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Online Guide to Writing and Research

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• Online Guide to Writing

How Is Writing Graded?

Students often want to know how their writing assignments are graded—that is, what is an A paper, a B paper, and so on. Generally speaking, there are two basic ways to determine how your papers will be graded.

Understand your assignment, which often will include a rubric.

Understand general grading standards professors usually apply to papers.

Assignments and What Rubrics Have To Do with Them 

Virtually every college and graduate-level assignment will include instructions from your professor. Often, rubrics, which provide criteria for each possible grade you might receive, will accompany your assignments. 

Some rubrics can be quite detailed, breaking down the assignment and describing the grading criteria for each requirement. Other rubrics merely provide general writing standards associated with each grade. In either case, your first and best source for understanding assignment’s associated grading standards is the content of the assignment itself.

As you familiarize yourself with an assignment and its rubric, keep in mind the following:

Prioritize the criteria for a particular assignment over the criteria listed in the section below. 

When an assignment comes with a rubric, study the rubric and familiarize yourself with it. Aside from your professor, this is the best guide to successfully meeting the assignment requirements.

Prioritize your professor’s advice above all. College and graduate professors often provide their own descriptions of their assignments and a list of requirements. Sometimes these can differ from the accompanying rubric. If you are ever in doubt about your assignment and its requirements, contact your professor with your questions. 

Some General (Though Not Exhaustive) Grading Standards for Academic Papers

Although each professor and class is unique, there are some general qualities that attach to each grade. The following grading standards may be useful as you assess your own writing, but remember, a number of factors ultimately contribute to your grade, including your specific instructor's guidelines and preferences. Always defer to your assignment-specific or class-specific standards for grading information, and reach out to your instructor with any questions.

• The Grade of A
• The Grade of B
• The Grade of C
• The Grade of D
• The Grade of F

The A paper is characterized by outstanding writing marked by superior readability and command of content.

The paper thoroughly addresses the assignment prompt. 

The paper proceeds in a clear, logical fashion that makes the information accessible to the reader. 

The paper’s purpose is clear, followed by details reflecting this purpose.  

The style throughout the paper accommodates the reader. 

The diction throughout the paper, and sentence construction, contribute to understanding. 

The student’s grammar, mechanics, and format are flawless.

The B paper is characterized by distinguished writing and fulfills the assignment requirements; however, the writing contains some of the following weaknesses:

The paper is well organized, but the presentation of content sometimes inhibits understanding.

The audience for which the paper is intended is sometimes unclear.

The student’s diction at times is vague and hinders precise communication. 

The student’s grammar, mechanics, and formatting flaws interfere with reading and comprehension.

The C paper is characterized by satisfactory writing that is generally effective but contains any one of the following weaknesses:

The paper lacks clear organization, or some material is not clearly explained; the paper’s audience and purpose are not clear.

The student’s sentences, although grammatically correct, often make information difficult to extract.

The student’s diction throughout the paper interferes with readability, but the reader can still glean the meaning; sections of the paper require rereading. 

The paper contains repeated errors in grammar, mechanics, or format.

The D paper struggles to communicate information and contains weak writing. In a professional work environment, such writing would be considered incompetent because it suffers from any one of the following problems:

The paper contains two or more of the problems listed for the C paper.

The paper lacks evidence of audience accommodation.

The paper contains poor diction, such as garbled wording that prevents understanding. 

The student’s sentences have mechanical errors, such as persistent run‑on sentences and comma splices.

The student’s grammar, spelling, or format problems create frequent obstacles to understanding.

The paper fails on multiple levels. A failing grade on a writing assignment usually means that your paper contains two or more of the problems listed for the D paper.

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Table of Contents: Online Guide to Writing

Chapter 1: College Writing

How Does College Writing Differ from Workplace Writing?

What Is College Writing?

Why So Much Emphasis on Writing?

Chapter 2: The Writing Process

Doing Exploratory Research

Getting from Notes to Your Draft

Introduction

Prewriting - Techniques to Get Started - Mining Your Intuition

Prewriting: Targeting Your Audience

Prewriting: Techniques to Get Started

Prewriting: Understanding Your Assignment

Rewriting: Being Your Own Critic

Rewriting: Creating a Revision Strategy

Rewriting: Getting Feedback

Rewriting: The Final Draft

Techniques to Get Started - Outlining

Techniques to Get Started - Using Systematic Techniques

Thesis Statement and Controlling Idea

Writing: Getting from Notes to Your Draft - Freewriting

Writing: Getting from Notes to Your Draft - Summarizing Your Ideas

Writing: Outlining What You Will Write

Chapter 3: Thinking Strategies

A Word About Style, Voice, and Tone

A Word About Style, Voice, and Tone: Style Through Vocabulary and Diction

Critical Strategies and Writing

Critical Strategies and Writing: Analysis

Critical Strategies and Writing: Evaluation

Critical Strategies and Writing: Persuasion

Critical Strategies and Writing: Synthesis

Developing a Paper Using Strategies

Kinds of Assignments You Will Write

Patterns for Presenting Information

Patterns for Presenting Information: Critiques

Patterns for Presenting Information: Discussing Raw Data

Patterns for Presenting Information: General-to-Specific Pattern

Patterns for Presenting Information: Problem-Cause-Solution Pattern

Patterns for Presenting Information: Specific-to-General Pattern

Patterns for Presenting Information: Summaries and Abstracts

Supporting with Research and Examples

Writing Essay Examinations

Writing Essay Examinations: Make Your Answer Relevant and Complete

Writing Essay Examinations: Organize Thinking Before Writing

Writing Essay Examinations: Read and Understand the Question

Chapter 4: The Research Process

Planning and Writing a Research Paper

Planning and Writing a Research Paper: Ask a Research Question

Planning and Writing a Research Paper: Cite Sources

Planning and Writing a Research Paper: Collect Evidence

Planning and Writing a Research Paper: Decide Your Point of View, or Role, for Your Research

Planning and Writing a Research Paper: Draw Conclusions

Planning and Writing a Research Paper: Find a Topic and Get an Overview

Planning and Writing a Research Paper: Manage Your Resources

Planning and Writing a Research Paper: Outline

Planning and Writing a Research Paper: Survey the Literature

Planning and Writing a Research Paper: Work Your Sources into Your Research Writing

Research Resources: Where Are Research Resources Found? - Human Resources

Research Resources: What Are Research Resources?

Research Resources: Where Are Research Resources Found?

Research Resources: Where Are Research Resources Found? - Electronic Resources

Research Resources: Where Are Research Resources Found? - Print Resources

Structuring the Research Paper: Formal Research Structure

Structuring the Research Paper: Informal Research Structure

The Nature of Research

The Research Assignment: How Should Research Sources Be Evaluated?

The Research Assignment: When Is Research Needed?

The Research Assignment: Why Perform Research?

Chapter 5: Academic Integrity

Academic Integrity

Giving Credit to Sources

Giving Credit to Sources: Copyright Laws

Giving Credit to Sources: Documentation

Giving Credit to Sources: Style Guides

Integrating Sources

Practicing Academic Integrity

Practicing Academic Integrity: Keeping Accurate Records

Practicing Academic Integrity: Managing Source Material

Practicing Academic Integrity: Managing Source Material - Paraphrasing Your Source

Practicing Academic Integrity: Managing Source Material - Quoting Your Source

Practicing Academic Integrity: Managing Source Material - Summarizing Your Sources

Types of Documentation

Types of Documentation: Bibliographies and Source Lists

Types of Documentation: Citing World Wide Web Sources

Types of Documentation: In-Text or Parenthetical Citations

Types of Documentation: In-Text or Parenthetical Citations - APA Style

Types of Documentation: In-Text or Parenthetical Citations - CSE/CBE Style

Types of Documentation: In-Text or Parenthetical Citations - Chicago Style

Types of Documentation: In-Text or Parenthetical Citations - MLA Style

Types of Documentation: Note Citations

Chapter 6: Using Library Resources

Finding Library Resources

Chapter 7: Assessing Your Writing

How Is Writing Graded?: A General Assessment Tool

The Draft Stage

The Draft Stage: The First Draft

The Draft Stage: The Revision Process and the Final Draft

The Draft Stage: Using Feedback

The Research Stage

Using Assessment to Improve Your Writing

Chapter 8: Other Frequently Assigned Papers

Reviews and Reaction Papers: Article and Book Reviews

Reviews and Reaction Papers: Reaction Papers

Writing Arguments

Writing Arguments: Adapting the Argument Structure

Writing Arguments: Purposes of Argument

Writing Arguments: References to Consult for Writing Arguments

Writing Arguments: Steps to Writing an Argument - Anticipate Active Opposition

Writing Arguments: Steps to Writing an Argument - Determine Your Organization

Writing Arguments: Steps to Writing an Argument - Develop Your Argument

Writing Arguments: Steps to Writing an Argument - Introduce Your Argument

Writing Arguments: Steps to Writing an Argument - State Your Thesis or Proposition

Writing Arguments: Steps to Writing an Argument - Write Your Conclusion

Writing Arguments: Types of Argument

Appendix A: Books to Help Improve Your Writing

Dictionaries

General Style Manuals

Researching on the Internet

Special Style Manuals

Writing Handbooks

Appendix B: Collaborative Writing and Peer Reviewing

Collaborative Writing: Assignments to Accompany the Group Project

Collaborative Writing: Informal Progress Report

Collaborative Writing: Issues to Resolve

Collaborative Writing: Methodology

Collaborative Writing: Peer Evaluation

Collaborative Writing: Tasks of Collaborative Writing Group Members

Collaborative Writing: Writing Plan

General Introduction

Peer Reviewing

Appendix C: Developing an Improvement Plan

Working with Your Instructor’s Comments and Grades

Appendix D: Writing Plan and Project Schedule

Devising a Writing Project Plan and Schedule

Reviewing Your Plan with Others

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Center for Teaching

Grading student work.

Print Version

What Purposes Do Grades Serve?

Developing grading criteria, making grading more efficient, providing meaningful feedback to students.

• Maintaining Grading Consistency in Multi-Sectioned Courses

Minimizing Student Complaints about Grading

Barbara Walvoord and Virginia Anderson identify the multiple roles that grades serve:

• as an  evaluation of student work;
• as a  means of communicating to students, parents, graduate schools, professional schools, and future employers about a student’s  performance in college and potential for further success;
• as a  source of motivation to students for continued learning and improvement;
• as a  means of organizing a lesson, a unit, or a semester in that grades mark transitions in a course and bring closure to it.

Additionally, grading provides students with feedback on their own learning , clarifying for them what they understand, what they don’t understand, and where they can improve. Grading also provides feedback to instructors on their students’ learning , information that can inform future teaching decisions.

Why is grading often a challenge? Because grades are used as evaluations of student work, it’s important that grades accurately reflect the quality of student work and that student work is graded fairly. Grading with accuracy and fairness can take a lot of time, which is often in short supply for college instructors. Students who aren’t satisfied with their grades can sometimes protest their grades in ways that cause headaches for instructors. Also, some instructors find that their students’ focus or even their own focus on assigning numbers to student work gets in the way of promoting actual learning.

Given all that grades do and represent, it’s no surprise that they are a source of anxiety for students and that grading is often a stressful process for instructors.

Incorporating the strategies below will not eliminate the stress of grading for instructors, but it will decrease that stress and make the process of grading seem less arbitrary — to instructors and students alike.

Source: Walvoord, B. & V. Anderson (1998).  Effective Grading: A Tool for Learning and Assessment . San Francisco : Jossey-Bass.

• Consider the different kinds of work you’ll ask students to do for your course.  This work might include: quizzes, examinations, lab reports, essays, class participation, and oral presentations.
• For the work that’s most significant to you and/or will carry the most weight, identify what’s most important to you.  Is it clarity? Creativity? Rigor? Thoroughness? Precision? Demonstration of knowledge? Critical inquiry?
• Transform the characteristics you’ve identified into grading criteria for the work most significant to you, distinguishing excellent work (A-level) from very good (B-level), fair to good (C-level), poor (D-level), and unacceptable work.

Developing criteria may seem like a lot of work, but having clear criteria can

• save time in the grading process
• make that process more consistent and fair
• communicate your expectations to students
• help you to decide what and how to teach
• help students understand how their work is graded

Sample criteria are available via the following link.

