Making the Grade

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Making the Grade

• How to Evaluate Student Papers Fairly and
  Consistently

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What is the Best Way to Grade Fairly and
Consistently?
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No, No, No
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What Do Students Want?

• http//www.youtube.com/watch?v93J_0Qxsci4

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How Do I Begin?

• Decide the value of the evaluation

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How Do I Begin?

• Decide the value of the evaluation
• Will students have a chance to revise?

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How Do I Begin?

• Decide the value of the evaluation
• Will students have a chance to revise?
• If so, make extensive comments on drafts and use
  formulative rubrics.

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How Do I Begin?

• Decide the value of the evaluation
• Will students have a chance to revise?
• If so, make extensive comments on drafts and use
  formulative rubrics.
• If not, make focused, but few comments and use
  summative rubrics.

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How Do I Begin?

• When will you return the graded papers?
• a. Before the last day of class?
• b. At the final exam?
• c. After the semester is over?

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How Do I Begin?

• What do you want students to do with your
  comments?

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How Do I Begin?

• Will students have a chance to revise?
• If not, consider having 2 deadlines for the
  paper
• A week early you will make in-depth comments
• A week laterfew if any comments beyond the
  rubric but students may NOT argue the grade

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How Do I Begin?

• Decide the value of the evaluation
• Is this a high- or low-stake assignment?

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How Do I Begin?

• Consider reading student papers all the way
  through before marking the rubric or making
  comments

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How Do I Begin?

• Consider reading student papers all the way
  through before marking the rubric or making
  comments
• Why?

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How Do I Begin?

• After reading the students paper, decide on 3
  main points to make

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How Do I Begin?

• How do I decide what is most important?

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How Do I Begin?

• How do I decide what is most important?
• Use Beths 7 levels of evaluating student papers

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How Do I Begin?

• Include no more than 3 comments per page
• Praise
• Briefly summarize students good points and areas
  that need work

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Help Students Understand your Grading Criteria

• One way to help students understand how you will
  evaluate their work is to prepare an annotated
  sample of student work

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Help Students Understand your Grading Criteria

• Prepare an annotated sample of student work
• Discuss the annotated sample in class

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Help Students Understand your Grading Criteria

• Prepare an annotated sample of student work
• Discuss the annotated sample in class
• Post the annotated sample for students to use as
  a reference

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Help Students Understand your Grading Criteria

• Another way to evaluate student papers
  consistently and fairly is by creating rubrics.

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Create Rubrics

• Holistic Rubric
• A grading sheet that considers the work as a
  whole
• Analytic Rubric
• A grading sheet that breaks down the
  assignment into parts and sometimes assigns each
  part a certain number of points or a percentage
  of the grade

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Writing Assignment 2A
Additional Comments and/or Suggestions
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Using Rubrics Effectively

• Consider eliminating point totals from rubrics

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Using Rubrics Effectively

• Make more comments on drafts than on final papers
  that cannot be revised
• Consider using analytical rubrics for drafts and
  a holistic rubric for the final paper

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Evaluating Student Papers

• The fair and consistent evaluation of student
  papers begins with the creation of the writing
  prompt.

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Evaluating Student Papers

• The fair and consistent evaluation of student
  papers begins with the creation of the writing
  prompt.
• The evaluation must be aligned with the prompt
  and with in-class explanations.

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Commenting on Student Papers

• Make Helpful Comments
• Focus more on global issues than local
• Be respectful, challenging, and specific

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Align Your Comments with Your Rubrics

• Do the comments you have made on the students
  paper reflect the grades you marked on the
  rubric?

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Align Your Comments with Your Rubrics

• For example, on the rubric do you indicate the
  most serious problem is the thesis?
• Yet, do your marks on the students paper
  suggest that grammar and punctuation were far
  more of a problem?

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Begin Your Comments with Praise

• Build student confidence before offering
  suggestions for improvement

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Commenting on Student Papers

• It might be tempting to begin editing the paper,
  but this isnt helpful for the student.
• Though it isnt the most obvious guidance, the
  student first needs guidance on structure,
  organization, and content.

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Commenting on Student Papers

• Then, simply comment at the end of the paper that
  the student will also need to do some major
  editing after the final revisions have been made.
  

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Focus on Global Issues

• Look at the focus, structure, support,
  paragraphing. What is the thesis statement?
• Does it explain what the reader will be arguing?
• Does it indicate what the main ideas of the paper
  will be, those that might correspond to the major
  headings?

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Be Selective Make only 2-3 Comments/Page

• Provide needed guidance without taking away
  students authority over the paper
• Be specific!
• Limit comments on correctness and style

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Restrict Comments Dont expect perfection
choose what matters to you

• Dont waste time making comments on papers that
  are irrelevant to your criteria

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Commenting on Student Papers

• Does the paper have so many problems that you
  would have to write a great deal to guide the
  student?

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Commenting on Student Papers

• Does the paper have so many problems that you
  would have to write a great deal to guide the
  student?
• Instead of making any comments, simply invite the
  student to your office and explain that you wont
  give the student a grade on the paper until it
  has been revised and edited thoroughly

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Commenting on Student Papers

• Is the comment necessary?
• Is the same information already on the rubric?

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Time-Saving Tips

• Remember less is more limit your comments to
  what matters most.
• Do not use comments to justify your grades
  use them to help the student become a better
  writer

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Commenting on Student Papers
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Commenting on Student Papers
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Studies of Student Paper Evaluations

• Students often do not understand our comments
• Study reveals percentage of students who
  typically understand faculty comments
• 54 percent of students assessed were very fairly
  confident
• only 5 percent were very confident
• 40 percent said they did not understand what the
  comment meant

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Studies of Student Paper Evaluations

• Students in two studies wanted both positive and
  negative feedback.
• For example, I want to know what I did correctly
  on my papers, not just what I did wrong
  generated a mean response of 4.49 (out of 5.0).

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Studies of Student Paper Evaluations

• Negative feedback tended to be more specific than
  positive feedback
• When offered, positive comments tended to be
  vague, such as the word good scrawled down the
  side of a paper.

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Check Your Consistency in Grading

• 1) Re-grade the first paper or 2 after you have
  graded all of the other papers.
• 2) Randomly look at your comments and graded
  rubric.
• 3) Compare some of the papers that have similar
  scores.

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Help Students Understand Your Completed
Evaluations

• Post the rubric again on the day you return the
  papers and comment in general about the papers
• e.g., Most students had a clear thesis that
  guided the organization of the paper
• Some common problems included failing to provide
  evidence for some of the claims
• Many of the papers included too many quotations
  instead of evidence that the author synthesized
  the content and actually has an opinion on it

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Help Students Use Your Evaluation Effectively

• If you have required drafts of the paper, have
  students write a memo telling you explicitly what
  changes they will make and why
• When students are required to do drafts, be sure
  to have them return those marked drafts with your
  comments when they submit the final paper
• Or have students explain how they have responded
  to each comment you made on the draft

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Make Certain that Students Read Your Comments

• Final exam reflection
• Final 10 points of the papers total reflection
• Memo listing how students would address your
  comments in a next version

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Revising Your Rubrics

• Assign students to revise the assignment prompt
  and/or rubrics

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Remember

• Your role is not simply to attach a numerical
  score on a students paper
• it is to help students become better writers!