{"id":13481,"date":"2013-04-19t08:00:22","date_gmt":"2013-04-19t13:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"\/\/www.imrbdigital.com\/?p=13481"},"modified":"2013-04-19t08:40:47","modified_gmt":"2013-04-19t13:40:47","slug":"professor-pedagogy-grading-efficiently","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/\/www.imrbdigital.com\/2013\/04\/professor-pedagogy-grading-efficiently\/","title":{"rendered":"ask professor pedagogy: grading efficiently"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
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ask professor pedagogy<\/strong> is a twice monthly advice column written by 2022年世界杯中国小组赛积分 staff. one aspect of our mission is to cultivate dialogue about teaching and learning, so we welcome questions and concerns that arise in the classroom; particularly those from vanderbilt faculty, students, and staff. if you have a question that you’d like professor p to address, please send it to us<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

dear professor p.,<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

i\u2019m currently serving as a teaching assistant for a large course where i\u2019m responsible for grading lots of different kinds of assignments:\u00a0 quizzes, exams, homework, and essays. my fellow tas and i are feeling overwhelmed about how much time this grading is going to take. after all, we\u2019re graduate students with our own research and coursework to complete, not to mention personal and family responsibilities. how can we make grading as efficient as possible, so that we have enough time to meet all of our other obligations?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

grappling with grading<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n


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dear grappling with grading,<\/p>\n

first of all, you and your colleagues are right:\u00a0 grading well is time-consuming and challenging. that being said, there are lots of things you and your fellow tas can do to make grading more efficient.<\/p>\n

strategy #1:\u00a0 make your grading criteria and expectations clear to students.<\/strong><\/p>\n

now, i know what you\u2019re thinking:\u00a0\u00a0\u201cbut professor p, i\u2019m just a ta for this course! i don\u2019t write the syllabus or decide what criteria to use for grading assignments!\u201d<\/em> it\u2019s true that most tas aren\u2019t in a position to decide these aspects of the courses they help to teach. chances are, though, that somewhere in the syllabus, your professor has outlined the general expectations for written work, and maybe even provided specific criteria for individual assignments. if your professor has not done this, consider talking with him or her about it. see if he or she would be willing to develop some grading criteria to share with the students, or at the very least, with the tas. making sure that all the graders are \u201con the same page\u201d about what they are looking for in assignments will help to provide consistency and fairness in the grading process.<\/p>\n

at first glance, this strategy may not seem like it will make grading more efficient for you. however, if your students have a good grasp of what\u2019s expected on assignments, they\u2019re likely to turn in better work, which makes grading easier and less time-consuming. furthermore, you\u2019re less likely to have to spend time during class or in office hours explaining the assignments, because students will already know what you\u2019re looking for.<\/p>\n

strategy #2:\u00a0 use a rubric<\/strong><\/p>\n

a\u00a0rubric<\/strong> is simply a way of breaking an assignment down into specific components that you want to assess, and then deciding how you will measure students\u2019 performance on those components. (if you\u2019re unfamiliar with rubrics, take a look at\u00a0this website<\/a> \u2013 it features many different examples of all kinds of assignments in various fields.) now, if you\u2019re lucky, your professor may have already developed some grading rubrics that you can simply adopt for use in your own grading.<\/p>\n

if, however, your professor doesn\u2019t use rubrics, you may want to consider designing some of your own that you and your fellow tas could use for the major assignments in the course. i can already hear your objections:\u00a0 <\/em>\u201cbut, professor p, we want tips that will <\/em>save<\/em><\/strong> <\/em><\/strong>us time! this rubric stuff sounds like it will <\/em>take a lot<\/em><\/strong> <\/em>of time to create!\u201d<\/em>it\u2019s true that creating a rubric the first time around is tough, and can be time-consuming. still, i\u2019m suggesting it here because although they may take extra time on the front end, rubrics almost always make grading quicker and more efficient later on.<\/p>\n

using a rubric means you\u2019ve already thought through some of the most important aspects of the assignment before you start grading, which means you don\u2019t have to do it later in the process when you\u2019re more likely to be stressed and tired. however, because rubrics do require some work, you\u2019ll probably only want to use them on larger assignments like papers or presentations, and not on smaller assignments like quizzes or homework (i\u2019ll address those in strategy #3.)<\/p>\n

strategy #3:\u00a0 practice \u201clight grading\u201d for smaller assignments<\/strong><\/p>\n

although using rubrics can help you be more efficient and consistent in your grading, it\u2019s too time-consuming to develop a rubric for every single piece of work your students turn in. instead, consider using \u201clight grading\u201d (check plus\/check\/check minus; 0 points\/1 point, etc.) to assess smaller assignments like quizzes and homework. this way, you can still give feedback to students and check for their understanding without having to spend a lot of time grading.<\/p>\n

other ideas<\/strong><\/p>\n

here are some other strategies you might try to make your grading more efficient:<\/p>\n