• Analytic Rubrics from the CFT’s September 2010 Virtual Brownbag
• Create assignments that have clear goals and criteria for assessment.  The better students understand what you’re asking them to do the more likely they’ll do it!
• letter grades with pluses and minuses (for papers, essays, essay exams, etc.)
• 100-point numerical scale (for exams, certain types of projects, etc.)
• check +, check, check- (for quizzes, homework, response papers, quick reports or presentations, etc.)
• pass-fail or credit-no-credit (for preparatory work)
• Limit your comments or notations to those your students can use for further learning or improvement.
• Spend more time on guiding students in the process of doing work than on grading it.
• For each significant assignment, establish a grading schedule and stick to it.

Light Grading – Bear in mind that not every piece of student work may need your full attention. Sometimes it’s sufficient to grade student work on a simplified scale (minus / check / check-plus or even zero points / one point) to motivate them to engage in the work you want them to do. In particular, if you have students do some small assignment before class, you might not need to give them much feedback on that assignment if you’re going to discuss it in class.

Multiple-Choice Questions – These are easy to grade but can be challenging to write. Look for common student misconceptions and misunderstandings you can use to construct answer choices for your multiple-choice questions, perhaps by looking for patterns in student responses to past open-ended questions. And while multiple-choice questions are great for assessing recall of factual information, they can also work well to assess conceptual understanding and applications.

Test Corrections – Giving students points back for test corrections motivates them to learn from their mistakes, which can be critical in a course in which the material on one test is important for understanding material later in the term. Moreover, test corrections can actually save time grading, since grading the test the first time requires less feedback to students and grading the corrections often goes quickly because the student responses are mostly correct.

Spreadsheets – Many instructors use spreadsheets (e.g. Excel) to keep track of student grades. A spreadsheet program can automate most or all of the calculations you might need to perform to compute student grades. A grading spreadsheet can also reveal informative patterns in student grades. To learn a few tips and tricks for using Excel as a gradebook take a look at this sample Excel gradebook .

• Use your comments to teach rather than to justify your grade, focusing on what you’d most like students to address in future work.
• Link your comments and feedback to the goals for an assignment.
• Comment primarily on patterns — representative strengths and weaknesses.
• Avoid over-commenting or “picking apart” students’ work.
• In your final comments, ask questions that will guide further inquiry by students rather than provide answers for them.

Maintaining Grading Consistency in Multi-sectioned Courses (for course heads)

• Communicate your grading policies, standards, and criteria to teaching assistants, graders, and students in your course.
• Discuss your expectations about all facets of grading (criteria, timeliness, consistency, grade disputes, etc) with your teaching assistants and graders.
• Encourage teaching assistants and graders to share grading concerns and questions with you.
• have teaching assistants grade assignments for students not in their section or lab to curb favoritism (N.B. this strategy puts the emphasis on the evaluative, rather than the teaching, function of grading);
• have each section of an exam graded by only one teaching assistant or grader to ensure consistency across the board;
• have teaching assistants and graders grade student work at the same time in the same place so they can compare their grades on certain sections and arrive at consensus.
• Include your grading policies, procedures, and standards in your syllabus.
• Avoid modifying your policies, including those on late work, once you’ve communicated them to students.
• Distribute your grading criteria to students at the beginning of the term and remind them of the relevant criteria when assigning and returning work.
• Keep in-class discussion of grades to a minimum, focusing rather on course learning goals.

For a comprehensive look at grading, see the chapter “Grading Practices” from Barbara Gross Davis’s  Tools for Teaching.

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Grading Principles and Guidelines

One of the primary goals of a proficiency-based grading system is to produce grades that more accurately reflect a student’s learning progress and achievement, including situations in which students struggled early on in a semester or school year, but then put in the effort and hard work needed to meet expected standards. If you ask nearly any adult, they will tell you that failures—and learning to overcome them—are often among the most important lessons in life.

When building a proficiency-based grading and reporting system, schools should begin by developing—ideally, in collaboration with faculty, staff, students, and families—a set of common principles and guidelines that apply to all courses and learning experiences. The guidelines should represent the school’s grading philosophy, including how grading will be used to support the educational process. In “Starting the Conversation about Grading” (Educational Leadership, November 2011), Susan M. Brookhart makes the following recommendation:

I cannot emphasize strongly enough that getting sidetracked with details of scaling (letters, percentages, or rubrics? Zeros or not? No Ds or Fs?) or policies (What should we do with late or missing work? How can we report behavior? What will we do about academic honors and awards?) before you tackle the question of what a grade means in the first place will lead to trouble. Logic, my own experience, and the research and practice of others (Cox & Olsen, 2009; Guskey & Bailey, 2010; McMunn, Schenck, & McColskey, 2003) all scream that this is the case. Grading scales and reporting policies can be discussed productively once you agree on the main purpose of grades. For example, if a school decides that academic grades should reflect achievement only, then teachers need to handle missed work in some other way than assigning an F or a zero. Once a school staff gets to this point, there are plenty of resources they can use to work out the details (see Brookhart, 2011; O’Connor, 2009). The important thing is to examine beliefs and assumptions about the meaning and purpose of grades first. Without a clear sense of what grading reform is trying to accomplish, not much will happen.

The following exemplar guidelines are offered as suggestions to schools as they implement a proficiency-based leaning system: 1. The primary purpose of the grading system is to clearly, accurately, consistently, and fairly communicate learning progress and achievement to students, families, postsecondary institutions, and prospective employers. 2. The grading system ensures that students, families, teachers, counselors, advisors, and support specialists have the detailed information they need to make important decisions about a student’s education. 3. The grading system measures, reports, and documents student progress and proficiency against a set of clearly defined cross-curricular and content-area standards and learning objectives collaboratively developed by the administration, faculty, and staff. 4. The grading system measures, reports, and documents academic progress and achievement separately from work habits, character traits, and behaviors, so that educators, counselors, advisors, and support specialists can accurately determine the difference between learning needs and behavioral or work-habit needs. 5. The grading system ensures consistency and fairness in the assessment of learning, and in the assignment of scores and proficiency levels against the same leaning standards, across students, teachers, assessments, learning experiences, content areas, and time. 6. The grading system is not used as a form of punishment, control, or compliance.In proficiency-based leaning systems, what matters most is where students end up—not where they started out or how they behaved along the way. Meeting and exceeding challenging standards defines success, and the best grading systems motivate students to work harder, overcome failures, and excel academically.

Additional Reading on Effective Grading Practices Many educators, academics and grading experts have dedicated their career to untangling some of the thornier issues related to grading and determining how grades can facilitate, rather than impede, the learning process for students. We have included a selected list of books below for those who want to learn more about the grading practices that support student learning. Each work outlines practical strategies that educators can use to build an effective proficiency-based grading and reporting system that values and supports the learning process.

Susan M. Brookhart Grading and Reporting: Practices that Support Student Achievement (2011) Thomas Guskey Answers to Essential Questions About Standards, Assessments, Grading, and Reporting (with Lee Ann Jung, 2012) Developing Standards-Based Report Cards (with Jane M. Bailey, 2009) Practical Solutions for Serious Problems in Standards-Based Report Cards (2008) Developing Grading and Reporting Systems for Student Learning (with Jane M. Bailey, 2000) Tammy Heflebower, Jan K. Hoegh, and Phil Warrick A School Leader’s Guide to Standards-Based Grading (2014) Robert Marzano Formative Assessment and Standards-Based Grading: Classroom Strategies that Work (2009) Classroom Assessment and Grading that Work (2006) Transforming Classroom Grading (2000) Ken O’Connor The School Leader’s Guide to Grading: Essentials for Principals Series (2012) A Repair Kit for Grading: Fifteen Fixes for Broken Grades (2010) How to Grade for Learning (2009) Douglas Reeves Elements of Grading: A Guide to Effective Practices (2010) Making Standards Work: How to Implement Standards-Based Assessments in the Classroom, School, and District (2004) Rick Stiggins Classroom Assessment for Student Learning: Doing It Right—Using It Well (with Jan Chappuis, Steve Chappuis, and Judith A. Arter, 2009) Rick Wormeli Fair Isn’t Always Equal: Assessing and Grading in the Differentiated Classroom (2006)

Download Grading Principles and Guidelines  (.pdf)

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• Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning
• Instructional Guide
• The Process of Grading

Grades provide a snapshot of student achievement on assignments, performances, and examinations. Grades symbolize the level of achievement of a particular task and communicate both to you and the student whether or not the student has met the instructional goals set forth at the beginning of a reporting period (Frisbie & Waltman, 1992).

As a member of the Higher Learning Commission, NIU’s faculty are required to assess student learning through term papers, examinations, or other means; link assessment activities to instructional goals and objectives; ensure assessment measures are valid and reliable; directly involve faculty; use assessment outcomes to improve teaching and learning; and ensure assessment is included in curricular, course, and budget plans (Walvoord and Anderson, 1998). Through the mandate, it becomes clear that grading is a crucial part of teaching that requires careful planning and follow-through.

Grades provide a snapshot of student achievement on assignments, performances, and examinations.

Walvoord and Anderson, in Effective Grading: A Tool for Learning and Assessment, present 12 principles to help faculty understand and work through the complexity of grading:

• Appreciate the complexity of grading: Use it as a tool for learning— grades take on different meanings for each student and can be used to enhance learning.
• Substitute judgment for objectivity— employ clear, thoughtful, standard’s based judgment to enhance your grading practice.
• Distribute time effectively— spend enough time to make consistent, thoughtful and sound judgment. More time spent grading does not correlate to better grading or better grades.
• Be open to change— use grading systems that work in context with the students’ current level of performance, subject, curriculum, university.
• Listen and observe— derive clearly stated grading criteria and ensure your students understand them.
• Communicate and collaborate with students— help students attain goals and objectives through communication and collaboration between you and your students. Show students that you learn from them as they can learn from you.
• Integrate grading with other key processes— plan and tie grading criteria and schemes with course goals, objectives, methods, and activities so they are relevant and meaningful.
• Seize the teachable moment— as with the actual task of teaching, giving grades can elicit a variety of feedback. Take notice when students question grades and turn the situation into a learning experience instead of a gripe session. Through careful listening and questioning, both you and your students can benefit from the situation.

Seize the teachable moment—as with actual teaching, giving grades can elicit a variety of feedback.

• Make student learning the primary goal— when equitably and carefully considered, grading can positively affect student learning. Tying one’s grading system to instructional methods which encourage student-faculty and student-student cooperation and engagement and active learning has been shown to positively affect students’ self-esteem and learning. Also, faculty who emphasize high expectations in realistic time frames, give prompt feedback, and respect students’ diverse talents and learning styles tend to use grading to enhance rather than drive the learning process (Walvoord and Anderson, 1998, citing Astin and Chickering and Gamson).
• Be a teacher first, a gatekeeper last— strive to help students learn in ways that address their learning preferences rather than using a cookie-cutter approach where everyone is treated the same.
• Encourage learning-centered motivation— personally encourage students to learn for learning sake rather than to achieve grades. Stress the fact that hard work does pay off, that one can learn as much from failure as from a passing grade, and that personal motivation will move them forward in life.

Be a teacher first, a gatekeeper last—strive to help students learn…

• Emphasize student involvement— students will be more motivated learners if they are involved in different aspects of instructional planning including assessment and grading. (Walvoord and Anderson, 1998, pp. 10-16)

Developing a Personal Grading Philosophy 

Grading involves a number of elements that vary , from your style of teaching and preference of grading strategies to the course content and how you perceive success in your class. Frisbie and Waltman (1992) developed an instructional module to help instructors develop defensible, effective, and fair grading practices. The module poses questions to ask yourself which may be helpful as you develop a personal grading philosophy:

• What meaning should each grade symbol carry? Provide a description of each letter grade used in the class to help students understand the level of performance expected for each graded assignment, performance, or examination.
• What should “failure” mean? Grades tend to take on a universal meaning and failure can be perceived differently by different people. Therefore, provide an array of “failure” scenarios. For example, does it mean that the student didn’t learn anything? Did the student not perform as others did in the group? Did the student receive a failing mark because they cheated on the test or plagiarized on a major research paper? Turn failure into a teachable moment to help the student learn from the situation.

Turn failure into a teachable moment to help the student learn from the situation.

