January 31, 2012

Grading the mechanics of writing quickly while helping students learn mechanics

When you make the assignment, tell your students that you will be grading them on mechanics by choosing one page (but you don't tell them which page) from the assignment to note instances of errors in the mechanics of language.  On that page, you will only put a check in the left (or right) margin in line with each mechanical error.  Do not identify what the error is or correct the error yourself.

Set the standard for how many errors on the page will affect the grade for the overall assignment and in what ways (e.g., 0-5 errors = 20 points gained for mechanics, 5-10 errors = 15 points gained, 10-15 errors = 10 points, 15-20 errors = 5 points, more than 20 errors = 0 points).

After returning the graded assignment to your students, make a required follow-up assignment in which students identify and correct all the mechanical errors made on that page (or as many as students possibly can) to gain back points they lost.  Students get credit only for accurate corrections.  To motivate students to get the mechanics right the first time, award only half the value of the points they lost for each correction they make on the second assignment.

Tell the students to make their corrections on the actual page of the paper in a different color ink (or pencil) than black or the color that you used in making your notations.  Give students references to one or more sources of English-language/writing handbooks. (The web has a variety of resources on mechanic of writing.)  Of course, you really don't care who or what they consult to identify and correct their errors.  Give students three to four days to complete this follow-up assignment.

When you collect these corrected pages, you need only look at the number of checkmarks you made in the margin and the number of correct corrections made to grade the assignment. Students will remember the errors they looked up and corrected and will be motivated to avoid repeating these errors in future papers.

On the next paper, select a different page in the submissions for this feedback procedure.  Chances are that you won't see a student repeating the same errors. This second (and the third and the fourth) time around, you will catch new errors, and your students will teach themselves additional mechanics lessons.

This tip is based on a teaching strategy suggested by Linda B. Nilson, Ph.D., Director, Office of Teaching Effectiveness and Innovation, Clemson University.  (www.clemson.edu/OTEI).

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January 24, 2012

Grading that functions as useful feedback to students

Grading is generally one of the least favorite parts of teaching.  Grading can feel stressful when students challenge their grades, attempt to cheat or plagiarize, or focus on earning grades rather than acquiring skills or learning.  When grading only serves to sort students into categories of achievement, instructors feel uncomfortable playing the role of judge, preferring the role of coach and mentor.  Clear and fair grading are hard to formulate.  Student performance that fails to meet our expectations sometimes makes us doubt our effectiveness as teachers.

How can we make grading less aversive to ourselves?

• Accept the potential for conflict in grading activities.  Separate your role as a coach from your role as an evaluator and decide which role you are playing at any given point in time.  Select times when you provide feedback strictly in your role as a coach (provide comments on drafts that are not graded, create practice quizzes and test questions with instructive feedback).
• Grading will always have a subjective element.  Accept this ambiguity.  Establish your criteria and standards as an expert judge, communicate these clearly to students, and apply your criteria as consistently as you can.  Recognize that variations in measurement are an inevitable part of all measurements, including high-stakes highly-valid measures.  You can take steps to minimize this variation (and should do so as a strategy to promote fairness in grading), but you cannot eliminate it.  Students recognize and appreciate good faith efforts to be consistent.
• Recognize that grades are important to students and present a strong emotional challenge to many students.  You can defuse this emotional component by listening to students.  When possible, use their suggestions to improve the clarity of your grading procedures without compromising your standards and criteria.  Create rubrics or other grading systems that clearly state your expectations for high-quality work on an assignment.  If these can be provided when an assignment is made, students will understand what they must do for the assignment and will be more likely to understand specific grading decisions with less complaining.

 
Resources on the CUTLA web site
Examples of rubrics:
http://uwf.edu/cutla/rubricdevelopment.cfm

You can download a Word document template for a rubric that you can use to begin constructing your own template from the CUTLA web site:
http://www.uwf.edu/cutla/documents/Rubric%20Template.docx

Reference

Walvoord, B. E., & Anderson, V. J. (2010).  Effective grading:  A tool for learning and assessment in college (2nd ed).  San Francisco, CA:  Wiley.

