Week 2 Discussion Grading Feedback

Hello all and happy week 2.

After grading all of the discussion posts for the week 2 discussion assignment (Geotechnical Engineering), I wanted to give some feedback so improvements can be made over the next discussion posts.

Overall, the content and detail of the discussion posts were great, so I applaud your hard work with finding interesting articles to research.  However, the majority of students were missing some items we are looking for in the discussion posts.I was very lenient on the grades since this was your first discussion grade, and next week I won't be as nice.  Please look below at my findings to improve your grade moving forward.

• Reminder to reply to 3 or more student posts in the discussion thread per week.  This can be on a similar topic or something completely different to your major or topic you wrote about.  I would prefer if you would reply directly to the student's post, but if you want to embed your comments within your own discussion post at the end, that will suffice too.
• Be conscious of the layout of your discussion  post.  Try to treat these posts as mini-engineering reports.  This means that the font, size and color of the text should be the same throughout the post.  I would encourage everyone to use the grading requirements (Most Interesting, Most Confusing, Special Question, Response to Others (if placing within post)) as headings to organize your thoughts better.  This will help you check off the graded items, as well as help the grader find exactly what you were trying to write about in a clear method.  As aspiring engineers, project managers, or business leaders, you must be able to write clear and effectively with proper formatting. 
• Reminder to write about the special question as a supplement to your discussion post.  This past week, the special topic was similar to the typical expectations of a discussion post (Most interesting about the topic), but keep in mind that following weeks special questions are different and I will be looking for you to write about them.

Keep up the hard work and as always, let me know if you have any questions.

-Taylor Derr