• What elements of performance should be incorporated in a grade? What elements should be used in determining each grade level? Will writing skills, attitude, and motivation be included for each project or just for the final project? Rubrics are useful tools to help organize the elements of a project into discrete sections which are assessed separately yet contribute to the whole.
• How should grades in a class be distributed? Consider whether or not you plan to curve the final grade, distribute an equal number of grades, or give everyone the same grade if they satisfy certain course competencies.
• What should the components be like/include which go into a final grade? If students are allowed to submit draft material, will that count toward the final grade? How do you handle test items which the majority of the students missed? How do you combine all grades earned in the class?
• How should components of the grade be combined? Will you weight grades for individual projects? Do regular examinations count less than the final exam? Are written papers worth more than a regular exam?
• What method should be used to assign final grades? After all assignments and exams have been graded, how will you determine the final grade? If your grading policy for each project is based on a ten percent scale (90%=A, 80%=B, etc.), then the final grade should follow the same standard.
• Should borderline cases be reviewed? Reviewing your policy for these cases with the students at the beginning of the class could prevent students from contesting their final grade. If you do consider borderline cases, will you consider every student who is borderline? What is the absolute cut-off and what will you factor in when considering these cases (extra credit, attendance, attitude, motivation, overall improvement)?
• What other factors can influence the philosophy of grading? Does the university or department have written and approved policies which dictate how you grade? Consider how you have graded in the past and determine if you plan to follow the same principles. (Frisbie & Waltman, 1952), p. 2) 

Becoming an efficient grader takes time and practice and strategies will change depending on content and curriculum. The nature of the grading will change with each course but it is best to use similar grading strategies for different sections of the same course to maintain consistency. Using the suggestions described here can help you develop your own grading philosophy and should help you adjust your instructional approach as you teach new and revise old courses. 

Frisbie, D. A., & Waltman, K. K. (1992). Developing a personal grading plan.

            https://depts.washington.edu/grading/pdf/DevelopingaPersonalGradingPlan.pdf

Walvoord, B. E., & Johnson Anderson, V. (1998). Effective grading: A tool for learning and assessment. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Selected Resources

Suggested citation

Northern Illinois University Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning. (2012). The process of grading. In Instructional guide for university faculty and teaching assistants. Retrieved from https://www.niu.edu/citl/resources/guides/instructional-guide

• Active Learning Activities
• Assessing Student Learning
• Direct vs. Indirect Assessment
• Examples of Classroom Assessment Techniques
• Formative and Summative Assessment
• Peer and Self-Assessment
• Reflective Journals and Learning Logs
• Rubrics for Assessment

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What is the difference between assessment and grading? Why does it matter?

Essentials series

What is the history of grading and how has it informed modern grading structures? Let's take a look and make room for innovation.

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Assessment and grading are words that are often used interchangeably—and understandably so, since they are closely related. As a result, many equate assessment with grading.

However, assessment and grading differ, starting with their goals.

The goal of grading is to evaluate individual student performance against a set of criteria for a given unit or course. Grades may or may not be an accurate measure of student learning, depending on what is being evaluated. For example, attendance, on-time assignment submission, formatting, and participation may not reveal a lot about how much a student has learned, but they can offer indicators or signals for instructor intervention.

Grades alone, while useful as a standardized measurement, don’t provide enough personalized feedback for what a student does or does not know and what they need to do to further their learning. According to Thomas Guskey, when grades are used alone, “even accurate, task-involving grades don’t lead to improved student learning. Students get no direction for improvement from a letter, number, word, phrase, or symbol attached to evidence of their learning. Only when grades are paired with individualized comments that offer guidance and direction for improvement do they enhance achievement and foster learning progress” ( Guskey, 2019) .

The goal of assessment , on the other hand, is more expansive—because it is not solely about grading and includes low-stakes formative assessments void of summative evaluations—it can further student learning by including feedback and guiding students towards next steps in learning. Assessment includes low-stakes, frequent assignments that educators give students in class or as homework, in addition to summative tests or exams. Qualitative feedback is also a component of assessment that operates as a checkpoint in the student learning journey.

Assessment does not always include grades, but grading is always a part of assessment.

Therefore, grading is a subset of assessment.

Why is this important?

Assessments are not just tests, but also low-stakes assignments and daily check-ins. They uncover more data about student learning than grades. While grades may communicate student progress in general or serve as warning indicators, assessment can identify specific learning gaps that may require teacher intervention. Grades alone don’t reveal this level of granularity.

Assessment is a critical part of teaching and learning, providing cohort-based and individual-level data insights to educators . Are students learning what we are teaching? Is there a way to increase teaching efficacy to foster better student learning outcomes? In other words, are the goals of education being met?

The above questions can be answered via assessment, which provide the following:

• Diagnostic feedback about what students do and do not know,
• Information as to what demonstrates deep comprehension of the subject,
• An opportunity to encourage student learning,
• And teacher self evaluation on what is and is not working and next steps to bridge student learning gaps .

It’s easy to see how assessment and grading are often interchanged, given their close pedagogical juxtaposition. Both grading and assessment are necessary; grading to communicate in a succinct manner student progress to inform placement and other institutions, and assessment to gain deep insights into this progress. But it’s also important to understand and acknowledge the differences as we help students navigate the educational journey.

• Teaching Tips

The Ultimate Guide to Grading Student Work

Strategies, best practices and practical examples to make your grading process more efficient, effective and meaningful

Top Hat Staff

This ultimate guide to grading student work offers strategies, tips and examples to help you make the grading process more efficient and effective for you and your students. The right approach can save time for other teaching tasks, like lecture preparation and student mentoring. 

Grading is one of the most painstaking responsibilities of postsecondary teaching. It’s also one of the most crucial elements of the educational process. Even with an efficient system, grading requires a great deal of time—and even the best-laid grading systems are not entirely immune to student complaints and appeals. This guide explores some of the common challenges in grading student work along with proven grading techniques and helpful tips to communicate expectations and set you and your students up for success, especially those who are fresh out of high school and adjusting to new expectations in college or university. 

What is grading?

Grading is only one of several indicators of a student’s comprehension and mastery, but understanding what grading entails is essential to succeeding as an educator. It allows instructors to provide standardized measures to evaluate varying levels of academic performance while providing students valuable feedback to help them gauge their own understanding of course material and skill development. Done well, effective grading techniques show learners where they performed well and in what areas they need improvement. Grading student work also gives instructors insights into how they can improve the student learning experience.

Grading challenges: Clarity, consistency and fairness

No matter how experienced the instructor is, grading student work can be tricky. No such grade exists that perfectly reflects a student’s overall comprehension or learning. In other words, some grades end up being inaccurate representations of actual comprehension and mastery. This is often the case when instructors use an inappropriate grading scale, such as a pass/fail structure for an exam, when a 100-point system gives a more accurate or nuanced picture.

Grading students’ work fairly but consistently presents other challenges. For example, grades for creative projects or essays might suffer from instructor bias, even with a consistent rubric in place. Instructors can employ every strategy they know to ensure fairness, accessibility, accuracy and consistency, and even so, some students will still complain about their grades. Handling grade point appeals can pull instructors away from other tasks that need their attention.

Many of these issues can be avoided by breaking things down into logical steps. First, get clear on the learning outcomes you seek to achieve, then ensure the coursework students will engage in is well suited to evaluating those outcomes and last, identify the criteria you will use to assess student performance. 

What are some grading strategies for educators?

There are a number of grading techniques that can alleviate many problems associated with grading, including the perception of inconsistent, unfair or arbitrary practices. Grading can use up a large portion of educators’ time. However, the results may not improve even if the time you spend on it does. Grading, particularly in large class sizes, can leave instructors feeling burnt out. Those who are new to higher education can fall into a grading trap, where far too much of their allocated teaching time is spent on grading. As well, after the graded assignments have been handed back, there may be a rush of students wanting either to contest the grade, or understand why they got a particular grade, which takes up even more of the instructor’s time. With some dedicated preparation time, careful planning and thoughtful strategies, grading student work can be smooth and efficient. It can also provide effective learning opportunities for the students and good information for the instructor about the student learning (or lack of) taking place in the course. These grading strategies can help instructors improve their accuracy in capturing student performance . 

Establishing clear grading criteria

Setting grading criteria helps reduce the time instructors spend on actual grading later on. Such standards add consistency and fairness to the grading process, making it easier for students to understand how grading works. Students also have a clearer understanding of what they need to do to reach certain grade levels.

Establishing clear grading criteria also helps instructors communicate their performance expectations to students. Furthermore, clear grading strategies give educators a clearer picture of content to focus on and how to assess subject mastery. This can help avoid so-called ‘busywork’ by ensuring each activity aligns clearly to the desired learning outcome. 

Step 1: Determine the learning outcomes and the outputs to measure performance. Does assessing comprehension require quizzes and/or exams, or will written papers better capture what the instructor wants to see from students’ performance? Perhaps lab reports or presentations are an ideal way of capturing specific learning objectives, such as behavioral mastery.

Step 2: Establish criteria to determine how you will evaluate assigned work. Is it precision in performing steps, accuracy in information recall, or thoroughness in expression? To what extent will creativity factor in the assessment?

Step 3: Determine the grade weight or value for each assignment. These weights represent the relative importance of each assignment toward the final grade and a student’s GPA. For example, how much will the final exam count relative to a research paper or essay? Once the weights are in place, it’s essential to stratify grades that distinguish performance levels. For example:

• A grade = excellent
• B grade = very good
• C grade = adequate
• D grade = poor but passing
• F grade = unacceptable

Making grading efficient

Grading efficiency depends a great deal on devoting appropriate amounts of time to certain grading tasks. For instance, some assignments deserve less attention than others. That’s why some outcomes, like attendance or participation work, can help save time by getting a simple pass/fail grade or acknowledgment of completion using a check/check-plus/check-minus scale.

However, other assignments like tests or papers need to show more in-depth comprehension of the course material. These items need more intricate scoring schemes and require more time to evaluate, especially if student responses warrant feedback.

When appropriate, multiple-choice questions can provide a quick grading technique. They also provide the added benefit of grading consistency among all students completing the questions. However, multiple-choice questions are more difficult to write than most people realize. These questions are most useful when information recall and conceptual understanding are the primary learning outcomes.

Instructors can maximize their time for more critical educational tasks by creating scheduled grading strategies and sticking to it. A spreadsheet is also essential for calculating many students’ grades quickly and exporting data to other platforms.

Making grading more meaningful in higher education

Grading student work is more than just routine, despite what some students believe. The better students understand what instructors expect them to take away from the course, the more meaningful the grading structure will be. Meaningful grading strategies reflect effective assignments, which have distinct goals and evaluation criteria. It also helps avoid letting the grading process take priority over teaching and mentoring.

Leaving thoughtful and thorough comments does more than rationalize a grade. Providing feedback is another form of teaching and helps students better understand the nuances behind the grade. Suppose a student earns a ‘C’ on a paper. If the introduction was outstanding, but the body needed improvement, comments explaining this distinction will give a clearer picture of what the ‘C’ grade represents as opposed to ‘A-level’ work.

Instructors should limit comments to elements of their work that students can actually improve or build upon. Above all, comments should pertain to the original goal of the assignment. Excessive comments that knit-pick a student’s work are often discouraging and overwhelming, leaving the student less able or willing to improve their effort on future projects. Instead, instructors should provide comments that point to patterns of strengths and areas needing improvement. It’s also helpful to leave a summary comment at the end of the assignment or paper.

Maintaining a complaint-free grading system

In many instances, an appropriate response to a grade complaint might simply be, “It’s in the syllabus.” Nevertheless, one of the best strategies to curtail grade complaints is to limit or prohibit discussions of grades during class time. Inform students that they can discuss grades outside of class or during office hours.

Instructors can do many things before the semester or term begins to reduce grade complaints. This includes detailed explanations in the grading system’s syllabus, the criteria for earning a particular letter grade, policies on late work, and other standards that inform grading. It also doesn’t hurt to remind students of each assignment’s specific grading criteria before it comes due. Instructors should avoid changing their grading policies; doing so will likely lead to grade complaints.

Assigning student grades

Since not all assignments may count equally toward a final course grade, instructors should figure out which grading scales are appropriate for each assignment. They should also consider that various assignments assess student work differently; therefore, their grading structure should reflect those differences. For example, some exams might warrant a 100-point scale rather than a pass/fail grade. Requirements like attendance or class participation might be used to reward effort; therefore, merely completing that day’s requirement is sufficient.

Grading essays and open-ended writing

Some writing projects might seem like they require more subjective grading standards than multiple-choice tests. However, instructors can implement objective standards to maintain consistency while acknowledging students’ individual approaches to the project.