This book is in the CULTA library and available for check out.
This tip is based on a teaching strategy suggested by Carolyn Oxenford, Director, Center for Teaching Excellence, Marymount University.  (http://www.marymount.edu/facultyStaff/cte)  

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November 15, 2011

Motivate students to learn by offering “extra credit” opportunities that reinforce course learning outcomes

Near the end of a term, more students will ask their instructors if they will give them opportunities to earn extra credit to improve a course grade.  Instructors have many good reasons to object to these requests.  Completing an extra assignment requires time that a struggling student ought to allocate to study and completion of regular course assignments.  Students often expect that the extra work will earn all the credit they need to make the target grade.  If a student spends time on an extra assignment and still does badly in the course, the unmet expectations create a conflict between the student and the instructor.  If the extra credit activity is unrelated to the primary learning outcomes of the course, the inflated grades will fail to accurately describe student achievement on the student learning outcomes for the course.

The following assignments and activities can be used to provide students with opportunities to improve their course grade and motivate students to learn the intended course skills and content.

• For large classes using multiple-choice exams, include an optional short essay question as a “bonus question.”  Students who have difficulty with multiple-choice questions have an opportunity to demonstrate their learning in an essay (and improve poor performance on the main exam).  High performing students might earn grades of more than 100%, but this will not impact the distribution of grades in the course.
• Create an extra-credit assignment such as completing a practice quiz in eLearning or writing a short paper that applies a concept from current course readings and lectures to a practical problem.  The assignment must be submitted before the exam date.  In this case, when students complete the extra credit assignment, they also engage in structured study of course content for the exam.
• Students write and submit multiple-choice questions for course content that the instructor might actually include on the course exam.  The student who writes a question included on the exam will get an added benefit when taking the exam.  Award extra credit only for exam-worthy questions to avoid problems created when students submit trivial fact-based questions that do little to improve their understanding of course material.
• Suggest course-related web or print resources that explain or illustrate course concepts effectively and accurately.  Require students to submit an evaluation of the resource and describe why the resource is effective for learning.  This assignment should have a due date earlier than the scheduled exam date on this course content.
• Allow students to revise and resubmit an assignment to earn up to half of the points missed in the original submission.  Manage the extra grading produced by this option and avoid an end-of-the semester rush for extra credit by requiring resubmission no later than one week after the work is returned to the class.   

Thanks to Ed Gehringer, North Carolina State University, Stacy Jacob, Texas Tech University, Stuart McKelvie, Bishop’s University, and June Pilcher, Clemson University for suggestions included in this teaching tip.

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March 29, 2011

Preparing for the end of the term:  Strategies for deterring grade complaints and coping with them when they occur

Strategies for deterring complaints

• Beware of unplanned extra credit opportunities.  At this point in the term, students may beg for extra credit work but are likely to do this work badly and complain that the work did not improve their grade as much as they expected.  Incomplete grades that permit extra time to complete an extra credit assignment easily turn into an F and leave the student with a worse grade than he or she might have otherwise earned.
• Recheck your syllabus grading policies and your math to avoid situations in which an unexpectedly low grade is in fact your mistake.  If it is your mistake, own it, apologize, and correct the grade promptly.
• You can be empathetic toward students who are stressed about a grade without changing or compromising your standards.  Offer advice for avoiding these problems in future classes if it is too late to recover from poor performance in your class.
• Some students will complain, no matter what you do.  The final criterion to guide grading assignments is whether the quality of student work matches the learning objectives of the course.  Create rubrics for grading assignments that clearly articulate the criteria you will use to judge student work.  When you communicate your criteria clearly, students will have fewer questions and fewer complaints about how you evaluated their work.
• Consult the student’s SASS report to confirm any claims that a student might make about the impact of a grade on his or her academic progress or status at the university. In spite of what a student might assert, your course is never the “only one” that will prevent a student from maintaining his or her academic standing, keeping a financial aid award, or participating in a university-sponsored team or activity.  These decisions are based on the student’s entire academic record. 

Strategies for coping when complaints occur

• You don’t have to make any decision about a student problem or student request the moment it is presented to you.  Wait (but not past the grade deadline) until you and the student are calm and you have complete information.  Everyone is stressed near the end of the term and we don’t make good decisions when stressed or partially informed.
• Be careful about handling student issues via e-mail.  It is usually better to call the student on the phone.  Remember that if a parent calls or e-mails you, FERPA standards limit what you can discuss and reveal about student performance without the student’s permission.  Refer parent questions to the department chair, college dean or university registrar.
• Record the events surrounding any grade complaint.  Keep any e-mail correspondence with the student and copies of relevant assignments or exams, in case the complaint moves to the department chair for review.  No one likes to be surprised.  Alert your department chair of problematic situations when these emerge and before they escalate. 

