Grading principles and practices
What is grading? Why are grading principles and practices important?
To “grade” students’ work is among the most difficult and time-consuming tasks of instructors and TAs. Grading is a process of assessing or evaluating students’ work against criteria or standards and then assigning the work a rating that communicates to students a value of the quality of their submission.
Grading practices are steeped in traditions, influenced by policies and linked to the context of teaching including an instructor’s approach to assessment. Ideally, grading practices include four major intersecting elements:
- Assessing performance
- Utilizing feedback
- Motivating to improve
- Communicating about expectations of learning clearly
What do I need to consider when I am grading?
To attain efficient, equitable, fair and clear grading practices across all four elements above, it is important to consider the following eight tensions expressed by students and instructors.
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1. Equity
Is the grade an accurate representation of the student's knowledge, skills and capability?
2. Validity and Reliability
Can this grade be trusted? How is this grade informed by clear criteria and standards in order to ensure a sound professional judgement as to the student’s capabilities?
3. Evidence of learning
What is the nature of the data that shows direct evidence of student learning?
4. Constructive Alignment
How does the grading system in my course reflect evidence-based teaching practices such as alignment of learning activities with assessments, scaffolding, feedback, and student involvement in self-assessment or peer assessment?
5. Alignment of effort and the weighting of assignment
Are the workload, effort required, and weighting of the assignment in alignment with each other? For example, am I asking students to do too much work for 5% of the grade?
6. Scalable, efficient, timely grading system
Is the grading system feasible and sustainable? Can it be implemented in large classes? How is technology used for efficiency? (e.g. Can we use Speed Grader in Canvas? Is audio feedback more efficient? Can a rubric save grading time?)
7. Approach and intention
Is grading about learning? Will criterion referencing or standards be used to judge students’ learning?
8. Feedback on teaching
How do grading practices inform my reflection on teaching, help me improve my teaching and how will they impact the documentation of teaching?
What effective grading practices will make a difference to students and instructors?
There are many effective grading practices that address the principles of effective grading. Some of the most common are:
Principle: Clearly articulate grading criteria, expectations
Practice: Use a rubric to grade; teach students to use a rubric to self-assess; ask students to generate rubrics; use rubric to guide feedback
Resources:
University of Waterloo - using rubrics and how to create a rubric
Principle: Academic Integrity
Practice: Create a checklist on academic integrity in your course and share with students; define academic integrity in your discipline and in the types of assignments you use
Resources:
Student Responsibilities and Examples of Honest Work (McGill University)
Plagiarism and Cheating (McGill University)
Principles: Diversity, Equitable and Flexible
Practice: Mark exams one question at a time; anonymize assignments or ask students to put their names on the last page of the assignment, use a 0-4 rather than a 0-100 scale if possible, to reduce being influenced by a student’s participation or engagement in class
Resources:
Fast equitable feedback tips (University of Waterloo)
How to Make Grading more Equitable
Principles: Self-assessment, metacognition and self-regulation
Practice: Self-assessment guided by clear criteria can promote deeper learning by allowing students to reflect on their learning, then revise their assignment and improve their performance
Resources:
Strategies for self-assessment (Cornell University)
A guide to Self-Assessment
Exploring Grading Questions with Colleagues
To establish consistent, reliable and efficient grading practices we can begin by reflecting on grading that is situated within specific teaching and learning contexts. It may be useful to explore the following questions with colleagues and peers along with TAs and lab instructors:
- What are the best teaching and learning practices to foster academic integrity in the discipline?
- How do we assess participation in the program? How do expectations for participation vary across courses and stages of study?
- How might “bonus marks” reinforce inequities?
- What are the benefits of self-assessment, peer review and feedback for learning - how do these prepare students for professional life in the discipline?
- What are the impacts of decisions to curve or not to curve grades?
Where can I learn more?
If you are interested in learning more about these techniques, please consider these resources and current literature on grading practices in higher education.
TRY THIS...
- Grade assignments/tests one question or one page at a time. Shuffle tests/assignments and do the next question/page. Why? Focussing on one or two questions increases consistency in grading that question and can reduce grading bias for well/poorly written answers.
- Write comments digitally and create templates of common feedback that can be cut, pasted, and individualized. Note patterns of feedback to share with your class and improve assignment design in the future.
- Resist being a copy editor, for spelling/grammatical errors. Provide feedback on the error and ask students to find and fix the rest (vs. identifying and correcting every grammatical error).
- Quickly skim a few assignments to start to calibrate/adjust to the general quality and sense of time each assignment will take for you to grade, then start marking in earnest.
- Separate the practice of giving feedback from grading as they are two different activities.
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