Instructors should create a rubric or chart against which they evaluate each assignment. A rubric contains specific grading criteria and the point value for each. For example, out of 100 points, a rubric specifies that a maximum of 10 points are given to the introduction. Furthermore, an instructor can include even more detailed elements that an introduction should include, such as a thesis statement, attention-getter, and preview of the paper’s main points.

Grading creative work

While exams, research papers, and math problems tend to have more finite grading criteria, creative works like short films, poetry, or sculptures can seem more difficult to grade. Instructors might apply technical evaluations that adhere to disciplinary standards. However, there is the challenge of grading how students apply their subject talent and judgment to a finished product.

For creative projects that are more visual, instructors might ask students to submit a written statement along with their assignment. This statement can provide a reflection or analysis of the finished product, or describe the theory or concept the student used. This supplement can add insight that informs the grade.

Grading for multi-section courses

Professors or course coordinators who oversee several sections of a course have the added responsibility of managing other instructors or graduate student teaching assistants (TAs) in addition to their own grading. Course directors need to communicate regularly and consistently with all teaching staff about the grading standards and criteria to ensure they are applied consistently across all sections.

If possible, the course director should address students from all sections in one gathering to explain the criteria, expectations, assignments, and other policies. TAs should continue to communicate grading-related information to the students in their classes. They also should maintain contact with each other and the course director to address inconsistencies, stay on top of any changes and bring attention to problems.

To maintain consistency and objectivity across all sections, the course director might consider assigning TAs to grade other sections besides their own. Another strategy that can save time and maintain consistency is to have each TA grade only one exam portion. It’s also vital to compare average grades and test scores across sections to see if certain groups of students are falling behind or if some classes need changes in their teaching strategies.

Types of grading

• Absolute grading : A grading system where instructors explain performance standards before the assignment is completed. grades are given based on predetermined cutoff levels. Here, each point value is assigned a letter grade. Most schools adopt this system, where it’s possible for all students to receive an A.
• Relative grading : An assessment system where higher education instructors determine student grades by comparing them against those of their peers. 
• Weighted grades : A method ussed in higher education to determine how different assessments should count towards the final grade. An instructor may choose to make the results of an exam worth 50 percent of a student’s total class grade, while assignments account for 25 percent and participation marks are worth another 25 percent.
• Grading on a curve : This system adjusts student grades to ensure that a test or assignment has the proper distribution throughout the class (for example, only 20% of students receive As, 30% receive Bs, and so on), as well as a desired total average (for example, a C grade average for a given test). We’ve covered this type of grading in more detail in the blog post The Ultimate Guide to Grading on A Curve .

Ungrading is an education model that prioritizes giving feedback and encouraging learning through self-reflection rather than a letter grade. Some instructors argue that grades cannot objectively assess a student’s work. Even when calculated down to the hundredth of a percentage point, a “B+” on an English paper doesn’t paint a complete picture about what a student can do, what they understand or where they need help. Alfie Kohn, lecturer on human behavior, education, and parenting, says that the basis for grades is often subjective and uninformative. Even the final grade on a STEM assignment is more of a reflection of how the assignment was written, rather than the student’s mastery of the subject matter. So what are educators who have adopted ungrading actually doing? Here are some practices and strategies that decentralize the role of assessments in the higher ed classroom.

• Frequent feedback: Rather than a final paper or exam, encourage students to write letters to reflect on their progress and learning throughout the term. Students are encouraged to reflect on and learn from both their successes and their failures, both individually and with their peers. In this way, conversations and commentary become the primary form of feedback, rather than a letter grade. 
• Opportunities for self-reflection: Open-ended questions help students to think critically about their learning experiences. Which course concepts have you mastered? What have you learned that you are most excited about? Simple questions like these help guide students towards a more insightful understanding of themselves and their progress in the course.
• Increasing transparency: Consider informal drop-in sessions or office hours to answer student questions about navigating a new style of teaching and learning.  The ungrading process has to begin from a place of transparency and openness in order to build trust. Listening to and responding to student concerns is vital to getting students on board. But just as important is the quality of feedback provided, ensuring both instructors and students remain on the same page.

Grading on a curve

Instructors will grade on a curve to allow for a specific distribution of scores, often referred to as “normal distribution.” To ensure there is a specific percentage of students receiving As, Bs, Cs and so forth, the instructor can manually adjust grades. 

When displayed visually, the distribution of grades ideally forms the shape of a bell. A small number of students will do poorly, another small group will excel and most will fall somewhere in the middle. Students whose grades settle in the middle will receive a C-average. Students with the highest and the lowest grades fall on either side.

Some instructors will only grade assignments and tests on a curve if it is clear that the entire class struggled with the exam. Others use the bell curve to grade for the duration of the term, combining every score and putting the whole class (or all of their classes, if they have more than one) on a curve once the raw scores are tallied.

How to make your grading techniques easier

Grading is a time-consuming exercise for most educators. Here are some tips to help you become more efficient and to lighten your load.

• Schedule time for grading: Pay attention to your rhythms and create a grading schedule that works for you. Break the work down into chunks and eliminate distractions so you can stay focused.
• Don’t assign ‘busy work’: Each student assignment should map clearly to an important learning outcome. Planning up front ensures each assignment is meaningful and will avoid adding too much to your plate.
• Use rubrics to your advantage: Clear grading criteria for student assignments will help reduce the cognitive load and second guessing that can happen when these tools aren’t in place. Having clear standards for different levels of performance will also help ensure fairness.
• Prioritize feedback: It’s not always necessary to provide feedback on every assignment. Also consider bucketing feedback into what was done well, areas for improvement and ways to improve. Clear, pointed feedback is less time-consuming to provide and often more helpful to students. 
• Reward yourself: Grading is taxing work. Be realistic about how much you can do and in what time period. Stick to your plan and make sure to reward yourself with breaks, a walk outside or anything else that will help you refresh. 

How Top Hat streamlines grading

There are many tools available to college educators to make grading student work more consistent and efficient. Top Hat’s all-in-one teaching platform allows you to automate a number of grading processes, including tests and quizzes using a variety of different question types. Attendance, participation, assignments and tests are all automatically captured in the Top Hat Gradebook , a sophisticated data management tool that maintains multiple student records.

In the Top Hat Gradebook, you can access individual and aggregate grades at a glance while taking advantage of many different reporting options. You can also sync grades and other reporting directly to your learning management system (LMS). 

Grading is one of the most essential components of the teaching and learning experience. It requires a great deal of strategy and thought to be executed well. While it certainly isn’t without its fair share of challenges, clear expectations and transparent practice ensure that students feel included as part of the process and can benefit from the feedback they receive. This way, they are able to track their own progress towards learning goals and course objectives.

Click here to learn more about Gradebook, Top Hat’s all-in-one solution designed to help you monitor student progress with immediate, real-time feedback.

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Grading and Providing Feedback: Consistency, Effectiveness, and Fairness

Tips for Providing Feedback

To achieve the goals mentioned above, you’ll want to do the following:

Grade fairly and consistently.

Provide effective feedback., use fair grading policies..

Students will work hard if they believe your grading is fair and consistent. Perceptions of unfairness or inconsistency can cause frustration and erode students’ motivation and learning. To maintain fairness and consistency, consider using the following best practices:

• Establish clear grading criteria for assignments and exams . Provide a rubric or answer key that defines performance criteria for assignments or exams. (See our article on rubrics to see the numerous advantages in using rubrics.)
• Discuss grading criteria with all graders to align perspectives . Will more than one person grade student work? If so, grade a few samples in common and then compare and discuss grading criteria. Doing so will build greater consistency across graders.
• Grade one question at a time rather than one student at a time . Grade all the answers to a particular question on an exam or assignment at one time. This will help you grade the established criteria consistently and maintain fairness across all students.
• Beware of conflicts of interest . Are there students in your class whom you feel you cannot grade impartially because of some sort of shared history, positive or negative? If so, ask someone else to grade those students’ work.
• Avoid grading when you’re extremely tired . You’re more likely to be irritable and inconsistent when you’re tired, so try to do your grading when you’re energetic and clearheaded.

Feedback plays a critical role in improving students’ learning and performance. However, not all feedback is equally useful. Here are five characteristics of effective feedback:

• Feedback should be prioritized . Too much feedback can be overwhelming, so try to prioritize your feedback. Choose a few key dimensions to comment on, avoid extensive marginal comments, and write end comments that highlight important issues rather than minutiae.
• Feedback should be descriptive . Be specific when you address your students’ work. For example, rather than simply saying, “Good presentation,” describe the characteristics that made it good (e.g., “You offered a clear, demonstrable argument and used a wide range of evidence”).
• Feedback should be constructive . Tell students what they did well and what needs improvement. That way, they’ll know what to do in the future.
• Feedback should be actionable . Tell students what they should do differently next time (e.g., “Explain your methodology in greater detail, including how you selected your sample”).
• Feedback should be timely . Try to give students feedback while the task is still fresh in their minds; otherwise, it will lose its meaning and usefulness. You should grade and return student work fairly quickly.

Grading can create complicated issues. To ensure that you respond to these issues appropriately, be sure to do the following:

• Follow course policies . Establish, communicate, and follow course (and institutional) policies governing late submissions, requests for regrading, cases of cheating and plagiarism, requests for special consideration, and the like. Make these policies clear to your students.
• Keep good records . Keep complete, detailed records of everything relevant to your students’ final grades, including (but not limited to) attendance, participation, and scores on assignments, exams, and quizzes. Also save student e-mails.
• Know your role . How will you handle complex issues such as requests for extensions or suspected cheating? Find out what your institution does and doesn’t want you to do in such cases and act accordingly.
• Maintain student confidentiality . By law, student information is private. Don’t discuss student performance outside the instructional team, keep student records in a secure place, and check your institution’s FERPA policies.

Students want to see that you take them and their work seriously. They’ll need motivation, constructive criticism, and guidance. If you post policies and grading criteria at the beginning of your course, you’ll be able to grade consistently and handle issues more easily if they arise. In addition, providing focused, timely feedback will help students understand their individual progress in the course and motivate them to persist. Although grading and feedback can require a great deal of your time, they’re invaluable parts of your students’ educational experience, so it’s in both of your interests to make the process fair and effective.

Grade, return, and reassign assignments

Managing and grading class assignments is more efficient than ever with Microsoft Teams! Add grades and feedback directly into assignments so that you and your students are on the same page. Request revisions on students' work when you return it with feedback. Excuse a student from an assignment. If a student experiences technical difficulties when submitting their work, act on their behalf to submit for them!

Need to put grading on pause to take care of other tasks? No problem. Comments and feedback on assignments are saved as you go, and you can quickly return to them even if you close the tab, grade other assignments, or go to another page in Teams.

Learn more about grading, returning, reassigning, and excusing students from assignments below!

In this article:

View ungraded assignments  

Grade and return multiple assignments at once

Grade and return assignments one-by-one.

Grade a group assignment

Return an assignment for revision

Take action on behalf of a student / Turn in on behalf of a student

Mark your students as excused from an assignment

Related topic: Grade an assignment with a rubric

View ungraded assignments

Navigate to the class and select Assignments . 

Tip:  Search for any assignment by keyword in the search bar. 

Assignments with work left to grade are sorted under the Ready to grade tab. 

Navigate to a student's name in your To return list.

Tip:  Select the arrow to sort students in ascending or descending alphabetical order.

Check the Status column if students turned in a document with this assignment. You'll also see if their work is late, not turned in, or returned for revision.

Note:  If you want to attach files as feedback, you will need to  grade and return assignments one-by-one . You can also  take action or turn in on behalf of a student .

Add points in the box to the right of the Feedback textbox if you designated points for this assignment. You can add a grading scheme as well.  Learn more about setting up weighted grading categories and schemes.

Select Return or  Return  >  Return for revision  at the top of the page to return graded assignments to all students whose checkboxes are checked. When you add feedback or a grade to a student's assignment, the checkbox next to their name is automatically checked. You can uncheck those checkboxes if you don't want to return a student's assignment yet.

Note:  The students you selected will receive a notification that their assignment has been returned. Their name will now show up in the Returned list. Their assignment status in the Grades tab will update, too.

View student work in full-screen mode and easily move from student to student without leaving your review pane.

Tip:  Select Expand tab  (icon with two arrows) to view students' work in full-screen. 

