Political Science Advanced GTA Training

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Political Science Advanced GTA Training

• Sue Doe
• Assistant Professor, English
• gtPathways Coordinator
• Sue.Doe_at_colostate.edu

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Grading For What MattersPurposes of Assignments

• What is the TASK being required by the
  assignmentto inform, to explore, to convince, to
  describe, to compare, to summarize, to persuade?
  Find the VERB or VERBS and youll know the task.
• Is this
• a thesis-provided paper for which students must
  defend of refute?
• a problem-solution paper in which students are
  given a problem or question that demands a thesis
  and support? Is
• a data-provided paper for which students are
  expected to analyze and explain?
• a genre-provided paper, in which students are
  expected to follow an organizational structure or
  format in an accepted form, such as a memo, case
  study, lab report, or executive summary?
• write-to-learn or write-to-engage writing for
  which students are expected to explore and/or
  develop their thinking rather than to produce a
  polished paper?
• an in-class essay, reflecting comprehension of
  course material?

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Holistic Scoring

• The Assignment POLS 101 American Government and
  Politics
• With Thanks to Professor Sandra Davis and Her
  Students Who Generously Shared Their Work With Us

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The Assignment POLS 101 American Government and
Politics

• Your assignment is to write an essay supporting
  or opposing the use of the Electoral College as a
  means of electing the president. Use only the
  materials listed here and posted on RamCT
  AMODD, ELAT, and LWV.
• Essay Components
• Introduction and Backgroundintroduce the issue,
  explain how the E.C. works to elect the
  president, discuss a variety of historic
  challenges to the E.C. and whether you think the
  process worked well or poorly in 2000.
• State whether the E.C. should be abolished or
  kept and provide 3-4 reasons why.
• Support each reason with at least one paragraph
  of evidence backing your view. Use sources and
  distinguish these from your own views.
• Provide a reference list.
• Paper should be 3-4 pages but no longer than 4
  pages. (Graders stop reading if paper is over 4
  pages.)
• Students are instructed in assignment sheet
  You should roughly cover 15-20 points per page.

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Reference Liststudents are instructed to NOT
USE quotations but to parenthetically cite if
paraphrasing

• AMODD
• Sidlow, E. and B. Henchen. (2008). America at
  odds. 6th Ed. Belmont, CA Wadsworth.
• ELAT
• FEC National Clearinghouse on Election
  Administration. (2003). The pros and cons of the
  Electoral College System. Retrieved March 25,
  2008 from http//uselectionatlas.com/INFORMATION/I
  NFOMRATION/electcollege.procon
• LWV
• League of Women Voters of California Education
  Fund, Choosing the President (1992). The
  Electoral College. Retrieved March 25, 2008, from
  http//www.hks.harvard.edu/case/3pt/electoral.html
  

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Additional Advice Given Students

• You are asked to make a persuasive argument in
  writing. You should try to convince a reader of
  your opinion. State you position on the proposed
  amendment, including the reasons for your
  opinion. This is often done in one or a few
  sentences that summarize the argument you will
  make in the rest of the essay.
• A thesis statement 1) tells the reader whether
  you oppose the proposed constitutional amendment
  2)is a road map for the paper it tells readers
  what arguments will follow 3) makes a claim that
  others might dispute

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Holistic Process

• In groups of three, do a read-around of the set
  of three papers you now have. Sort High, Medium,
  and Low.
• Before you begin reading the sample papers, read
  through the Holistic Scoring Rubric for a
  Thesis-Restricted Paper.

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Hierarchy of Rhetorical Concerns

• Audience, Purpose, Occasion
• Focus Thesis, Reasons, Unity/Coherence
• Development Reasons, Evidence, Explanation
• Style/Mechanics/Conventions Readability, Care
  and Polish, Patterns of Error

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Sort, Read, and Comment (or Stop, Drop, and Roll)

• You would apply the same strategy if you had a
  set of papers here. You would skim through the
  set of papers. While this sounds like a
  time-consuming extra step, it actually saves you
  time in the long run.
• Heres what you might do if you had that stack
• Sort into three stackshigh, medium, low
• If possible, stack within categories (High and
  High -) so that you have 6 stacks
• Read with hierarchy of concerns in mind
• Provide an end comment that is forward-looking
  and focused
• Substantiate end comment with a few marginal
  comments

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Analytic CriteriaUse a scoring tool to assist
with grading

• Consider Three Approaches
• standard rubric
• benchmark and anchor papers
• continuum approach

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Approach 1 Standard Rubric as Scoring Tool

• Component Parts
• Assignment itself
• Dimensions/priorities/criteria
• Scale with levels of achievement. Levels can be
  continuums or reflect categories such as
  proficient, competent, needs work. These
  need not be points.
• Specific commenting room/space

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Standard Rubric for Summary Response
AssignmentDimension Excellent
Competent Needs Work
Grade
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Steps for Creating Standard Rubrics or Scoring
Sheets

• List key elements/features to assess, based on
  course and assignment objectives
• Refine and simplify key elements, then consider
  their relative importance or weight
• Do a common sense check to see if weighting of
  criteria is meaningful. Avoid points. Percentages
  are better but keep them broad. Too much
  refinement can lead to grade-grubbing.
• Decide if youll give feedback on all criteria,
  on certain ones, or only in an end comment
• Make clear where the overall grade appears

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Approach 2 Benchmark and Anchor Papers

• Consider writing a paragraph that explains whats
  necessary for a C paper for this assignment. In
  other words, what MUST a paper accomplish to be
  deemed adequate?
• Then write a paragraph explaining how the B paper
  improves upon the C. (The B paper does
  everything the C paper does but goes further to)
  
• Then write a paragraph explaining how the A
  improves upon the B. (The A paper does everything
  the B paper does but goes further to )
• It can be useful to distribute or post this
  explanation
• Remember you are only assigning a grade
  students earn those grades. You do not GIVE
  grades. They do not GET grades. Consider using
  a 24-hour moratorium and a conference plan for
  grade protests.

