We’ve all faced it: the daunting stack of student work, each submission representing hours of potential grading. The familiar weight of this task can feel overwhelming, leaving us searching for more effective ways to provide meaningful feedback that truly fuels student learning. While the desire
About a year ago, I decided to combine the ideas of a syllabus activity and a get-to-know-students activity. Using Microsoft Forms, I created an introductory exercise to share with students a week before the first day of classes. This optional activity included short videos related
The use of AI in higher education is growing, but many faculty members are still looking for ways to integrate it into their instruction. Here are three strategies we’ve used to incorporate AI—in grading, student artwork development, and online discussions—that can benefit both faculty and
Over 40 years of teaching, I’ve been to enough departmental grading norming sessions and scoring workshops to notice that not even English teachers agree on exactly what the term grammar means. For example, some of my colleagues get really bent out of shape when a
As educators, we’re all deeply invested in our students’ learning journeys. We’ve likely all experienced the challenges of assessing performance in ways that genuinely reflect what students know and can do. For many of us, traditional grading systems, with their reliance on letter grades, have
A common faculty complaint is that students do not read their feedback. This is usually chalked up to laziness or disinterest in learning. But neither explanation has ever rung true with me. Everyone likes, and wants, to learn, and in my experience, nearly all students
A true story: by the time I’d reached the ninth grade, I had a well-earned reputation as a jerk, albeit one with good grades. I was a jerk to my friends, a jerk to my teachers, a jerk in class, a jerk in the cafeteria.
Grading student papers may be the college instructor’s least pleasant duty. Most of us carefully mark each page, noting problems, questioning assumptions, and offering additional information, many times on the final version of the essay when it is too late to make improvements. I have
When we return work to our students, we hope that they will study our feedback carefully and strive to improve their writing on the next assignment. Indeed, there are times when faculty may observe a student receiving a paper, looking for the grade, and then
“Response shows a complete lack of understanding.”
“Piece had no style or voice.”
“Position is incoherent.”
“Thesis is utterly incompetent.”
“Weak.”
“Ineffective.”
“Unsatisfactory.”
This is some of the discouraging feedback that we found in an interdisciplinary, cross-institutional survey of
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