View work and add comments on the document itself, where relevant. If the student submitted more than one file, you can select other files on the right to view.

Note:  Not able to view a file in Teams? You may need to open files made in third-party apps separately. Older Microsoft Office files with .doc, .xls, and .ppt file extensions must be edited in the desktop versions of those apps.

Add feedback by typing in the  Feedback  textbox. Attach a file by selecting  Attach file  or  + New . 

If you designated points for this assignment, add points in the box below the Feedback textbox.

If you're ready to return work to the student, select Return , or select Return  > Return for revision .

Use the arrows on either side of the student's name on the right to navigate from student to student.

Note:  For a more focused workspace, hide the grading pane by selecting  Hide pane  in the lower right corner of the grading pane. You'll still be able to use arrows to navigate to other students' work and return the work by selecting Return . 

Select Close to return to the full student list for this assignment.

Video feedback

 1. Choose an assignment. 

2. Select a student from the list. 

3. The student's assignment will open. Navigate down to the Feedback section. 

5. With the video window open, press the center button to both record and stop the recording . 

6. When finished, choose the Review button to view the recording. If you approve, move on by selecting the Next button. 

7. A file name for the recording is required in order to upload it. The file will be saved as a .webm extension. 

8. Choose the Upload button. 

9. Once the video has been uploaded, select the  Done button to complete video feedback. 

Grade a group assignment 

If you've created group assignments , give a group grade or give individual grades to members of the group.

Grade and return multiple group assignments at once

Navigate to a group in your To return list.

Tip:  Select the arrow to sort groups in ascending or descending alphabetical order.

Check the Status column if groups turned in a document with this assignment. You'll also see if their work is late, not turned in, or returned for revision.

Add points in the box to the right of the Feedback textbox if you designated points for this assignment.

Select Return,   Return for revision, or  Mark as excused and return  at the top of the page to return graded assignments to all groups whose checkboxes are checked. When you add feedback or a grade to a group's assignment, the checkbox next to their name is automatically checked. You can uncheck those checkboxes if you don't want to return a group's assignment yet.

Note:  The students in the groups you selected will receive a notification that their assignment has been returned or if they've been marked as excused. Their name will now show up in the Returned list. Their assignment status in the Grades tab will update, as well.

Grade and return group assignments one-by-one

Select a group's status in the Status column to open their work.

View work and add comments on the document itself, where relevant. If the group submitted more than one file, you can select other files on the right to view.

Note:  Not able to view a file in Teams? You may need to open files made in third-party apps separately. Older Microsoft Office files with .doc, .xls, and .ppt file extensions must be edited in the desktop version of those apps.

Add feedback by typing in the  Feedback  textbox or attaching a file by selecting  Attach file   or  + New . 

Add points in the box to below the Feedback textbox if you designated points for this assignment. You can use a grading scheme as well. 

If you're ready to return work to the group, select Return . You can also select Return for revision  or  Mark as excused and return .

Use the arrows on either side of the group's name on the right to navigate from group to group.

Note:  For a more focused workspace, you can hide the grading pane by selecting  Hide pane  in the lower right corner of the grading pane. Even when the pane is hidden, you can still use arrows to navigate to other group work and return the work using the Return  arrow button. 

Select Close to return to the full group list for this assignment.

If you'd like to request a revision from a student before giving a final grade:

Follow the instructions above for returning an assignment to  multiple students  or  one-by-one .

Update how long you'll accept turn-ins at any time by selecting the assignment, then selecting More options >   Edit . Select Edit assignment timeline  underneath the due date and time, then make your adjustments in the assignment timeline.

Take action on behalf of a student

Educators can view assignments as a specific student, upload files for them, and turn in assignments on their behalf. 

Select a student's status in the Status column to open their work (select an assignment that is  Not turned in ).

Note:  You can take action on behalf of a student for both upcoming and past due assignments.

Under  Student work , where all the student's files are listed, select Take action in student view .

When uploading documents, you can only upload from your OneDrive, not the student's OneDrive.

You cannot upload Class Notebook, Make Code, or Reading Progress content but you can turn in the assignment if the content is already added by the student.

Mark your student as excused from an assignment

Repeat the above instructions for returning an assignment to  multiple students  or  one-by-one .

Select the dropdown arrow next to Return , then select  Return for revision .

Choose the option for  Mark as excused and return .

4. A dialogue box will appear asking you if you wish to mark this submission as excused. Be aware that all rubric data and points will be removed. Feedback will still be shared the student. 

5. Choose the Mark as excused button. 

6. Students with their assignments marked as excused will have their status changed to "Excused."

Mark as inactive

Any assignment can be marked as inactive, removing it from your list.

1. Select Assignments .

2. Find the assignment you with to deactivate and choose the More options ... button. 

3. Pick  Mark as inactive.

The assignment will immediately be deactivated and removed from your assignment list. 

Create an assignment

Track student progress in the Grades tab

Grading rubrics in Teams

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Assessing Learning

Grading + Rubrics

Some of the most difficult and time-consuming work that instructors and TAs do is grading student work. Whether you’re an experienced teacher, or just starting out, you will find tips on this page to improve grading efficiency, make grading more equitable, fair, and clear to your students.

Efficient Grading       Equitable Grading       Rubrics

Purpose of Grading

Ultimately, your assessments should be structured and graded in ways that motivate learning, rather than punish mistakes. We grade student work to provide feedback, open lines of communication, motivate improvement, and evaluate performance.

Provide Feedback - Grading gives the opportunity to provide short, targeted feedback. Limit overly critical feedback, and where possible, highlight at least one thing students did well, and one area they can improve upon. 

Open Lines of Communication - The goal of assessment is to enable both parties, teacher and student, to learn where they stand relative to the learning goals. Our grading should facilitate students’ reflection on their learning, allow them to demonstrate what they understand, and discover where they are struggling.

Motivate Improvement - It’s important for our assessments to validate students’ progress, while encouraging them to learn from mistakes. Use light-touch feedback techniques , and provide opportunities for students to improve their grades. Where possible, let them redo, revise, and repeat.

Evaluate Performance - Grades are an evaluation of performance on a given task. Use specific performance criteria derived from the course learning objectives in your grading, and communicate to students what those performance criteria are before the assessment.

Make Grading Efficient

It benefits our students to receive feedback on their work in a timely manner, and we generally want to cut down the time we spend grading. You can strategize ways to make grading more efficient by using simplified metrics appropriate for the assignment, timing tools, and incorporating technologies.

UCSB Educational Technologies for Grading

Grading Assignments in GauchoSpace

Using Rubrics and Grading Criteria in GauchoSpace

Using Gradescope for Handwritten work and multiple-choice exams

iClicker for participation, polling and measuring student understanding

Simplified Grading Metrics or ‘Light Grading’

For some lower-stakes assessments, consider using simplified metrics like plus-check-minus rather than letter grades or percentages so you can grade more quickly.

Plus-Check-Minus

Minus (or 0): Didn’t do or didn’t understand

Check (or 1): Partially complete or missing something important

Plus (or 2): Complete and/or correct

Grade just some representative samples of student work. For instance, maybe only some questions are evaluated for accuracy and others on completion.

In many classroom and homework activities, grading on participation (credit/no-credit) is adequate to encourage active learning and independent studying, and can cut down on overall grading load.

Use ‘ Light-touch Feedback ’, which are brief emails to groups of students (e.g., ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’, and ‘D/F’ students) indicating your awareness of their performance on recent assignments, some commonly given feedback and encouragement targeted for each group of students, and direction to resources that can help them.

Student Self-Correction and Peer Review

Teaching students how to learn and work in your discipline means teaching them to set learning goals, measure their progress, and figure out where to put their efforts for continuous improvement. They also need to learn how to critique their own work and that of their peers’ in appropriate ways. 

Have students assess their own work using some given criteria (see rubrics below) before they submit it so they can identify any gaps in their learning or disciplinary thinking. 

Allow student self-correction or peer-correction on short writing samples, quizzes and exams by making it a classroom or homework activity. 

Consider using online peer reviewing tools, like Eli Review , for students to provide peer feedback on each other’s work before students submit their work to you. It helps students turn in better work - which is always faster to grade!

For summative assessments, consider having students write a few sentences as a cover letter to their work describing what the strengths and weaknesses of their work are from their own perspective. They submit the cover letter with their work, which gives you a better idea of what to give feedback on and what the real gaps in learning might be for your class.

Timing Tools

Grading will take as much time as you give it - and more if you let it! Here are a few ideas to help you not get overwhelmed.

Set a timer to strictly hold yourself to, for example, 3-5 minutes per assignment, or 10-15 minutes per essay. Limit your feedback to comments students can use for improvement.

Create a grading schedule to space out your grading, and incorporate breaks to avoid burnout.

Make sure to track your time spent grading. 

Grade with a fellow TA. Set a specific time to meet and get as much grading done as possible during that time.

Ask people who have similar kinds of assignments for advice on how to grade, what to put your effort into, and how much time might be “too much”.

Create a set of common phrases for feedback that you may find yourself giving to multiple students, and then copy/paste those onto student work, or use online grading tools in the course website to apply those phrases to student work with a few clicks.

Make Grading Equitable

Grading quickly is important, but cannot come at the expense of quality and fairness. We want our feedback to open lines of communication with students, and to be as transparent and accurate as possible, ensuring all students get a similar amount and type of feedback, with no preferential treatment. To make your grading more equitable, try implementing strategies like creating specific criteria or rubrics, TA group grading, and/or blind grading.

Grading Group Work

Specify the Criteria

Before grading assignments, consider what kinds of work your students are asked to perform on that assignment (answering questions on a quiz, responding to essay prompts, writing a paper, group work, etc.), and note which criteria you would need to see met for you to consider it to be a good performance on that work. This can increase your grading accuracy and consistency, thereby making it more equitable for your students. Then grade a few assignments using that criteria to see if you need to make adjustments. See the section on rubrics below for more details.

TA Group Grading

Grading with your fellow TAs or with a peer can help you stay consistent and discuss grading issues as they occur. 

Hold a Norming Session: All readers/TAs get together and grade examples of student work together to identify potential challenges and create a common set of expectations. If possible, identify A, B, C, and F papers/projects, or responses that exceed, meet, or do not meet expectations.

Assign each grader a specific section/page of an exam to grade, instead of a certain number of exams to grade in full. This helps ensure consistency in grading across all exams and across different sections of students.

Blind Grading 

Blind Grading means that you are unaware of the students’ identities (e.g., names) as you grade the work. This reduces the likelihood of grading student performance based on your subjective understanding of the students.

In Gauchospace, you can select “Blind Grading” to hide student identities (remind students to submit their assignments without identifying information in the document itself). 

For blue books, go through and open all at once so you cannot see names as you move through the stack. 

For essays, require students to only put their names on cover sheets which can be flipped over as you move though the stack.

Rubrics: Grading Papers, Projects, and Creative Work

Papers, projects, presentations and creative work usually involve a combination of critical thinking skills and multiple genres of work from students (such as group work, public speaking, academic writing, casual writing, graphic design, etc.). Rubrics help instructors determine and grade the specific combination of skills represented by a complex assignment by measuring each required skill independently, while also looking at students' work holistically. Rubrics also clarify and prioritize an assignment’s requirements, so students can focus their efforts appropriately and identify gaps in their learning. All of this makes your grading more equitable and efficient! 

Rubrics should be customized for each assignment to ensure that instructors are measuring the learning objectives associated with the assignment. They typically contain three essential components: 

A list of criteria that will be graded (i.e. thinking skills used in the assignment and format requirements. For example, ‘depth of analysis’ and ‘reference list’). 

Descriptions of how students demonstrate those criteria on the assignment.

An evaluative scale that shows how many points each criterion is worth or what level of proficiency the student has attained.

What do rubrics look like?

Choose a grading framework that aligns with the complexity of the assignment and the level of detailed feedback students need about their work. All rubrics should leave space for instructor comments. Here are some example rubric frameworks:

Checklist : List of expectations that are either met or not met, with an area for overall comments.

Analytic Matrix : (see simplified example in video above as well) Includes multiple performance criteria, rating scales, and description and/or examples of indicators for each rating. 

Single Point : Describes acceptable proficiency in each criteria only (no gradations of proficiency) and leaves space for comments.

Holistic : 3-5 levels of performance, along with a broad definition of the characteristics that define each level.

Most rubrics are organized into a matrix, with the thinking skills and requirements listed in the left column, descriptions of those criteria in the other columns, and a grading scale that applies a certain number of points to each criterion either in the top row or as its own column. 

