Grading and Feedback

There Is Still a Place for Oral Exams in Education

While written assessments are the most common tool for measuring learning today, the earliest form of assessment was oral. The Socratic dialectic used by the ancient Greeks, and still used today in Oxford’s tutorial system, combined learning and assessments through a conversation with the student.

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When Grading Is “Pointless”: A Case for Comments-Only Feedback

As educators who focus on facilitating meaningful learning and genuine reflection, we are painfully familiar with the questions students often ask that demonstrate anything but:

  • “How many points is this assignment worth?”
  • “Do you offer any extra credit?”
  • “Can you round up my grade?”
  • “What do I need
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    Peer Feedback: Creating a Culture of Connection

    Feedback on performance is one of the most important factors to learning (Cavalcanti et al., 2021). But feedback need not come only from instructors. Students can learn from getting feedback from other students. It not only improves their work but also teaches them to

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    Writing versus Thinking Skills: A False Dichotomy

    When I first began teaching philosophy, I had a standard comment on assignments for students whose writing was unclear:

    While you understand the content, you are having trouble getting down on paper what you know. Note the areas that I marked as unclear

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    The Instructional Value of Formative Assessment and Feedback

    Formative writing assessments, like writing-to-learn activities, provide instructors with valuable and ongoing insights into student learning. Often ungraded, these activities or assessments can create opportunities for instructors to generate formative feedback that helps students see where they are in the course, what they are

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    Formative Assessments for Online Learning

    There are three types of assessments. A diagnostic assessment comes before learning, is ungraded, and measures prior knowledge of the upcoming learning material. It can be used to determine what needs to be taught. A summative assessment comes at the end of learning, is

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    Integrated Testlets for Building Knowledge

    Those in higher education have long used assessments to measure learning, whether for a grade, to determine prior knowledge, or to see how well students are following a current lesson. But assessments can also serve as learning devices. One way to put assessment in

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