What I discovered by adding grading criteria
lI can more accurately identify what's 'missing' from papers or what's 'good'
lI uncovered several implicit criteria, e.g., discussing and comparing theories
lWe spent little or no classroom time discussing or comparing theories
lStudent work improved
By adding these grading criteria, I discovered several things – and not just that my evaluations for “Grading Criteria clearly defined” improved!

First, I can more accurately identify what’s missing from papers or what’s good. When a student asks “why is this a B paper?” I can explain.

Perhaps more importantly, however, I discovered several implicit criteria that I had been using to judge papers, without realizing it. I had been using students’ ability to incorporate theory into the paper to grade them. But nowhere had I stated that. It wasn’t a student learning outcome. It wasn’t mentioned in my syllabus. My students were right! I wasn’t clear in my grading criteria.

But even more damning, was my realization that the students who were incorporating theory, were doing so because they were naturally bright, NOT because of anything I was doing in the classroom. In fact, when I looked at my classroom activities, we weren’t spending any time at all on comparing and contrasting theories or discussing how theories relate to data.

Adding my grading criteria helped me to revise my student learning outcomes, revise what we were doing in the classroom to more accurately reflect my goals, and  therefore helped my students grasp the importance of theory. It was a fundamental shift in how I conceived of my courses.