And for fun (in anticipation of Finals Week)

Visit the fantasy software Grader 2.95 created by Sally Kuhlenschmidt, Director, Faculty Center for Excellence in Teaching (FaCET), Western Kentucky University

http://www.wku.edu/~sally.kuhlenschmidt/fantasygrader.htm

This tip was adapted from a contribution to the Teaching and Learning Writing Consortium, (sponsored by Western Kentucky University) by Sally L. Kuhlenschmidt, Ph.D., Director, Faculty Center for Excellence in Teaching (FaCET), Professor, Department of Psychology, Western Kentucky University.

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October 26, 2010

Balance flexibility and fairness when designing courses

Learner-centeredness shifts responsibility for learning to students by creating varied learning opportunities and multiple evaluation options that allow students to make choices and determine how they will demonstrate their learning (Weimer, 2002).  Learner-centered course designs simultaneously hold students responsible for their learning and provide allowances for flexibility when life “interrupts” their studies, while preserving our “lines in the sand” for academic standards and our sanity.

Students need to know that submitting work late creates obstacles for getting and using feedback effectively.  Still, life sometimes gets in the way of the best of intentions.  Instructors who provide flexible solutions for these situations create opportunities for students to manage deadlines and learn material without delivering instructions or course material multiple times. 

Examples of course design ideas that accomplish this:

1. Include carrots that create incentives for on-time submission of assignments.  Grant the option to rewrite a paper and incorporate your feedback for an improved grade only to those students who submit their work on time.  You might accept papers late (up to a limit for efficient grading on your part, e.g., up to three days late) but only timely submissions earn the right to improve the work for a second review.
2. Create flexibility with reasonable boundaries.  Give students a “syllabus quiz” in the first week of the semester.  Every student who passes earns 5 credits that can be “cashed in” to offset penalties for turning in work late (1 credit = 1 day past the due date).  Students can cash in all of their credits at once with one assignment, or they can split them across assignments at different times in the semester.  In this case, students earn “wiggle room” for deadlines and must use their “late options” wisely.

Weimer, M. (2002). Learner-Centered Teaching: Five Key Changes to Practice. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. 

This tip was adapted from a contribution to the Teaching and Learning Writing Consortium, (sponsored by Western Kentucky University) by Mark Potter, Center for Faculty Development, Metropolitan State College of Denver (http://www.mscd.edu/cfd/).

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March 30, 2010

Use effective grading strategies to help survive the demands of grading during finals week

• Remember that judgment is a part of every grade, whether it is a judgment about what to measure, how to measure it, or how to assign a point value to a component of student work when computing a grade.

• If your criteria for learning are clear, student work is easier to score and score consistently. Rubrics help you score more efficiently and provide feedback that informs students about how they might improve their work.  Visit http://uwf.edu/cutla/rubricdevelopment.cfm  for a description of rubric development and links to examples of rubrics for a variety of assignments.
  
  
• Pace the grading task so that you remain fresh.  Break the task into components that will allow you to complete each component in one sitting (e.g., grade all student responses to essay question one in one grading session, then grade all responses to essay question two in a separate grading session).  Distributing the task over several sessions will enable you to grade each question efficiently and consistently. You can defer grading remaining questions to another day, when you will be rested.
  
  
• Make notes while grading about things you want to change in your next set of instructions, based on common student errors.  Keep these notes for your contribution to departmental documentation of use of assessment evidence for improvement of courses – your department chair and colleagues will appreciate this contribution to departmental assessment efforts!
  
  
• If the paper isn’t going to be returned to the student (or if you know that students seldom pick up these papers), don’t mark a lot of feedback.  Make minimal notes that are sufficiently detailed to document your decisions should a student raise a question about his or her grade. 

Thanks to Sally L. Kuhlenschmidt, Ph.D., Director, Faculty Center for Excellence in Teaching (FaCET), Western Kentucky University,  for contributions to this teaching tip.
http://www.wku.edu/teaching/

 

Updated 01/31/12 cdw