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Approach 3 The Continuum Approach

• Once you have determined the most important
  aspects or criteria for grading, consider using a
  continuum to describe where the student is in
  their application of this criteria. This avoids
  the oft-times awkward approach of assigning
  points with criteria-based evaluation.
• Example (criteria 3) from the Washington State U
  Critical Thinking Guide
• Identifies and considers salient perspectives and
  positions important to the issues analysis
• Scant Substantial
• ?-----------------------------------------
  -----------------------?

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Grading Criteria Listed on the POLS 101
Assignment Sheet

• 1) Clarity of argument and organization
• 2) Quality of analysis. You need to make your
  position on the issue clear. Provide arguments
  that are supported by information (i.e.,
  evidence)
• 3) Quality of writing. Your ideas need to be
  clearly expressed. This includes proper
  spelling, grammar, expression of ideas, and
  citation of sources

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Critical Thinking Rubric

• Source Washington State University
• http//tilt.colostate.edu/summer/2008/pdfs/Washing
  ton20State20Critical20Thinking20Guide.pdf

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Managing Your Time Through a 3-Part End Comment

• Sum up the strengths of the paper
• Identify the main problems to be worked on
• Provide a specific suggestion for how to improve
  the paper, based on the main problem(s) already
  identified
• And Remember
• You cant respond to everything in a paper.
• There are real people on the receiving end.
• Comments are not principally for justifying a
  grade. Your are providing formative feedback
  students can use with the next paper, even if
  its not in this class.
• Consider using questions in your marginal
  comments.

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Peer Review of Comments

• Identify the major strength your partner noted in
  this paper. What locations did the GTA point out
  to substantiate this claim of strength?
• How accurate do you believe this evaluation is?
• Identify the guidance or advice your partner
  noted as a central concern in this paper. What
  locations did your partner identify to
  substantiate the claim of needs improvement
• How accurate do you believe this evaluation is?
• Identify the concrete suggestion for improvement
  that your partner noted. Would an undergraduate
  understand this advice and be able to follow it?
• How accurate do you believe this advice is?
• Characterize the tone/attitude of feedback your
  partner has provided. Could it be improved and if
  so, how?
• Are your partners comments forward-looking and
  formative in nature or do the comments seem
  defensive, as if justifying the grade?

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Reminder You Are Managing Your Time By Choosing
Your Battleshierarchy, hierarchy, hierarchy!

• Apply minimal marking technique
• Avoid becoming your students copy editor as that
  is NOT your job and error correction is not
  instructional. Remember you are part of the
  instructional team, not an editor.
• To instruct students on grammar issues, look for
  patterns of error or try to characterize error if
  you feel it is impeding the students message.
  Work with a Top 5 list of errors.
• Severe cases should represent lt2 of papers. For
  these, you will need additional support.
• Non native speaker/writer issues tenses, dropped
  articles, strings of sentences arranged the same
• Learning Disabilities misspellings even with
  spell check, omitted words, homonyms
• Carelessness Consider a return to sender
  policy on first occasion or the R grade. Must
  be approved by professor and not all will believe
  this is a good idea.

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Revision Processes and Strategies for GTA
Intervention

• Early, mid and late interventions
• Early
• Topic proposal (subject, topic, issue, question)
• Research question tentative thesis
• Seminal source description
• Mid
• Annotated bibliography (text partners) or source
  evaluation
• Summary and response to one source
• Quote and paraphrase sheet for one source
• Introduction review, especially if multiple
  sources. Use templates for entering
  conversation
• Prospectus in full sentences (one page)
• Late
• Full draft workshop on one paper
• Full draft peer review on all papers
• Conferencewriters talk about the draft they
  bring and revision plan

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Responding to WTL/WTE and Threaded Electronic
Discussions (aka Discussion Forums)

• If being used, you have basic decisions to
  make/discuss with prof about how to read and
  assess
• Will you skim every entry and give whole-class
  feedback?
• Will you read a random sample/scheduled group and
  give feedback to sample?
• Will you decide in advance how many times over
  semester you will read and respond to each
  student?
• Then generate accountability
• Select good examples to show as models
• Use a check mark system for recordingparticipatio
  n?
• Observe length of responses
• Provide prof with your observations to share with
  whole class
• Discourage texting shortcuts in posts and for
  in-class writing
• Expect and enforce a standard of courtesy and
  academic professionalism. Contact people on first
  evidence of discourteous shared writing. Be
  prepared for confessions of adolescent behavior