Grading Efficiently: Finding the Time to Grade Fairly

Killian Quigley John Martin

Vanderbilt Center for Teaching GradSTEPJanuary 26, 2013

Challenges

The “What” and “Why” of Grading

Time Management

Rubrics

“Subjective” Grading (?)

STEM Disciplines

Group Work and Projects

Discussion/Brainstorming

Why Talk About Grading?

Why Are We Here?

Let’s take a step back….

Why do we grade in the first place?

Goal #1: Accuracy

Goal #2: Consistency

Goal #3: Student Learning

Time Management

grading≠

procrastination

grading=

deliberate act

Establish priorities

Befriend the clock

Schedule

Set boundaries

Establish a Space and a Ritual for Grading

reflect on how things go!

Using Rubrics

Kinds of Rubrics• Rubrics given to students with your

expectations for how they complete their assignments– Stylistic, less detailed

• Rubrics for yourself on how you grade these assignments – “Answer keys”

• Using both these will save you time and effort!

Why do we use grading rubrics?

1) Keeps grading fair and consistent2) Directly aligns grades with learning goals3) Saving time – less thinking in giving

credit

Grading rubrics are applicable to all disciplines!

Grading Outside the Rubric

• Assignments without a set rubric or unexpected student responses

• One way to deal with these situations: real-time rubric making

• Record your grading as you go – apply the same standards to all students

Some rights reserved by ericmay

Killian’s section on humanities assignments

Rubric

• Clarification, consistency• Reference

Other

voices

• Handbooks• VWS, CFT, Online Pedagogy Guides

Trial

• Examples• Drafts and partial assignments

Face time

• Peer review• Conferences and office hours

Technologies

• Speed

• Clarity

• Archive-building

Myth:

“Students’ writing will improve in direct proportion to the amount of time their teachers spend on their papers.”

(Hairston 2002)

Instead:

“…all the drudgery and sacrifice on the part of writing teachers might be justified if it helped students to learn to write; unfortunately, we have no evidence that it does.”

(Hairston 2002)

Maxine Hairston

• Don’t grade “with error at the front of our minds”

• Never assess an assignment without having first read/watched it once.

• What is the student attempting to do?

• How can we tailor our feedback to help our students achieve their unique goals?

• Note the things a student has done well, and suggest a small number of major changes.

• Avoid creating “cognitive overload”(Hairston 2002)

• Specific comments

• Students will not take heed of generalities, like “Pay attention to your reader”

(Nancy Sommers 1999)

• Solving problems, not discussing broad conceptual issues.

• Focus on only a few things.

• Suggest concrete strategies for improvement – reverse outlines, concept maps, etc.

(Mark Gelly 2002)

STEM Discipline Assignments

Problem Sets & Short Answer Responses

• Pros:– Systematic problems = systematic answers– Usually come with well laid-out grading rubrics

and answer keys– Broken up into digestible segments

• Cons– Backtracking to find mistakes

How to Handle Problem Sets & Short Answer

• Grade horizontally– Easier to pick out trends in answers

• Real-time rubric – Record what you take off/give points for so you

can apply across the board• Broadly respond to common errors• Use “minimal marking” while grading for common errors• Emphasize point in teaching exercise or send an email to

the class to explain

Lab Reports• Pros:– Usually have big emphasis

on stylistic elements – easy to spot

– Established rubric by professor overseeing lab

– Lots of other graders

• Cons:– Can be dense– Lots of other graders– Factoring in-class effort and

performance

Handling Lab Reports

• Make sure students know format before making their first report

• Draw from past TA’s experiences in grading and doing the actual labs

• Skim reports before grading horizontally– Reports are segmented but flow is also important

• Don’t waste time fixing every stylistic mistake, send out message to the entire class about persistent issues

Group Work/Projects

• Pros:– Multiple people working

= less gradable stuff– Teaches alternative

lessons outside normal curriculum

• Cons:– Grading multiple people

for one assignment

Handling Group Work/Projects

• Accentuate main group assignment/project with individual assignments

• Make individual members responsible for drafts of sections

• Give feedback chances for group members• Grin and bear it....

Why are you here? What is your experience?

What else might we discuss?

THANK YOU!

CFT:• Certificate in College Teaching• SoTL Scholars Program• Small Group Analysis• Teaching Observations• Technology Consultation• Conversations on Teaching• MUCH MORE!http://cft.vanderbilt.edu

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