Blog Projects

Make blog projects meaningful/authentic.

As explained on Create Activities, relevant activities support student engagement and inclusion. In addition to being relevant to your course learning objectives, meaningful blog projects also connect with students’ life experiences and goals. These projects should also push students to use critical thinking skills, moving beyond simply presenting information toward application and/or analysis.

Blogs also allow you to consider expanding the audience beyond the classroom to help students make connections between classroom activities and real world application. A blog assignment could be a great way to engage a larger audience, and students can also support one another in the comments of each other’s blogs.

Provide opportunities for student voice and choice.

Giving students choices so that they have agency in their blog topic or format also supports inclusion and student engagement (see Create Activities for details). When students are more interested in a topic, they have an emotional connection, which promotes a deeper learning experience.

When you give students agency and options, they are able to share their own perspective, culture, and history in the context of course content, which increases their understanding of both the course content and their relationship to it. It introduces others to a different point of view as well, creating a more inclusive learning environment.

Other opportunities for student voice and choice can be in how they construct their blog. What tools do they use? What style of language? How often will they post or comment on posts? Will they use text, visuals, etc.? Not all of these can be up to the student all the time, but examine your assignment parameters to determine where you can build in flexibility and options.

Set clear expectations.

Like any activity/assessment, first establish the goal(s) of the project. Make sure students are clear on the purpose and audience of their blog as well as the learning objectives. If the blog has potential use beyond the classroom, such as in internships or on social media, communicate that at the beginning.

Next, consider your project parameters. Here are some questions to consider:

• How many posts will students be publishing? How often will they publish posts?
• Should they incorporate research? If so, how many sources? How will citations be managed?
• What constitutes a meaningful post? Are there wordcount considerations? Required visuals? External links?
• How will they engage with each other’s blogs? Will they make comments on others’ posts? If so, how many and when?

Be clear about how projects will be assessed. Students are more familiar with grading expectations for traditional papers but not to less traditional projects like blogs. What are the expectations for the “mechanics” of the blog (grammar, spelling, layout, etc.), and how much of the final grade is assessing those mechanics?

Using a rubric will help students understand your expectations. A single point rubric that lists the expectations, has room for comments, and includes a points column is a natural fit for a project like this. Check out our Best Practices for Rubrics post for more information on using rubrics.

Provide options for feedback and reflection.

Action-oriented feedback is essential for writing assignments, including blog writing (UDL Consideration 8.5). In particular, feedback opportunities throughout the writing process scaffold student learning effectively. This can take the form of teacher or peer feedback on blog outlines, rough drafts of posts, published posts (to inform future ones), etc. Once again, rubrics can come in handy here.

In addition to feedback from others, it’s important for students to give themselves feedback on their writing process in the form of reflections and/or self-evaluations.¹ A formalized approach to this would be to pair blog post submissions with reflection or self-assessment assignments in Canvas. Less formally, surveys or brief written reflections can prompt students to develop those metacognitive skills when it comes to writing (UDL Considerations 6.4 & 9.3).

One way that blogs are unique when it comes to feedback and reflection is that it is a project that grows over time, reflecting new learning and improved skills. Students can compare early posts with later ones to reflect on their own growth as writers.

Scaffold ethical behavior.

When we consider scaffolding the ethical behavior of our students, we think of our University’s mission statement:

Our mission is to educate men and women toward maturity of intellect, character and Christian faith in preparation for lives of service, leadership and reconciliation in church and society.

With our mission in mind, all stages of the blog project should have opportunities for considering how students’ created content reflects these values. When students consider topics, remind them that as they grow to live out their Christian vocation, they will want to make a positive contribution to the media landscape. When they engage with each other’s content, support them in communicating respectfully and constructively.

Blogs make students content creators, a role they’ve likely already played before on social media or for other courses. However, they still might not be aware of how their work can be used by others. For example, you can encourage (or require) students to license their blogs using Creative Commons licensing. Also, give students the opportunity to read and understand the Terms of Service (TOS), Terms of Use (TOU), and/or Privacy Policies involved in their blog production (see 3rd Party Tools).

As students think more carefully about how others may interact with or use their content, it’s also important to remind them about privacy and data security. Are they sharing information that should not be broadly publicized (e.g. safety issues related to location or identity)? In their posts, have students referenced other people who may not wish to have their information or likeness shared?

As part of that positive contribution, students will often reference, use, and remix ideas and digital media from others. This makes information literacy/validation very important; students need to be mindful of how they find, share, and comment on content. Are they critically evaluating sources? Are they ensuring that the information they distribute is valid (not misinformation)?

When it comes to using others’ ideas, it’s not only important to ensure they are valid but also to give them credit appropriately. Students will need to follow some form of citing convention, both for information they collect as well as media, like images and videos.

Once students have drafted content ethically, they need to learn how to communicate it accessibly. In the case of blogs, this means learning key digital accessibility principles like headings, alt text, and descriptive links. This improves students’ ability to continue making a positive contribution to the media landscape in a way that is inclusive to diverse audiences.