Grading assigns value to student work, while feedback provides students information about where they excelled and where they can improve. Not every assignment needs a letter grade; however, every assignment should yield feedback. It may sound counterintuitive at the start of your teaching career, but the more feedback that students get (through several low-stakes assessments), the less time you will spend grading the big assignments.

Giving Feedback to Students

Formative Assessments

For in-class assignments, having a simple +/- or check system can convey to students whether they demonstrated learning or should practice further. For written assignments, including rough drafts and online discussion boards, consider adapting something like the EMRN Rubric, which helps you sort student work into one of four categories:

E = Excellent

M = Meets expectations

R = Revision needed

N = Not assessable

Summative Assessments

We will discuss different types of rubrics below, but in general, useful feedback balances praise and criticism. For larger, high-stakes projects and research papers, the standard is the sandwich method or the “feedback cheeseburger.”

Cognitive Wrappers

Depending on your discipline or even personal style for delivering positives and negatives, you might also explore one of these four alternatives to the sandwich method.

Self-reflection is another important source of feedback for students. Consider implementing an exam wrapper (a short survey that students complete after an assignment or exam that focuses on the learning process rather than on the content itself).

The wrapper is handed out to students when an exam or assignment is returned.

• Students are asked to fill out the form in 10 minutes or less during class, or outside of class if necessary.
• Students are not graded based on the wrapper's content but receive credit for completing the form.
• The instructor collects the forms and reads through them, looking for general themes.

The instructor returns the forms to the students.

• The instructor may discuss recommended study strategies or have the students compare their strategies in small groups.

Jose Antonio Bowen refers to them as “cognitive wrappers” to emphasize their use for other assignments besides exams as well as to reinforce their metacognitive purpose.

Getting Feedback from Students

Rather than waiting until the end of the term to realize there were some changes that could have been made, try a Midsemester Feedback Survey (MFS)! An MFS is a low-stakes way of obtaining feedback from your students at a point in the semester when you can still make adjustments that benefit your current students.

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MFS Instructor Benefits

How does an MFS benefit the instructor? They

• Show that you value students’ feedback and are interested in improving your teaching.
• Enable you to get targeted feedback on a new teaching strategy or a course you’re teaching for the first time.
• Can help avoid surprises in end-of-semester evaluations and can even boost those evaluations.

MFS Student Benefits

How does an MFS benefit the student? It gives them a chance to

• Reflect on their learning
• Practice giving thoughtful, constructive feedback.

MFS Feedback Survey Examples

Examples

Questions are often general, asking what is and is not working so far, like in this sample set:

1. What, if anything, do you wish we could do more of in this course?
2. What, if anything, do you wish we would do less of in this course?
3. What has been most useful thus far in the course?
4. What has been least useful thus far in the course?
5. How would you rate the workload of this course. (high = 5, low=1)

The most often used MFS has just three questions:

• What aspects of the course have been especially good in terms of your learning?
• What changes could I make that would help you learn better?
• What could YOU do to improve your own learning?

If, in week one, you had given a goal-setting exercise for the course, an MFS is the perfect time to check in with questions like:

• How have you worked toward your learning goals this semester?
• Where have you succeeded? Where do you still need to improve?
• What components of the class are going well? Which are not going as well as you would like?

Pro tips!

• Don’t ask if you don’t want to know.
• Keep them anonymous.
• It is ideal to administer the MFS during a class session to ensure a high response rate.
• [In the future] share examples with students from previous semesters.
• Close the loop!
  • Thank students for their feedback.
  • Mention both the positive and the negative feedback.
  • Discuss the changes you are willing to make to enhance student learning.

Making Grading More Efficient: Rubrics 101

A rubric is a tool for evaluating all types of student work. Often presented as a chart or checklist, it specifies the qualities or traits to be assessed in an assignment and distinguishes amongst excellent, average, and below-average performance for each trait.

Why Use Rubrics?

For instructors and students, using a rubric to grade an assignment has many advantages. A rubric can:

• Provide feedback to students on strengths and weaknesses on specific elements of an assignment
• Make grading faster and more straightforward (although they require time to create)
• Ensure that the instructor use the same standards for all students’ work
• Serve as a training resource when multiple graders evaluate an assignment (a.k.a. “norming”)

What are key elements of a rubric?

Criteria

The qualities or aspects of student work to be evaluated.

Performance levels

1. Exceeds Expectations
2. Meets Expectations
3. Approaching Expectations
4. Below Expectations

Descriptors

Brief descriptions of student work on a particular trait at a specific performance level

Descriptors (Example)

 

Types of Rubrics

There are many kinds of rubrics, but we will focus on the four most common: analytic, holistic, checklist, and single-point. To elucidate the differences, we need a sample (fun) assignment. 

Fun Prompt: Demonstrate your cooking prowess by preparing a grilled cheese sandwhich. You must select the appropriate ingredients and tools, prepare and cook it appropriately, flip the sandwich in the air halfway through, then cut it in half and present it on a plate. 

Which of the following rubrics should you use to help you grade? It depends on whether this is a formative or summative assessment and how much feedback you would like to give...

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Analytic Rubric

An analytic rubric resembles a grid with the criteria to be evaluated listed in the leftmost column and with performance levels listed across the top row. The cells within the center

of the rubric generally contain descriptions of what the specified criteria look like for each level of performance. When scoring with an analytic rubric each of the criteria is scored individually. When creating the rubric, the “3” column generally matches the prompt (as meeting expectations). The “4” column is often reserved for students who went above and beyond (or “exceeded expectations”

Analytic Rubric

 

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Holistic Rubric

A holistic rubric consists of a single scale with all criteria to be included in the evaluation being considered together. With a holistic rubric, the evaluator assigns a single score (usually on a 1 to 4 scale) based on an overall judgment of the student's work. While this makes for quick grading, it does not allow for variations.

Holistic rubrics are ideal for formative assessments like Canvas Discussion Boards or classroom activities

Holistic Rubric

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Checklist Rubric

Checklists are a distinct type of rubric with just two performance levels possible (yes/no, present/absent, pass/fail, etc.). The list of criteria mirrors the “3” or “meets expectations” level of an Analytic Rubric, but might be a little longer, since you would list every trait of student performance on the checklist.

Checklist rubrics are ideal for formative assessments but can be used for summative.

Checklist Rubric 

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Single-Point Rubric

A single-point rubric is a lot like an analytic rubric, because it breaks down the components of an assignment into different criteria. What makes it different is that it only describes the criteria for “3” or “meets expectations.” If the target was simply met, the instructor could just circle the phrase in the center column.

The single-point rubric is ideal for formative assessments, as it offers space for quick comments to give students a compass for improvement, noting how they fell short or how they excelled.

Single-Point Rubric