Making the Grade on Marking and Feedback

1
Making the Grade on Marking and Feedback

• How to mark and give feedback without overloading
  ourselves or our students.
• Nicola SimmonsSenior Instructional Developer,
  ConsultingUniversity of Waterloo

2
Marking

• What do you think are
• the main concerns about
• marking expressed by faculty?
• What do you think are the main concerns about
  marking expressed by students?

3
Faculty-defined problems

• Work volume (no time for comments)
• Subjective feedback on creative work how to
  assign a mark
• Giving feedback on grammar without turning the
  paper red
• Student missed the point on the assignment

4
Student-defined problems

• Not enough feedback to improve
• No explanation given of grade assigned
• Almost no comments made on high-level grades
  want to know what to keep doing well
• No marking scheme given in advance of actual
  marking

5
Did you hear about the professor who was
involved in a terrible car wreck?

• He was grading
• papers
• on a curve!

6
Making the Grade

• Setting clear criteria
• Combining speed and accuracy
• What are our Best practices?

7
Setting a Marking Scheme

• Define the purpose of the assignment.
• Measure learning objective
• What do I want this (perfect) assignment to look
  like?
• Marking scheme
• When should the student
• get the scheme?

8
Chocolate Chip Cookie RecipeAdapted from Joy of
Cooking

• Preheat oven to 375F.
• Cream ½ cup butter.
• Add gradually and beat until creamy
• ½ cup white sugar
• ½ cup brown sugar
• Beat in 1 egg
• ½ tsp vanilla
• Sift and stir in
• 1 cup and 2 tbsp sifted all-purpose flour
• ½ tsp salt
• ½ tsp soda
• Stir in ½ cup nuts (optional)
• ½ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
• Drop onto cookie sheet. Bake for about 10 minutes.

9
Marking Schemes

• What makes a good one?
• What particulars should be on the sheet? (how
  detailed should they be?)
• What are some pros and cons of rubrics?

10
Faculty Advice

• Write only as much as students will read
• Preview the set as a whole before marking.
• Dont flag every error show only the first few,
  and make a comment re proof-reading.
• Use a computer for comments.
• Save good examples to use (with permission) for
  future years.
• Refer students to specialist services e.g.,
  writing tutors.

11
Combining Speed and Accuracy

• What helps?

12
Use of Computers in Marking

• Feedback that is typed provides
• Ease of revision
• A record of your comments
• More information, less repetition. e.g., A brief
  explanation can be written for a common error,
  and it can be copied onto comment sheets rather
  than re-written each time.
• Opportunity to track student improvement and
  refer to it.

13
Multiple Assessments

• Frequent assessments provide multiple
  opportunities for success, and multiple
  opportunities to learn from mistakes for both
  the student and the professor.
• Do you agree?

14
Student Input

• Self/Peer Assessment
• Have you tried it? How did it work?
• How much input should students have into the
  marking scheme?
• How much input should TAs have?!?

15
A story

• Regarding evaluation, consider this question on a
  physics exam at the University of Copenhagen
• Describe how to determine the height of a
  skyscraper using a barometer.