Grading and Providing Feedback

Most of the CCI TAs use Canvas to grade. Canvas shows the student’s name during grading. Also, the speed-grader in canvas always starts with the same student and will show the student in the same order. These situations may create bias during the grading process.

Some tips for grading blindly (for canvas):

• To avoid looking at the names, a small sticky note can be placed on the monitor to cover the student's names.

• Randomly looking at the submissions of several students before starting to grade will give TAs a general understanding of how students responded. This helps with grading consistently and also reduces orderly biases.

Grading by segments

It is a good practice to grade segment by segment for assignments with many segments or questions. It will help ensure objectivity. TAs can also go through a couple of responses before starting to grade, which will give an idea of the students’ performance range. Otherwise, earlier responses may get harsher grading than the later responses [1].

Keeping track of error

During grading, TAs can keep track of similar types of errors and make notes. It helps to be consistent and provide feedback easily. See section 4.3 for detailed error tracking. [3]

Communication between TAs and Instructors

The TAs and the instructors must communicate with each other and among themselves. This is a key element of keeping consistency while grading. If any confusion arises while grading, TAs should communicate with the instructors because each point means a lot to the students.

In any course in CCI, there will be students of many backgrounds, ethnicity, and capabilities. while grading, TAs have to judge everyone with equity. To be fair and strong as well as understanding and supportive, TAs should follow the grading ethics. Also, make sure to communicate with the instructor about any and every concern TAs might have.

Grading Ethics

• During self-assessment, TAs should inform the instructor about the technical language they think students, especially international students, will have difficulty understanding.

• During grading, inform the instructor about students who are struggling repetitively. International students might struggle with their English writing while expressing the concept correctly.

• When TAs are providing feedback, they should be professional. Cultural phases might confuse many non-English languages speaking students.

• Having a strong policy and sticking to it will help the TAs towards being fair to everyone. TAs should share the policy with the student.

• A detailed rubric also helps towards grading properly and giving the reason for grading.

• Feedback should be concise and quality.

• Focus on guiding students so that they can improve in future work

• Feedback should show both strengths and weaknesses of the assignment/quiz.

• Students should be able to connect the feedback with assignment goals (rubric).

• Start by addressing the student

  • ex.: Hi Matt

• Provide positive feedback, specifically telling the students what they should keep doing for future assessments

  • ex.: Good work on the video prototype. I loved the way you delivered the background story.

• Suggest areas for improvement, with at least one concrete strategy to try. Make sure that it is manageable.

  • ex.: Next time, try using different color markers to highlight buttons and different interactive elements in your prototype

• Direct constructive comments to the writer addressing both the good and bad parts of the assignment.

  • ex.: Your walk-through of the application looks good, but you need to add more interactive elements like checkbox, radio button, or drag-drop functionalities.

As the TAs provided feedback, students will also have questions about the grading and submission. TAs can discuss student's concerns during office hours or at the end of the class hour. These discussions can sometimes go out of hand and TAs can always ask the instructors to help in any situation. See the Difficult Situations section for more information about difficult situations and academic integrity violations.