|
|
|
But after several quarters,
I began to reconsider my stance. Several things led to this. As I was
preparing for my 3rd year review, I looked in depth at my class
evaluations. And “Grading criteria clearly defined” was consistently rated
lower than any other aspect of my teaching. Now, if this had been the only
reason, I probably wouldn’t have bothered to add grading criteria. My
attitude was still “short of writing their papers for them, they’re always
going to complain about this.”
|
|
|
|
But several other factors
contributed to my change of heart. The first was that I was giving a lot of
As and high Bs for papers and work that I didn’t feel in my heart was A or B
work. Yet, when I looked at how they matched up to what I gave on the syllabus
and what I said my learning outcomes were, they seemed to be meeting all
these criteria. I had a sneaking suspicion that I was contributing to grade
inflation, and I didn’t know what to do about it.
|
|
|
|
The event that pushed me
over the edge was when a very conscientious student came to me after
receiving a B on her paper and said “Why is this a B paper?” Now, I’d been
using a grading rubric to help me grade, and I could point to the fact that
most of the content points on her paper were evaluated “good” and not
“excellent”. But she, being a bright student, pushed me further. “Why were
they rated good?” And I couldn’t answer her.
|
|
|
|
Upon reflection, I realized
that the difference between an A and a B paper was how the students
integrated theory into their papers. Her paper made scant mention of
theory. It did incorporate outside literature, but there was no discussion of
theory.
|
|
|
|
This then was my “Aha!”
moment. I realized that developing explicit grading criteria might help me
address all of these issues.
|
