{"id":735,"date":"2018-10-20T08:54:00","date_gmt":"2018-10-20T08:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/learnhub.aucegypt.edu\/cltnewsletter\/?p=735"},"modified":"2023-11-14T10:03:58","modified_gmt":"2023-11-14T10:03:58","slug":"how-to-escape-grading-jail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/learnhub.aucegypt.edu\/cltnewsletter\/?p=735","title":{"rendered":"How to Escape Grading Jail"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This article was first published in The Chronicle of Higher Education<\/a> and is republished with permission of the author and The Chronicle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the first 18 years of my academic career, I ran into the same problem every semester. It happened at about the 13-week mark: I would share a tearful farewell with my family and begin serving my sentence in Grading Jail. In that moment, I would look back on a career of repeat offenses against efficient and timely grading of student work, and see clearly that I had no one to blame but myself. I was a hopeless recidivist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or so it seemed. Remarkably, the hard time I served was enough to rehabilitate me, and turn me into a productive member of grading society. And now \u2014 since we\u2019re at that point of the semester \u2014 I\u2019m ready to share what I\u2019ve learned in hopes of saving others from the academic clink.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But first (and before I beat the jail metaphor any further into the ground), I ought to disclose that my own relationship with grades is an ambivalent one. I think too much emphasis is put on grades by both students and institutions, I don\u2019t think a single grade is representative of a student\u2019s academic ability, and I firmly reject the idea that grades reflect intelligence or potential. That said, I also realize the need to assess student work in a consistent and understandable manner. In a perfect educational world, there would be individualized assessments \u2014 formative and summative \u2014 and in-depth conferences in which professors and students could share and discuss these narratives. In our imperfect world, grades are still a feature of the academic landscape, and we owe it to students to fairly use the tools we have, no matter how flawed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prompt feedback may be a “best practice,<\/a>” but too often in the semester, we honor that injunction primarily in the breach. Thus, in a paroxysm of equal parts guilt and panic, we lock ourselves in Grading Jail \u2014 hard labor with no parole until we\u2019ve atoned for our (procrastination) sins. The all-night grading binge is problematic, though. Are we really giving effective and thoughtful feedback to students at 3 a.m., after we\u2019ve read 25 (or more) of their classmates\u2019 essays? Are the standards applied to the final paper the same as the ones used to evaluate the first, so many hours and cups of coffee ago?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here, then, are the three strategies I\u2019ve found most helpful in the continuing quest to better manage my grading workflow and stay out of trouble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Pre-semester calendaring. Technically, this isn\u2019t a strategy you could plug-and-play in the middle of the term to ease your grading workload. But for me, once it became a habit, it has been invaluable.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    Before classes start, as I\u2019m drafting my syllabi, I print out calendars for every month of the term and lay them out on my desk. Using different colored markers for each section\/course, I plot out the due dates for every assignment I will give throughout the semester. A cluster of different colors in a three-day span is a quick visual cue that I ought to reconsider some due dates. Is there a distinct pedagogical need to collect a stack of exam books from one course, and a pile of essays from another the next day? Or can I space out those due dates differently? I know this sounds head-slappingly simple, but how many of us really do this sort of careful planning and comparison in advance? Judging from the litany of “I have to grade four sections of papers” lamentations on my Twitter feed, it\u2019s a strategy that more of us should consider. Sometimes the simple steps pay off exponentially in the long run.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    1. Rubrics \u2014 done well \u2014 are your friend. I was a rubric skeptic early in my career, but with education and experience, I\u2019ve become a big fan of them for much of my grading. The initial impetus for me to consider rubrics was the realization that I was using essentially the same set of comments for much of my feedback across classes and assignments. How many times do I want to write “use a specific example here” or “awkward phrasing \u2014 please rework?”<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

      My initial solution was to have a Word document with the phrases I used most often open while I graded, and then cut-and-paste the appropriate comment as needed. I ran into two problems with that strategy, though: First, I had to be grading student work electronically to use it, and second, it became patently absurd. If I was writing the same comments over and over, maybe I needed to revisit just how clear my criteria were to my students. As I wrote out explicitly my criteria for evaluating student work, I also realized that I often didn\u2019t apply them evenly. I mean, it\u2019s easy to be seduced by a beautifully written essay, even if it says little of substance \u2014 and especially if it comes on the heels of four stinkers in a row. Was I being as fair as I could be? And how would I know if I was? That was where rubrics came in for me, after I did some research<\/a> and consulted with colleagues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Constructing a rubric involves a significant investment of time on the front end, but once designed, using it to assess student work cuts my grading time by more than half. I\u2019m not writing the same basic comments over and over, because they\u2019re on my rubric, and I can circle or highlight them there. I use the time I\u2019ve saved to concentrate on more meaningful individual feedback. Most important, having specific criteria and clearly defined benchmarks gives me the assurance that I\u2019m being as consistent as possible in my grading. Indeed, my assignment design has improved as a result of forcing myself to define specific learning outcomes, and how I plan to assess them. An additional advantage: If students have the rubric in front of them as they work, ambiguity and guesswork (as well as the anxiety those can produce) are eliminated from the process. That\u2019s no small thing when it comes to a high-stakes assignment like a final research paper, for example. (Of course hastily written or vague rubrics don\u2019t provide any of those benefits, and indeed may exacerbate the very problems they were intended to solve.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      A caveat: Advance distribution of a rubric shouldn\u2019t be your only conversation with students about your expectations. A good, detailed rubric promotes transparent criteria, consistently applied. As the only reference point, though, it becomes easy for students to “write to the rubric,” creating homogeneity and blandness rather than giving them the freedom to achieve learning outcomes in a creative and genuine way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n