Posts Tagged ‘grading strategies’
March 12 - The ‘I Deserve a Better Grade on This’ Conversation
By: Maryellen Weimer, PhD in Teaching and Learning
It’s a conversation most faculty would rather not have. The student is unhappy about a grade on a paper, project, exam, or for the course itself. It’s also a conversation most students would rather not have. In the study referenced below, only 16.8 percent of students who reported they had received a grade other than what they thought their work deserved actually went to see the professor to discuss the grade.
February 7 - How Can I Use a Total Point System to Clarify Grading?
By: Mary Bart in 20 Minute Mentor, Assessment & Learning Goals
At the end of a semester, do you find your office full of students wondering what their grade will be? Are they often complaining that their grade is much lower than they anticipated? It’s OK, we’ve all been there. The total point system approach to grading can reduce grading frustration — for your students and yourself.
November 1 - Should Student Effort Count?
By: Maryellen Weimer, PhD in Educational Assessment
We’ve all had conversations with students who want effort counted in their grade: “But I tried so hard … I studied for hours … I am really working in this course.” The question is, should effort count? Less commonly asked, however, is whether it should count in both directions. Students want effort to count when they try hard but their performance doesn’t show it. But what about when an excellent performance results without much effort? Should this lack of effort lower the grade? Beyond these theoretical questions are the pragmatic ones: Can effort be measured fairly, objectively? If so, what criteria are used to assess it?
October 29 - Gimme an A! Confronting Presuppositions about Grading
By: Christopher Willard in Educational Assessment
Sometimes, in informal conversations with colleagues, I hear a statement like this, “Yeah, not a great semester, I doled out a lot of C’s.” I wonder, did this professor create learning goals that were unobtainable by most of the class or did this professor lack the skills to facilitate learning? I present this provocative lead-in as an invitation to reflect upon our presuppositions regarding grading.
August 17 - Establishing a Fair and Supportive Grading Environment
By: Mary Bart in Educational Assessment
Grading serves multiple purposes. While the most obvious purpose is to evaluate students’ work — as a measure of competency, achievement, and meeting the expectations of the course — grading can also be a key to communication, motivation, organization and faculty/student reflection. It’s for that reason that Virginia Johnson Anderson, EdD, calls grading “a context-dependent, complex process.”
May 29 - How Can I Use Low-stakes Quizzing to Enhance Learning?
By: Mary Bart in 20 Minute Mentor, Assessment & Learning Goals
How Can I Use Low-stakes Quizzing to Enhance Learning? Program includes a CD with the video presentation, plus supplemental materials, PowerPoint slides, and complete transcript • $99 More quizzes = happier students. Really? You might be thinking just the opposite, but let us explain. A frequent, low-stakes grading strategy, when used correctly, can decrease your
May 16 - Grading Strategies to Promote Student & Faculty Success
By: Mary Bart in Online Seminars
When you give your grading as much care and attention as you give the rest of your course design components, you will start to see improvements in student performance and experience greater personal satisfaction in teaching. Learn how to make positive changes to your grading strategies and tactics.
May 16 - Giving Student Choices on How Assignments Are Weighted
By: Maryellen Weimer, PhD in Teaching Professor Blog
Not so long ago in the blog we explored the weighting of course assignments. The more certain assignments count in the grading scheme, the more time students are likely to devote to them. That makes determining how much each assignments counts an important decision. Since then I’ve come across several reports and some research that suggest we should consider giving students a choice on assignment weightings. For example, if the course contains a number of quizzes and collectively they count for 20% of the grade, a student could decide at the beginning of the course to raise that percentage to 30 with the weight of the major exams decreased by a corresponding amount. Or, say there are three assignments in the course that equal 75% of the grade, the student could designate a weight for each assignment between 15% and 45% but the three must total 75%.
April 26 - A Faster, More Efficient Way to Grade Papers
By: Maryellen Weimer, PhD in Educational Assessment
I hope you won’t stop reading once you find out the idea being proposed here involves automating the feedback provided students on papers, projects, and presentations. If you were to look at a graded set of papers and make a list of the comments offered as feedback, how many of those comments have you written more than once? Is the answer many? If so, you should read on.
April 11 - Should Effort Count? Students Certainly Think So
By: Maryellen Weimer, PhD in Teaching Professor Blog
In a recent study, a group of 120 undergraduates were asked what percentage of a grade should be based on performance and what percentage on effort. The students said that 61% of the grade should be based on performance and 39% on effort.
