Evaluation and Assessment | Teaching Practices |Teaching with Technology| Sample Course Evaluation Forms
Teaching Tools
2. Teaching Practices
2.3. Feedback and Grading
Principals to Observe when Developing a Grading Plan
- Communicate the grading system in writing, including what will be evaluated, when it is due, and the weight attached to it. Stick to your announced plan.
- Measure a variety of types of behaviors. Avoid grading which is based on performance on just one type of task (e.g. research papers or solving routine problems) or on performance on only 1-2 days (e.g. a midterm and final exam).
- Provide prompt feedback so that students have information about their previous performance before their learning will be assessed again. Consider the time required to provide this feedback in scheduling due dates when you plan a course.
- Evaluate different cognitive levels such as those identified in Bloom's taxonomy: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation.
- Weight types of performance according to their importance. Consider the significance of what was learned, the amount of effort required, and the role of similar kinds of performance later in your students' lives.
- Be creative in developing methods of evaluation so that the methods are tailored to each course. Often useful assignments can be developed by examining how the course material is applied in authentic practice in the discipline and then adapting or simplifying the application to fit the students' current capabilities and the available resources.
- Match evaluation methods carefully to course activities and objectives. Make sure that students see the correspondence. Keep in mind that some activities may be designed as learning experiences which may not require evaluation.
- Decide on retest or revision possibilities. Retest options may be valuable when students need to achieve a certain level of mastery in order to succeed in further work in the course. Revision options may be useful in developing students' writing skills over the long term.
From J.O. Hammons & J.R. Barnsley (1992). Everything You Need to Know About Developing a Grading Plan for Your Course (Well, Almost). Journal on Excellence in College Teaching, 3, 51-68.
Adapted from the Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence at Carnegie Mellon University