Many rubrics look more like a checklist, with each criterion listed with its descriptions of proficiency in paragraph form or as bullet points. The scale can be in the descriptions or somewhere else on the document - as long as the students can see the relative weights or acceptable performance levels for the criteria so they know where to focus their energies. 

For creative projects it is important you provide enough structure to allow you to evaluate work fairly, while encouraging students to express themselves. Also make all minimum requirements very clear, like sources/references, page/word limits, or time limits for presentations, and formatting. 

How can I use a rubric as a grading tool?

Try to create the rubric as you write or modify the assignment instructions. Then give it to the students with the instructions. Tell them to use it as a reference for where to focus their efforts. Consider allowing the students to fill out the rubric themselves as a cover letter to their assignment submission. Return the rubric to the student with their graded work so they can see the rationale behind the grade they received.

If you have a digital rubric on the course website or another grading tool, then you will fill out the rubric options when you create the assignment submission. As you grade each submission you will see options for assigning points and leaving comments. 

If you have a paper document that you are using as a rubric, print out a rubric for each student, and then use a pencil to check off the matrix cells that best describe the student’s performance and write comments. A pencil allows you to make adjustments as you grade the class. 

If you have a digital document as a rubric, copy/paste it onto their work or on the grading screen, or attach it to their submission in the grading area. Alternatively, have the students add the rubric (unfilled) to their work, or as an attachment to it. You can use the digital grading tools to fill it out.

When should I share my rubric with the class?

We recommend giving your students the rubric at the same time you give them the assignment instructions. This can reduce the number of questions and future complaints about unfair grading. You can also reference the rubric while teaching related skills and content.

If students are writing an essay during a midterm or final exam time, distribute the rubric several weeks in advance of the due date, so they can use it to focus their studying and preparation

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Grade & return an assignment

Important:  This only applies to assignments graded with Google Assignments.

You and your teaching assistants can enter grades in the Assignments grading tool. Each grader needs a Google Workspace for Education account. 

When you return an assignment, ownership of the assignment file transfers back to the student. Students can then view their feedback and grades.

Grade an assignment

Change the grade denominator.

The default grade denominator is 100. You can change it to any whole number greater than zero. You can change the grade denominator at any time, but the change affects only unreturned assignments. Returned assignments save their original denominator.

You can return an assignment without a grade. However, the LMS can’t distinguish between ungraded and unsubmitted assignments.

Add a grade

• Go to your LMS.

• Under Grade , enter the grade. Your grade saves as a draft.

Sync a grade with your LMS

When you return assignment files to your students, Assignments automatically syncs your feedback and grades to your LMS. The grades appear in your LMS gradebook.

Return an assignment

When you return an assignment, ownership of the assignment file transfers back to the student. Students can view your comments and suggestions.

A copy of the returned assignment saves to your Google Drive. You have a copy of the graded assignment in case a student contests their grade, for accreditation purposes, or to use as evidence of plagiarism. Even if the student changes or deletes the original assignment, your copy of the assignment is safe.

The student receives an email notifying them the assignment was graded. The email has a link to view the graded work in Assignments. The student can see the grade, margin comments, and overall feedback.

After the student receives the graded assignment, they can respond to individual margin comments or revise and resubmit their file. The student can start discussions or close the comments. The instructor’s original comments save to their copy of the returned assignment.

Return work from the grading tool

Return an assignment to one student.

Choose an option :

Return an assignment to multiple students

• In the menu that opens, check the box for Return multiple submissions .
• In the Return multiple submissions window , review your selections.
• (Optional) To unselect students, uncheck the box next to their name.
• Choose Select all , Unselect all , or Select draft grades only.
• To return the assignment, click Return .

Return work from Assignments

• To return work to one student —Next to the student name, check the box.
• To return work to multiple students —Next to the student names, check the boxes.
• To return work to all students —Above the student names, check the box next to Turned in .
• Click Return .

Notify students about returned classwork

Need more help, try these next steps:.

Key Concepts for Grading in Canvas

This guide provides an overview of how grading works in Canvas. Specific how -to information on the sections below may be found in the Canvas Instructor Guide .

The Grades function within Canvas allows you to maintain all of your grades online. It provides a robust tool for tasks typically done in a spreadsheet application, making it possible to keep all grading online.

Steps to organize your Gradebook

To enter your grade book, click on the Grades link on your course menu (left of your screen). A list of your students appears on the left side, once you enroll your students , with columns to the right for any learning activity you have set-up to be assessed within Canvas.

Note: The only column created by default in your Gradebook is the Total column. It serves the purpose of calculating the total value of graded assignments in your course. The Total column can be weighted based on the way your graded assignments are grouped. The Total column can be used with the course’s letter grade scheme in order to calculate student final letter grades in your course.

1. Start by creating “Assignment Groups”

2. correlate your grading scheme for the letter grades.

In Canvas, you create a grading scheme instead of typing letters into your Gradebook or the SpeedGrader. The grading scheme correlates percentage ranges or scores to specific letter grades. You can enable the default grading Canvas scheme or create your own grading scheme in your Canvas course, then enable your custom grading scheme.

Use the following:

• Enter and edit grades in the Gradebook guide
• Add a grading scheme in a course
• Watch the grading scheme video (2m 37s) on Vimeo

3. Manage unique calculations (e.g., drop lowest score) in assignment groups

4. To add a Gradebook column, create an Assignment first

The gradebook in Canvas is a blank slate until you create the assignments (see the difference between assignments and learning in Canvas ).

You add columns to the gradebook by adding assignments. The easiest way to remember is that Assignments = Gradebook Columns. Once you create an Assignment, Canvas automatically includes it in the Gradebook, Calendar, Assignments, and Syllabus pages.

Assignments can be:

• Both graded (published assignments, graded discussions, graded quizzes, and surveys) and ungraded assignments (practice quizzes, ungraded surveys, and not graded assignments).
• As simple as just a name, due date, and point score; or, it can include instructions, open and close dates.

Submissions for assignments can be:

• online (through Canvas),
• on-paper (in-person),
• or no-submission (to create extra columns in the Gradebook, or when you want to create an assignment that involves multiple scores).

Tip: No Submission and On Paper assignments still appear to students on their Assignments page. To avoid confusion, you should note it in the assignment description, so students will know whether a submission is required and how they are supposed to submit it.

5. Assign either a point value or percentage to the graded assignments

• An assignment is only calculated into the grade after it is graded, so you should grade it or input a 0. (if the instructor does not input a 0, then the final grade will not reflect how poorly the student is doing).
• Treat Ungraded as 0s” will NOT affect the grade for the student. It is only a display change for the gradebook.

6. Discover what the colors and icons in the gradebook mean

The most common color you will notice is pink, which denotes late assignment submissions. Icons appearing in the gradebook indicate both that the submission has been made by the student, as well as what the submission type is. For an explanation of the icons and colors in the Gradebook, view the How do I use the icons and colors in the Gradebook? web guide.

7. Offer extra credit

There are several easy ways to offer extra credit: Create a no-submission assignment with 0 total points and add points to it, add extra points to an existing assignment, as well as the following:

• Add extra points to a quiz using Fudge points within SpeedGrader™, view the How do I use quiz fudge points in SpeedGrader? web guide
• Create an extra credit category on a rubric, view the How do I create a rubric in a course? web guide
• Create extra credit assignment inside an Assignment Group

For additional assistance, read through the How to give an extra credit in a course? web guide.

8. Calculate the Course Final Grade (in Canvas)

• Use the Assignment Groups
• Use Weighting Grades
• Use Grading Rules
• How do I add a grading scheme in a course?  and
• How do I enable a grading scheme for a course?

9. Calculate the Course Final Grade in a spreadsheet (out-of-Canvas)

For your customized grade calculations outside of canvas, you can download the gradebook calculate the grades and upload your calculated grades back into the Canvas gradebook. To use this out-of-Canvas system, do the following steps

• Create at least two assignment groups and check the option to weight the final grade by assignment group.
• Set the weight for one group at 0% and the other at 100%
• Place all of your assignments in the group that is weighted at 0%
• Create a no-submission assignment for the custom final grade in the group weighted at 100%
• Download the gradebook as a CSV file and use Excel to calculate your own unique grading scenario with the final grade appearing in a column that will match with the custom final grade column you created in Canvas.
• Import the spreadsheet into Canvas to populate the custom column.

Note: For steps 5 and 6 you can also use some other method to calculate grades and either import a spreadsheet or type the grades in by hand. Either way, because the custom final grade column is all by itself in an assignment group weighted at 100% of the grade, Canvas’s final score column will pull its score directly from it as an exact match. All you need to do now is customize your grading scheme in your course settings to reflect your own letter-grade breakdown, and you have successfully posted grades calculated by your own algorithm.

10. End of Semester: Don't Forget to Download the Gradebook

Learner-centered gradebook practices, 1. hide assignments in the gradebook before doing any grading.

By default, students can see results in their Grades tab as soon as their submission is graded. If you want all students to see grades at the same time, rather than live as you enter them, use the three dots on individual assignments in the gradebook to alter the Grade Posting Policy and then select to Manually release grades. After all the grading for that assignment is done, return to the three-dot menu and select Post Grades . View the following web guides:

• How do I select a grade posting policy for an assignment in the Gradebook?
• How do I post grades for an assignment in the Gradebook?
• How do I hide grades for an assignment in the Gradebook?
• How do I select a grade posting policy for a course in the Gradebook?

2. Hide the total column (it is visible to students by default)

3. excuse a student from an assignment.

If needed, a student may be excused from assignments, discussions, or quizzes. Excused items are not calculated as part of the student’s total grade. To use this feature in the gradebook, find the cell for the appropriate student and assignment, type “EX” in that cell, and then press the Enter key. Read through this via the How do I excuse an assignment for a student in the Gradebook? web guide.

4. Make a note about student progress

You can use the notes column to keep track of information in your course that is important to student assessment or growth such as student effort, student challenges, SIS (Student Information Service) IDs, or any other general notes. Students are not able to see notes column. You may toggle between the show/hide notes column link without losing your notes. View the How do I use the Notes column in the Gradebook? web guide.

Tip: Students can view their grades based on “What-If” scores so that they know how grades will be affected by upcoming or resubmitted assignments. They can test scores for an assignment that already includes a score, or an assignment that has yet to be graded. To learn more about this feature, visit How do I approximate my assignment scores using the What-If Grades feature? Web guide.

Self-Paced Canvas Videos

To become more acquainted with the Gradebook:

• Read the How do I use the New Gradebook  web guide and
• View the Canvas Gradebook Overview video (7m 55s)

To learn more about Assignments:

• View the What are Assignments? web guide
• View the Canvas Assignment Overview video (5m 29s)

Canvas-led Training Workshop at Iowa State:

In September 2017, CELT hosted Erin Wasson, Canvas Trainer, to facilitate key workshop topics; view the Canvas-lead Grading and Assignments training video (1h 14m).

Understanding Assignments

What this handout is about.

The first step in any successful college writing venture is reading the assignment. While this sounds like a simple task, it can be a tough one. This handout will help you unravel your assignment and begin to craft an effective response. Much of the following advice will involve translating typical assignment terms and practices into meaningful clues to the type of writing your instructor expects. See our short video for more tips.

Basic beginnings

Regardless of the assignment, department, or instructor, adopting these two habits will serve you well :

• Read the assignment carefully as soon as you receive it. Do not put this task off—reading the assignment at the beginning will save you time, stress, and problems later. An assignment can look pretty straightforward at first, particularly if the instructor has provided lots of information. That does not mean it will not take time and effort to complete; you may even have to learn a new skill to complete the assignment.
• Ask the instructor about anything you do not understand. Do not hesitate to approach your instructor. Instructors would prefer to set you straight before you hand the paper in. That’s also when you will find their feedback most useful.

Assignment formats

Many assignments follow a basic format. Assignments often begin with an overview of the topic, include a central verb or verbs that describe the task, and offer some additional suggestions, questions, or prompts to get you started.

An Overview of Some Kind

The instructor might set the stage with some general discussion of the subject of the assignment, introduce the topic, or remind you of something pertinent that you have discussed in class. For example:

“Throughout history, gerbils have played a key role in politics,” or “In the last few weeks of class, we have focused on the evening wear of the housefly …”

The Task of the Assignment

Pay attention; this part tells you what to do when you write the paper. Look for the key verb or verbs in the sentence. Words like analyze, summarize, or compare direct you to think about your topic in a certain way. Also pay attention to words such as how, what, when, where, and why; these words guide your attention toward specific information. (See the section in this handout titled “Key Terms” for more information.)

