This article first appeared in the Teaching Professor on March 11, 2019. © Magna Publications. All rights reserved. How many of us teachers have had this experience?
Imagine if faculty did not design courses, select course materials, or grade student work. What role would faculty play in teaching and learning? We serve
Before discussing grading, let me return to assignments and a key point. My students are frequently uncertain about how to write an introduction and a
Over the previous decade, researchers have made the case that engaging students in metacognition improves learning outcomes for students across fields (Zhao et al, 2014;
Having clear insight into students’ thinking and where there might be gaps in their understanding of a topic is incredibly valuable. It allows a skilled
A very short trip to a time long ago J. R. R. Tolkien’s famous 1937 fantasy book, The Hobbit, introduces among its heroes a fierce
A wise and dear colleague of mine, now retired, once said to me as we walked to class, “I teach for free; they pay me
A common rhetorical move we professors make when students object to a grade is to reframe the discussion. We’ll say, “Let’s be clear. I didn’t give you this grade. You earned it.” And if it were appropriate we might underscore our zinger with a smugly snapped Z. But stop and think about it. When we make the “you earned it” move, it’s simply an attempt to shift the debate away from the fairness or interpretation of our standard and onto students to justify their effort by our standard, which really wasn’t their complaint.
Faculty dread the grade appeal; anxiety prevails until the whole process is complete. Much has been written about how to avoid such instances, but the potentially subjective assessments of written essays or clinical skills can be especially troublesome. One common cause of grade appeals is grading ambiguity in which the student and faculty member disagree on the interpretation of required content. Another cause is inequity, whereby the student feels others may have gotten more credit for very similar work or content (Hummel 2010). In the health-care field especially, these disagreements over clinical-skills assessments can actually result in student dismissal from the program and may lead to lawsuits.
If your quiz strategies are becoming stale, this free report is loaded with fresh ideas that will help you better understand why you are using quizzes, what you hope they will accomplish, and how they can best be used to facilitate student learning.