I need to go for now, but would love to have the opportunity to respond to your question in the future.
Kind Regards
I strongly believe given feedback on exams does alway work and reduce stress for the students and letting them know their status.
To make it complete and comprehensive and negate any issues of grades being subjective.
The biggest challenge to setting up an evaluation system is making sure you cover the pertinent points of the course and weighting them appropriately. I find subjective assignments the most difficult to be consistant on. I believe the instructors grading can be highly affected by something as simple as what kind of a mood they were in when they were grading them. What I finally did was create a rubrick the assigns points to various aspects such as puntuation and grammar, thesis statement, development, closing, bibliography, etc. That simple thing took a lot of the guess work out for me.
Setting up the ideal grading system is a little like the Golidlocks and the 3 bears story. It is a balancing act of having just the right combination of homework, quizzes, tests and participation. Too little and the students aren't challenged enough. Too much and they feel overwhelmed. Having just the right balance is not an easy task, but when you find it, the students feel challenged and stimulated to perform at a high level.
either placing too many or not enough points to a task
Hi Michael:
You're right - whenever you can involve and/or engage the the students, the more likely they're going to remember the information.
I don't think we can always avoid the written format however. I think it would to the students disadvantage if they completed a whole class and never had a written-format quiz, test, or assessment. As technology advances, with increasing frequency, instruction will be delivered to some degree by a computer. And naturally, assessments will be in an electronic "written" format.
So preparing the student with more than just the topic content and having them be practiced at taking written assessments is probably a more comprehensive approach.
Regards, Barry
I think because of people differences we have to be careful of written test,because some people just don' like written test and don't do well because of it.They will excelll at hands on but not written ,and then I have found many people who excell at written and have a real problem with their hands on.
Perfect grading is really top. So many thing is involved.Merit, classwork, homework, term proje ct, activity, behavior, attendance and so so.
Hi Karen:
Good comment. Hopefully, anything a student is tested on is somehow related and tied back to student learning outcomes(SLO). Good SLO's define what is is that a student will know or be able to do at course completion. Therefore, all testing should relate back to these SLO's.
Regards, Barry
For me the challenge is not setting up a grading system (because it is already established), but the challenge is to constantly reinterate with my students how the grade system and their classwork relate to their future performance in their chosen industry. I am constantly explaining and demonstrating to my students how what we do in a lab class or learn in a lecture class has been applied in "real World" industry situations. I feel that this brings Value to their educational experience
I would agree with you. To me it is paramount to be fair and consistent. If Paul is your favorite student and Mary is making your class difficult, they should still be evaluated on the same basis.
Hi Leslie:
Interrater reliability is a technical term that defines the action of different individuals rating (or grading) an assignment. If there is high reliabilty, that would suggest there is a good chance that mutltiple graders would arrive at the same score.
There are two components in play: one is the grading system and the other is the instructors that use the system. One or both could contribute to evaluating or assessing individual student performance inconsistently.
I try to teach to the predefined student learning objectives, then measure how successful the student was in achieving those objectives. But I'll admit, there are many factors, several of which you've identified.
Regards, Barry
For our institution the hardest thing is symmetry between like classes and campuses. Shift and miles can separate individuals’ grading techniques. Continual communication must take place.
Anthony:
You've listed a lot of good factors that bear considering.
Student learning outcomes (SLO's) define what a student should learn, know, perform, assess, etc. at the end of a course. I believe that if we teach to the SLO's, then assessing if they have achieved those goals makes grading a bit easier a task.
How we go about setting up those assessments still needs to be fair to all students and consistently applied in the same fashion. A key is to assure that the students know what the expectations for grading are at the outset. This helps minimize disputes when the grading process is finalized and posted.
Regards, Barry
I have found that the biggest challenges are:
- grading too harshly given the range of previous abilities in a given class;
-to properly evaluate 'understanding' versus test-taking ability (trying to find the answer in the wording of the question, etc.), and
-weighting all the quizzes, tests, projects, and other assignments fairly throughout the course so that expected aptitude at certain points of the curriculum is reflected in the big picture. Projects seem more difficult at the start of the program due to novelty - and scores will reflect that, but the weighting should be less than later projects so that the developing student won't be burdened that early weight throughout their school career.
Ivette:
Good ideas.
I've found that what I may think is extremely fair is viewed as difficult or unreasonable by some students sometimes. When I keep everything related back to learning objectives there can be little debate whether something is fair or not.
Regards, Barry
Hello Franklin:
Extra credit can be a double edged sword.
Students who've earned the credit are bound to feel undermined if too much is given. I know I feel bad when my coworkers get recognized for doing less work. I think extra credit should be used cautiously.
Regards, Barry
The biggest challenge in developing an evaluation system is being certain that it is a fair grading system. That sufficient points are given in the correct areas of the evaluation.
Therefore, keeping the motivation factor alive within the students.
having some sort of extra credit for the ones who need it, while not giving the ones who don't need it a sense of unfairness.