“Analyze the effect that gerbils had on the Russian Revolution”, or “Suggest an interpretation of housefly undergarments that differs from Darwin’s.”

Additional Material to Think about

Here you will find some questions to use as springboards as you begin to think about the topic. Instructors usually include these questions as suggestions rather than requirements. Do not feel compelled to answer every question unless the instructor asks you to do so. Pay attention to the order of the questions. Sometimes they suggest the thinking process your instructor imagines you will need to follow to begin thinking about the topic.

“You may wish to consider the differing views held by Communist gerbils vs. Monarchist gerbils, or Can there be such a thing as ‘the housefly garment industry’ or is it just a home-based craft?”

These are the instructor’s comments about writing expectations:

“Be concise”, “Write effectively”, or “Argue furiously.”

Technical Details

These instructions usually indicate format rules or guidelines.

“Your paper must be typed in Palatino font on gray paper and must not exceed 600 pages. It is due on the anniversary of Mao Tse-tung’s death.”

The assignment’s parts may not appear in exactly this order, and each part may be very long or really short. Nonetheless, being aware of this standard pattern can help you understand what your instructor wants you to do.

Interpreting the assignment

Ask yourself a few basic questions as you read and jot down the answers on the assignment sheet:

Why did your instructor ask you to do this particular task?

Who is your audience.

• What kind of evidence do you need to support your ideas?

What kind of writing style is acceptable?

• What are the absolute rules of the paper?

Try to look at the question from the point of view of the instructor. Recognize that your instructor has a reason for giving you this assignment and for giving it to you at a particular point in the semester. In every assignment, the instructor has a challenge for you. This challenge could be anything from demonstrating an ability to think clearly to demonstrating an ability to use the library. See the assignment not as a vague suggestion of what to do but as an opportunity to show that you can handle the course material as directed. Paper assignments give you more than a topic to discuss—they ask you to do something with the topic. Keep reminding yourself of that. Be careful to avoid the other extreme as well: do not read more into the assignment than what is there.

Of course, your instructor has given you an assignment so that he or she will be able to assess your understanding of the course material and give you an appropriate grade. But there is more to it than that. Your instructor has tried to design a learning experience of some kind. Your instructor wants you to think about something in a particular way for a particular reason. If you read the course description at the beginning of your syllabus, review the assigned readings, and consider the assignment itself, you may begin to see the plan, purpose, or approach to the subject matter that your instructor has created for you. If you still aren’t sure of the assignment’s goals, try asking the instructor. For help with this, see our handout on getting feedback .

Given your instructor’s efforts, it helps to answer the question: What is my purpose in completing this assignment? Is it to gather research from a variety of outside sources and present a coherent picture? Is it to take material I have been learning in class and apply it to a new situation? Is it to prove a point one way or another? Key words from the assignment can help you figure this out. Look for key terms in the form of active verbs that tell you what to do.

Key Terms: Finding Those Active Verbs

Here are some common key words and definitions to help you think about assignment terms:

Information words Ask you to demonstrate what you know about the subject, such as who, what, when, where, how, and why.

• define —give the subject’s meaning (according to someone or something). Sometimes you have to give more than one view on the subject’s meaning
• describe —provide details about the subject by answering question words (such as who, what, when, where, how, and why); you might also give details related to the five senses (what you see, hear, feel, taste, and smell)
• explain —give reasons why or examples of how something happened
• illustrate —give descriptive examples of the subject and show how each is connected with the subject
• summarize —briefly list the important ideas you learned about the subject
• trace —outline how something has changed or developed from an earlier time to its current form
• research —gather material from outside sources about the subject, often with the implication or requirement that you will analyze what you have found

Relation words Ask you to demonstrate how things are connected.

• compare —show how two or more things are similar (and, sometimes, different)
• contrast —show how two or more things are dissimilar
• apply—use details that you’ve been given to demonstrate how an idea, theory, or concept works in a particular situation
• cause —show how one event or series of events made something else happen
• relate —show or describe the connections between things

Interpretation words Ask you to defend ideas of your own about the subject. Do not see these words as requesting opinion alone (unless the assignment specifically says so), but as requiring opinion that is supported by concrete evidence. Remember examples, principles, definitions, or concepts from class or research and use them in your interpretation.

• assess —summarize your opinion of the subject and measure it against something
• prove, justify —give reasons or examples to demonstrate how or why something is the truth
• evaluate, respond —state your opinion of the subject as good, bad, or some combination of the two, with examples and reasons
• support —give reasons or evidence for something you believe (be sure to state clearly what it is that you believe)
• synthesize —put two or more things together that have not been put together in class or in your readings before; do not just summarize one and then the other and say that they are similar or different—you must provide a reason for putting them together that runs all the way through the paper
• analyze —determine how individual parts create or relate to the whole, figure out how something works, what it might mean, or why it is important
• argue —take a side and defend it with evidence against the other side

More Clues to Your Purpose As you read the assignment, think about what the teacher does in class:

• What kinds of textbooks or coursepack did your instructor choose for the course—ones that provide background information, explain theories or perspectives, or argue a point of view?
• In lecture, does your instructor ask your opinion, try to prove her point of view, or use keywords that show up again in the assignment?
• What kinds of assignments are typical in this discipline? Social science classes often expect more research. Humanities classes thrive on interpretation and analysis.
• How do the assignments, readings, and lectures work together in the course? Instructors spend time designing courses, sometimes even arguing with their peers about the most effective course materials. Figuring out the overall design to the course will help you understand what each assignment is meant to achieve.

Now, what about your reader? Most undergraduates think of their audience as the instructor. True, your instructor is a good person to keep in mind as you write. But for the purposes of a good paper, think of your audience as someone like your roommate: smart enough to understand a clear, logical argument, but not someone who already knows exactly what is going on in your particular paper. Remember, even if the instructor knows everything there is to know about your paper topic, he or she still has to read your paper and assess your understanding. In other words, teach the material to your reader.

Aiming a paper at your audience happens in two ways: you make decisions about the tone and the level of information you want to convey.

• Tone means the “voice” of your paper. Should you be chatty, formal, or objective? Usually you will find some happy medium—you do not want to alienate your reader by sounding condescending or superior, but you do not want to, um, like, totally wig on the man, you know? Eschew ostentatious erudition: some students think the way to sound academic is to use big words. Be careful—you can sound ridiculous, especially if you use the wrong big words.
• The level of information you use depends on who you think your audience is. If you imagine your audience as your instructor and she already knows everything you have to say, you may find yourself leaving out key information that can cause your argument to be unconvincing and illogical. But you do not have to explain every single word or issue. If you are telling your roommate what happened on your favorite science fiction TV show last night, you do not say, “First a dark-haired white man of average height, wearing a suit and carrying a flashlight, walked into the room. Then a purple alien with fifteen arms and at least three eyes turned around. Then the man smiled slightly. In the background, you could hear a clock ticking. The room was fairly dark and had at least two windows that I saw.” You also do not say, “This guy found some aliens. The end.” Find some balance of useful details that support your main point.

You’ll find a much more detailed discussion of these concepts in our handout on audience .

The Grim Truth

With a few exceptions (including some lab and ethnography reports), you are probably being asked to make an argument. You must convince your audience. It is easy to forget this aim when you are researching and writing; as you become involved in your subject matter, you may become enmeshed in the details and focus on learning or simply telling the information you have found. You need to do more than just repeat what you have read. Your writing should have a point, and you should be able to say it in a sentence. Sometimes instructors call this sentence a “thesis” or a “claim.”

So, if your instructor tells you to write about some aspect of oral hygiene, you do not want to just list: “First, you brush your teeth with a soft brush and some peanut butter. Then, you floss with unwaxed, bologna-flavored string. Finally, gargle with bourbon.” Instead, you could say, “Of all the oral cleaning methods, sandblasting removes the most plaque. Therefore it should be recommended by the American Dental Association.” Or, “From an aesthetic perspective, moldy teeth can be quite charming. However, their joys are short-lived.”

Convincing the reader of your argument is the goal of academic writing. It doesn’t have to say “argument” anywhere in the assignment for you to need one. Look at the assignment and think about what kind of argument you could make about it instead of just seeing it as a checklist of information you have to present. For help with understanding the role of argument in academic writing, see our handout on argument .

What kind of evidence do you need?

There are many kinds of evidence, and what type of evidence will work for your assignment can depend on several factors–the discipline, the parameters of the assignment, and your instructor’s preference. Should you use statistics? Historical examples? Do you need to conduct your own experiment? Can you rely on personal experience? See our handout on evidence for suggestions on how to use evidence appropriately.

Make sure you are clear about this part of the assignment, because your use of evidence will be crucial in writing a successful paper. You are not just learning how to argue; you are learning how to argue with specific types of materials and ideas. Ask your instructor what counts as acceptable evidence. You can also ask a librarian for help. No matter what kind of evidence you use, be sure to cite it correctly—see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial .

You cannot always tell from the assignment just what sort of writing style your instructor expects. The instructor may be really laid back in class but still expect you to sound formal in writing. Or the instructor may be fairly formal in class and ask you to write a reflection paper where you need to use “I” and speak from your own experience.

Try to avoid false associations of a particular field with a style (“art historians like wacky creativity,” or “political scientists are boring and just give facts”) and look instead to the types of readings you have been given in class. No one expects you to write like Plato—just use the readings as a guide for what is standard or preferable to your instructor. When in doubt, ask your instructor about the level of formality she or he expects.

No matter what field you are writing for or what facts you are including, if you do not write so that your reader can understand your main idea, you have wasted your time. So make clarity your main goal. For specific help with style, see our handout on style .

Technical details about the assignment

The technical information you are given in an assignment always seems like the easy part. This section can actually give you lots of little hints about approaching the task. Find out if elements such as page length and citation format (see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial ) are negotiable. Some professors do not have strong preferences as long as you are consistent and fully answer the assignment. Some professors are very specific and will deduct big points for deviations.

Usually, the page length tells you something important: The instructor thinks the size of the paper is appropriate to the assignment’s parameters. In plain English, your instructor is telling you how many pages it should take for you to answer the question as fully as you are expected to. So if an assignment is two pages long, you cannot pad your paper with examples or reword your main idea several times. Hit your one point early, defend it with the clearest example, and finish quickly. If an assignment is ten pages long, you can be more complex in your main points and examples—and if you can only produce five pages for that assignment, you need to see someone for help—as soon as possible.

Tricks that don’t work

Your instructors are not fooled when you:

• spend more time on the cover page than the essay —graphics, cool binders, and cute titles are no replacement for a well-written paper.
• use huge fonts, wide margins, or extra spacing to pad the page length —these tricks are immediately obvious to the eye. Most instructors use the same word processor you do. They know what’s possible. Such tactics are especially damning when the instructor has a stack of 60 papers to grade and yours is the only one that low-flying airplane pilots could read.
• use a paper from another class that covered “sort of similar” material . Again, the instructor has a particular task for you to fulfill in the assignment that usually relates to course material and lectures. Your other paper may not cover this material, and turning in the same paper for more than one course may constitute an Honor Code violation . Ask the instructor—it can’t hurt.
• get all wacky and “creative” before you answer the question . Showing that you are able to think beyond the boundaries of a simple assignment can be good, but you must do what the assignment calls for first. Again, check with your instructor. A humorous tone can be refreshing for someone grading a stack of papers, but it will not get you a good grade if you have not fulfilled the task.

Critical reading of assignments leads to skills in other types of reading and writing. If you get good at figuring out what the real goals of assignments are, you are going to be better at understanding the goals of all of your classes and fields of study.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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Help Articles

Check assessment grades, learner help center feb 13, 2023 • knowledge, article details.

This article will show you how to check your grades, understand assessment statuses, and view assessment feedback.

Check your grades

Assessment statuses, assessment feedback.

To view your grades: 

• Open the course.
• Open the Grades tab (from the left sidebar).

You’ll see all your assessments listed on this page. Here’s what you can find in your Grades tab:

• The status of each assessment
• Your assessment grades (and any adjustments to them).
• The weight of each assessment (which shows how much that assessment counts toward your overall grade)
• Your assignment due dates and personalized deadlines.
• Whether an assessment is locked.
• Peer review requirements.
• Your final grade (once all assessments have been graded).

