Instructions to Graders
In the interest of complete transparency, I have made the grading instructions available to everyone. I hope this information about the behind-the-scenes workings will help to provide a clear understanding of our assessment process.
1 Grading Guidelines
1.1 Essentials
Grading is necessary & important: Grading/assessing is a nuanced and crucial skill. It is essential in academia and in a broad decision-making context. It demands fairness, consistency, and a keen eye for detail. As instructors/mentors/teaching assistants, your role in assessing student work is instrumental in ensuring a fair and constructive learning environment.
Rubrics: Each assessment component of 73 is accompanied by detailed rubrics. These rubrics identify key criteria that reflect the skills and knowledge I aim for students to acquire, develop, and nurture throughout the course. These rubrics further delineate each criterion into five categories: Needs Improvement, Satisfactory, Good, Accomplished, and Distinguished. These categories serve as a scale to measure varying levels of student mastery and understanding, providing a clear and structured framework for evaluation.
Multiple Graders: Even with rubrics, it is typical to have some variation between grading different graders. To mitigate discrepancies and bias of single-person evaluation, all assessment components of 73 will be graded by at least two graders.
Confidentiality & Professionalism: The University considers grades and all matters related to grading very seriously. You need to demonstrate high professionalism in exercising your privilege as a grader. Always treat all student work and grades with the utmost confidentiality.
Consultation: If you are uncertain about a grade or find a criterion ambiguous, do not hesitate to consult me for clarification.
1.2 Key Principles
When grading, please keep these principles in mind:
- Adherence to Criteria: Strictly follow the rubric to ensure fairness and uniformity in all assessments.
- Consistency: Ensure your grading is consistent across all students, guaranteeing equal evaluation for everyone.
- Benefit of the Doubt: There are so many challenges in our students’ lives that we are not aware of. So, when uncertain, please give them the benefit of the doubt and lean towards a nurturing and generous grading policy.
1.3 Recommended Grading Procedure
- Step 1: Categorization
- Start by reviewing the student’s work against each criterion in the rubric.
- Determine which category best represents the student’s performance for each criterion.
- Step 2: Justification
- Provide a clear and concise rationale for why the student did not qualify for the next higher category.
- This step is essential as it makes the grading transparent and justifies your grade.
- Remember that constructive feedback is as important as the grade itself. It aids in the student’s learning process. Aim to provide specific, actionable feedback wherever possible.
- Step 3: Scoring
- Once you have categorized the student’s performance, assign a numeric score within the chosen category based on the following:
Grading Scale | Numeric Range | Granularity |
---|---|---|
Needs Improvement | 1 - 2 | 0.5 |
Satisfactory | 3 - 4 | 0.5 |
Good | 5 - 6 | 0.5 |
Accomplished | 7 - 8 | 0.5 |
Distinguished | 9 - 10 | 0.5 |