future of K-12 online learning show a strong level of self-assessment and forward-thinking.

4. Additionally, your responses to peers effectively engage with their ideas, adding thoughtful insights and encouraging further discussion.

Areas for Improvement:

1. While your post is well-organized, it would benefit from more explicit integration of course materials or external resources.

2. Including citations or references from the pre-discussion video, readings, or other credible sources would strengthen your arguments and align with the rubric's expectation to substantiate comments with reasoning or citations.

3. Additionally, your responses to peers could be more robust in length, as some responses are slightly brief and could delve deeper into their points.

Suggestions:

To enhance your work:

1. Try incorporating specific evidence from the course materials to back up your points in both your initial post and peer responses. This could include direct quotes, statistics, or concepts discussed in the resources.

2. For peer responses, aim for 1-2 full paragraphs that not only reflect on their ideas but also build upon them with additional examples or questions. This will help you fully meet the rubric's criteria and further enrich the discussion.

Your case study demonstrates a solid understanding of the strategic issue and includes well-supported recommendations. However, it could be improved by applying analytical tools like SWOT for a more structured evaluation and clarifying financial data with visuals such as charts. Minor APA formatting issues should also be addressed.

To enhance the submission, incorporate frameworks like SWOT, use visuals for financial clarity, and review APA guidelines (e.g., Purdue OWL). Tools like Grammarly and Excel, along with resources such as the UMass Global Writing Center, can further refine your work. With these improvements, your case study has great potential!

Your post was informative and honest. You gave examples for each prompt which helps the reader have more clarity. I would like to see you expand the areas of barriers and how you would find online teaching rewarding. I would have also liked to see more examples of how you think online classes can become more engaging. I would also suggest you utilize the tools that UMass Global offers such as the writing center to assist you with the articulation in your writing. It looks like you have great observations that I would like to see in more detail.

I just wanted to say that I'm so happy with the paper. You have done a great job on this assignment. You clearly understood the directions, well written, and shared detailed examples. You also obviously put a lot of work into your assignment. You're a fantastic student and person.

Areas for Improvement: Identify specific areas where the student can improve, providing clear examples.

First of all, thanks for following the rubric and submitting the assignment in an APA format. Throughout the paper, you listed in-text APA Citations, but review the example below of the correct way to share. Could you make sure to add subheadings throughout the paper? In APA format, subheadings benefit a paper by providing clear structure, enhancing readability, guiding the reader through the content, and differentiating between different topics and subtopics within a document, allowing for more straightforward navigation and comprehension of complex information—a way to go with the final reference on the reference page.

Examples:

In-text citation: (21st Century Health Literacy, 2017).

Reference Page:

21st Century Health Literacy (2017, January 10). https://janieappleseed.org/index.php/21st-century-health-literacy/

Framework for 21st Century Learning. (n.d.).Partnership for 21st Century Learning.https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CS2ymUFdiXFzW61D_DxfWPLpA8nlr4oU/view

Suggestions: Offer actionable suggestions for how the student can enhance their work.

Some suggestions are as follows: Please get in touch with the writing center at Umass Global. https://www.umassglobal.edu/current-students

UMass Global APA Manual - Student Resource

https://services.umassglobal.edu/cii/apa-7/index.html#/

The opening image and information shared is good! To bolster this section, consider including some of the rights & responsibilities of children and families with IEPs; 2-3 bullet points is sufficient.

I encourage you to revisit the “Be Active in the IEP” section, and define the terms self-determination, self-advocacy, and elaborate on what participation in IEPs looks like, with a maximum of three bullet points. This is a great place to include some of the responsibilities of parents in the IEP process. Resources such as the Department of Education website will provide ample information.

The “Transitioning from High School” section offers good and specific information to a subset of the targeted audience. Because your infographic opens with the age demographic from 3yrs - 21yrs, we want to ensure that the information being shared encompasses the identified age group. In addition to key features of the transitioning period out of high school, you want to include key features of other transition periods. To make this feasible, consider naming key transition periods and include two key features or two services or a combination of features and services as bullet points. 

Strong resources included! I would encourage you to include San Juan’s Special Education Department contact information under the title Resources, so it’s understood they, too, are a resource. Additionally, you can utilize the resources you've listed to draw information from and include in your infographic.

This is a strong start! In addition to the above feedback, review for spelling and grammar, and review the rubric to ensure you’re not missing out on any points prior to resubmission. Reach out with any questions, comments, or concerns. 

-Professor Armand

Thank you for your beautiful infographic submission.  Here is summary of your strengths recommendations.  Strengths: The infographic provides a clear and concise overview of the IEP process, emphasizing the inclusion of measurable goals and parent involvement. The section on transitioning from high school offers actionable advice, such as monitoring goals and exploring living arrangements, which is valuable for parents. The infographic includes links to credible resources (e.g., CDE resources and a self-determination goal website), making it helpful for parents to access further information. The use of bold headings and distinct sections enhances readability and helps parents quickly locate key information.

Recommendations: While "Free and Appropriate Education" is mentioned, the explanation of legal rights (e.g., procedural safeguards and parents' legal roles) is limited. Parents might need more comprehensive details to understand their rights. The design is somewhat plain, relying heavily on text. It lacks engaging visuals, such as icons, charts, or graphics, which could better illustrate the information.  The content mentions self-determination skills but doesn't fully define or provide examples of how parents can encourage these skills at home.  Although links are included, they are not formatted or explained. Parents might benefit from clearer descriptions of what each resource offers.

This is a great start and by addressing these areas, the infographic will align more closely with the rubric criteria, becoming more informative, visually appealing, and user-friendly for parents. 

Keep up the good work !!

Dr. Watkins

Here are some Room for Improvement:
The rationale for how the skill can be applied to curriculum, instruction, and assessment needs more depth. Providing a more detailed and creative hands-on application would strengthen student engagement and demonstrate how the skill enhances learning.

Your point about how online courses need to use a variety of elements was also excellent. For the other prompts, I would encourage you to go into more depth and detail with more than just a couple of sentences. To get an Exemplary, all topics in the prompt are clearly addressed and comments are substantiated with reasoning and/or citations from texts, articles, videos, or web resources.

Your responses to two peers were both 1 paragraph in length, free of grammar and punctuation errors, and free of spelling errors. To get an Exemplary, you need to substantiate your comments similar to your initial post. You did relate some personal experiences in both of your responses that added to the discussions, but I would recommend going into more depth and detail about potential solutions or other problems or sharing different viewpoints supported by a rationale.

Your feedback was very thorough and excellent. I agree that the initial post was well done and expressed the advantages and disadvantages of online learning. I did mention that some of the responses to the prompts needed more depth and detail to get exemplary per the rubric. I also try to highlight the strengths as well as the areas for improvement so there is a balance in the feedback (i.e., things the student did well and things that could be improved upon). Overall, I do think students love detailed feedback and have seen Discussion Boards improve drastically from one week to another!