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Scholar as Teacher Tip Sheet Index
Evaluating
Student Work
Grading
students' written work such as papers, essay questions on
exams, and laboratory reports can be a time-consuming task
that may seem to yield few rewards. Delineating your goals
for the assignment and articulating the characteristics of
a good piece of work can make the process less time consuming,
more efficient and consistent. Giving these guidelines to
students can help students produce better quality work and
prevent confusion or frustration about their grades after
the fact.
The evaluation
process can be expedited by taking two preliminary steps.
First, think about the purpose of the assignment in the broader
context of the class and your educational aims for your students
for that assignment, and then use your ideas to construct
a grading template or rubric. Examples of questions that might
guide you include:
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What
are the learning goals for your students for this assignment?
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What
qualities of a written assignment would demonstrate that
a student had met-or even exceeded-these learning goals?
Be as specific as possible about factors such as clearly
stating a hypothesis or thesis, organizing ideas clearly,
showing creativity or imagination, synthesizing ideas from
a number of sources, analyzing data, and so on.
-
Given
the number of learning goals that you would ideally like
students to achieve, which ones are of first importance?
Of secondary value? Clarifying the relative value of each
objective can help you allocate proportionate grade or point
assignments for a grading rubric.
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In
light of the objectives that you've identified for
your students, how would you briefly describe an "A"
piece of work on this topic? A "B" paper? A "C"
paper? Using this
description as you comment on student work makes your expectations
clearer for them, helps them improve future work, and makes
the process more efficient for you.
By first
organizing your thoughts about the assignment in general,
you can then more easily design a set of grading criteria
or a rubric. This template can help you grade consistently.
The exact model of the template will depend upon your discipline
and the type of assignment that you are grading, and can range
from the simple to the elaborate. When possible, providing
your students with your grading criteria prior to the assignment
can clarify your goals for their learning for them and guide
them in understanding the process of producing a quality piece
of work. Although these goals may seem transparent to instructors
who are experts in a field, interpretation of our expectations
is often very challenging for students. You may also wish
to provide exemplars of prior students' work that fit certain
criteria. Providing this extra guidance will help more students
achieve success in approaching their learning more as an expert
and less as a novice.
One example
of a simple list of grading criteria useful in evaluating
essays or term papers comes from Barbara Gross Davis's
Tools for Teaching (p. 223):
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Focus:
The problem chosen is focused enough to be covered adequately
in the allotted text.
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Organization:
The paper's structure is clear and easy to follow.
-
Development:
The paper introduces the topic sufficiently and presents
pertinent information to convince the reader of the author's
claim, summarizes findings, and reaches an appropriate conclusion.
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Sentence
structure: Sentences are well formed, suitably varied,
and used for different effects.
-
Mechanics:
The paper is generally free of spelling, typographical,
and grammatical errors.
You can
expand each aspect of these criteria to be as specific as
you desire about the requirements of a particular assignment.
If you
are grading laboratory reports the list above
can be adapted to reflect the content and style required for
each part of the report. For example:
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Purpose:
The hypothesis or goal of the experiment is clear with an
emphasis on the scientific principle involved.
-
Introduction:
The introduction includes sufficient background of the experimental
rationale and explains the appropriateness of techniques.
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Methods:
The description of the procedure is clear and includes appropriate
references so that others can reproduce the work.
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Data:
The format of the experimental data is easy-to-follow and
appropriate, e.g., tables and graphs, with correct units
and explanatory headings and legends.
-
Results
and Conclusions: The results and conclusions drawn
follow logically from the data collected with an appropriate
and supported discussion of alternate explanations and error
analysis.
-
Mechanics:
The report is generally free of spelling, typographical,
syntactical and
grammatical errors, and follows conventional usage styles.
In providing
written feedback on students' work, both over-commenting and
under-commenting are counterproductive. Marking every error
is not only time-consuming, but it also may not be that helpful
for students, especially if you do not plan for them to revise
the assignment for resubmission. They may find it difficult
to distinguish between minor mistakes in grammar and major
flaws in reasoning, and may be generally demoralized. On the
other hand, students need a clear idea of areas requiring
improvement. One tactic is to compose a paragraph about each
student's work that addresses areas of strength and weakness
based on the grading criteria. These remarks may be structured
much as a professional reviewer's comments on a manuscript.
By typing these comments in a word processing file, you can
save them as part of your record of students' work and use
them to follow their progress.
References
and Resources:
Davis,
B.G. Tools for Teaching. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass,
1993
Walvood, B.E. and V.J. Anderson. Effective
Grading: A Tool for Learning and Assessment. San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass, 1998
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