In private courses, you may also see your current grade.

Back to top

In your Grades tab you’ll see one of these statuses next to each assignment:

• --: You haven’t started the assignment yet.
• Started: Your assignment has been started, but not yet submitted. Your assignment won’t get a grade until it’s submitted.
• Submitted: You submitted your assignment, but it doesn’t have a grade yet.
• Graded: You submitted your assignment and it has a grade. This assignment doesn’t have a required passing score.
• Passed: You completed the assignment, received a grade, and your grade is above the required passing score for that assignment.
• Didn't Pass: You completed the assignment, received a grade, and your grade is below the required passing score for that assignment.
• Dropped: This assignment’s score won’t be included in your final course grade.
• Adjusted: Course staff, or a lateness policy, changed your grade for the assignment.

You can open an assessment and click View Feedback to see feedback on your assessment. This will show you your score for each question, and may also include additional info about each question.

In private courses, some assessments may be manually graded by your instructor. You’ll always be able to see your assessment score on your Grades tab, but you may not be able to view additional feedback. 

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Center for Educational Effectiveness

Combining grading efficiency with effective assessment, strategies and techniques for instructors.

• April 11, 2024

When looking for ways to efficiently evaluate student work, instructors can modify their assessments to streamline grading and feedback, while ensuring that the assessment supports student learning. This resource provides guidance and strategies for combining grading efficiency and effective assessment. To frame our discussion, we begin with some guidelines for grading in ways that are efficient for instructors while promoting learning.

Free yourself of the need to grade  everything .  Instructors may feel that it’s necessary to comprehensively evaluate every piece of work that a student produces. While grades can provide students with feedback, the greatest value of an assessment often accrues from the  cognitive and intellectual work that students engage in as they do the assessment. Grades are a byproduct of a much richer cycle of learning and feedback that engages students in the deep learning that is a key part of the university experience. Focus on assessing and providing feedback on those assignments that have the most substantial impact on student learning. Strategies such as  modifying the structure of your grading scheme can assist with this.

Limit grading and substantial feedback to assessments that engage students in higher-order thinking and/or require them to synthesize their learning .  Carefully review your assessments to identify those which ask students to do more critical thinking, analysis, synthesis or other higher-order thinking tasks (see  Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy for a framework for identifying higher- and lower-order thinking skills). Focusing your feedback and grading efforts on assessments that require higher-order thinking will help promote student learning and will be the best use of your feedback and grading time. Examples of tasks that would be comprehensively assessed include research papers, projects, reports, and presentations. The use of  rubrics can greatly increase grading efficiency while also providing students with useful, learning-focused feedback.

Use automated grading systems for assessments that target lower-order thinking skills , for example, memorization of facts, or those cases where quick information retrieval is important.  Multiple choice Canvas quizzes can work well for this ; Canvas question feedback functions can be used to provide students with automatic, formative feedback to improve their learning. Multiple choice exams can also assess higher-level thinking, but require time and careful review of test items. Please visit CEE’s website for  information about CEE consultations on test creation and analysis .

Provide multiple opportunities for feedback.  The instructor is an important source of feedback; however, students can receive helpful feedback from many sources. Varying feedback strategies can help students to engage in more collaborative work ( peer feedback ), gauge their understanding with reference to the rest of the class ( class-level feedback ) and help them develop metacognitive skills necessary to critically evaluate their own academic work ( self-assessment ).

Six Strategies for Streamlining Assessment and Grading  

1. modify grading structures .

Use binary grading (“completed” or “not completed”) for assessments that help students build skills through practice. Examples of this kind of assessment are problem sets in STEM courses, grammar exercises in language classes, and reading guides in courses with a substantial reading component. Instructors can establish a minimum threshold for “completed” by giving students a rubric that sets out the criteria that must be met in order to receive a full-credit grade. Showing students an example of an assignment that meets the full requirement and would receive a grade of “completed” can also help guide students in succeeding with this type of assessment.

Grade a subset of assignments by giving students a choice.  Rather than grade every assignment,  instructors can require students to complete all assignments and allow students to choose a subset of the assignments that they’ll receive a grade and feedback on. This permits students to choose those assessments they feel best represent their work. Requiring students to complete all of the assignments and choose a subset for grading maximizes learning and gives students a larger pool of assessments to choose from.  

2. Automate Formative Feedback through Canvas Quizzes 

Quizzes can be a great formative assessment tool and provide students with instantaneous feedback when designed with certain features in Canvas. When creating a quiz in Canvas, instructors can not only automate quiz scoring but also  pre-load formative feedback into the quiz questions and answer options. Instructors can specify in Canvas when this pre-loaded feedback can be accessed by students. 

When building Quizzes in Canvas, use the color-coded comment boxes underneath each answer to pre-load feedback. Use the green comment box for feedback explaining why this answer is correct and how students might have reasoned toward this answer. Use the red comment box(es) underneath incorrect answer option(s) to provide feedback on why these options are not correct and/or misconceptions that may have led students to these distractors. 

Instructors can also utilize comments for the entire question to provide general feedback, including: how to reason toward the correct answer, common mistakes and/or misconceptions related to the question, and/or relevant course materials to review for further information.  

3. Streamline Feedback with Rubrics & SpeedGrader  

Using Rubrics for Assessment and Feedback: 

Rubrics are a great way to prioritize feedback on only those elements of a student’s assignment that truly matter for the learning outcomes.

Rubrics specify key criteria or standards, levels of proficiency, and descriptions of what each criterion looks like at each proficiency level. Aim for only a few specific and necessary criteria on the rubric. Resist the temptation to include “important but not necessary” criteria in the rubric. 

Rubrics can be the foundation for giving clear and actionable feedback on student work. Streamline feedback by focusing on only those items that are covered in the rubric, which you have already determined to be most necessary. Keep in mind that too many comments can interfere with learning: students lose the signal in the noise. Prioritize the ways in which the work demonstrates particular criteria at relative performance levels. 

Streamlining Assessment Feedback with  SpeedGrader  

Integrating your rubric with the SpeedGrader tool in Canvas can enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of feedback. To do this, first  build your rubric in Canvas and then  attach the rubric to the relevant assignment. Once in SpeedGrader, you can utilize the rubric and provide feedback on student work. 

SpeedGrader also allows you to build a  Comment Library for frequent comments. You can preload anticipated comments into your Comment Library as well as save comments to your Comment Library as you interact with student work. 

Typing comments is  one of many options in SpeedGrader, which also includes spoken comments (audio recordings that students can listen to later), video comments (screen capture videos that students can watch later), and speech-to-text comments that translate spoken audio into text (only available in Google Chrome).  

4. Assign Peer Feedback 

Having students review and give feedback on classmates’ work is one strategy for giving timely feedback. Additionally, peer review has many pedagogical benefits, including: increasing engagement and fostering collaboration and community, challenging students to express their thoughts clearly and diplomatically, and reinforcing student learning and metacognition as they reflect on how their thinking changed once reading their classmates’ work.

To streamline the peer feedback process, consider  peer review on assignments or discussions on Canvas . Canvas peer reviews can show student names or display  anonymously . You can  manually  assign peer reviewers or let Canvas  automatically  assign them. You can have students complete a rubric and/or leave a comment in the comment sidebar.

However you decide to have students provide peer feedback, you’ll want to clearly explain how they should (and should not) assess their classmates. Consider modeling appropriate/productive comments.  

5. Save Time with Group- or Class-level Feedback  

Rather than repeating identical comments for multiple students, provide feedback at the group or course level by summarizing trends you notice while grading. Send a classwide e-mail, use the Canvas Announcement tool, or allot time in class to share your feedback.

Besides saving you time and ensuring consistent feedback quality, group feedback also allows students to see where others may be excelling or struggling. This encourages students to self-assess their own work in comparison to the group norms or expectations. Similarly, students can learn from the different perspectives and approaches of their peers. Time saved by efficient collective feedback can go toward tailoring feedback to address specific needs and strengths.

To maximize the benefits of formative assessment, consider a combination of feedback, feed up, and feed forward:

• Feedback helps someone understand what they have or haven't done well based on observations or assessments that have already occurred. It's retrospective, looking back on what has been done to reinforce or correct it.
• Feed up clarifies the objectives or goals by answering the question, "What are we trying to achieve?" Feed up provides a target or standard against which to measure performance. 
• Feed forward includes information or suggestions about what to do next or in the future to improve. Unlike feedback, which looks at past performance, feed forward is future-oriented. It focuses on potential strategies, actions, or behaviors that can enhance future performance. Feed forward offers constructive guidance on how to do better moving forward, rather than just focusing on what went wrong in the past.  

6. Engage Students in Self-Assessment   

This strategy involves students in assessing their own work by engaging in two steps. First, students can review their work by using an answer key or comparing their work to a well-crafted sample assignment. Then, to demonstrate that they’ve fully considered and assessed their work, students can:

• Complete a written reflection based on question(s) provided by the instructor (e.g., “Choose 2-3 areas where you made errors and provide a thoughtful explanation of how you would correct them”). 
• Revise the assignment (or part of the assignment) as part of the self-assessment process, explaining why they made the changes they’ve made. 
• Discuss the reflection with others. The reflection can be used as a point of departure for a pair discussion in class to further increase the learning value of the task, and it can be graded using binary grading to keep the grading load manageable.

Concluding Note: The Necessity of Transparency   

Regardless of the strategies you use to streamline grading and assessment, it is necessary to be transparent with students about your choice of grading methods. Provide a rationale for your practices that are centered on students’ learning and development. 

For example, when using binary grading, it can help to explain to students that you will use this style of grading for those assignments where students are building skills to encourage them to practice, and a more ranked form of grading (e.g., A-F) on major assignments that synthesize their learning in the course. This can reassure them that skills-building assignments have value in and of themselves, even without extensive feedback from the instructor. 

When students understand the expectations for their learning and the reasons behind instructors’ assessment choices, they are more likely to utilize feedback, anticipate challenges, and self-motivate their learning.

Downloadable Version

Resource developed by Erica Bender, Katie Healey, and Patricia Turner for the UC Davis Center for Educational Effectiveness  

Read Article

Discussion – 

Grading Strategies – How Grades for Teachers Impact Student Success

Grading is essential for teachers to measure student achievement and track progress. It provides a way for them to evaluate how much their students understand and remember, as well as monitor the effectiveness of their teaching strategies.

When it comes to grading, teachers can use several different approaches. They need to consider factors such as the types of assignments, the timeframes for completing them, and the class’s learning objectives. By understanding these elements, teachers can develop different grading scales supporting student success.

Table of Contents

Definition of grading system.

A grading system assesses student performance and provides feedback to students, parents, and educators. It is based on an established set of standards used to evaluate student learning quality. Grading systems vary widely between educational institutions but typically involve assigning numerical or letter grades to assignments, tests, or projects.

How do Grades Affect Student’s Performance?

Grades can have a significant impact on student performance. An effective grading system should be based on clear criteria and objectives communicated to students, parents, and educators. This communication helps ensure everyone understands the expectations and purpose of the system.

Studies have found that students who receive positive grades are more engaged in learning and perform better academically than those who receive negative grades. Grades can motivate students and provide feedback to help them adjust their behavior, improve performance, and reach their goals.

How do Teachers Grade?

Grading is integral to the teaching process and requires teachers to assess conceptual understanding of students’ work. It is essential to establish a grading system that is consistent and clear, so students understand what they need to do to be successful.

Teachers should set high expectations, provide timely feedback, and ensure grades accurately reflect and represent student performance.

12 effective Grading Tips for Teachers

Grading can be a time-consuming and tedious task for teachers. Here are 12 tips to help save time you spend grading more, stay organized, and make grading easier.

Using a grade calculator or spreadsheet

Analyze students’ grades quickly by using a grade calculator or spreadsheet. You can also use online tools such as GradeBookWizard to keep track of student grades over a year.

Consider the difficulty

When assigning grades, consider the difficulty of the assignment and adjust grades accordingly so that you are evaluating student work fairly.

Involve students

Involve students in the grading process by having them use grading rubrics either to evaluate each other’s work or assess their work against preset criteria.

Keep a running list

Keep a running list of missing or incomplete assignments and hold students accountable for turning them in on time.

Use color-coded labels

Use color-coded labels to keep track of different types of assignments, such as tests and quizzes, homework, extra credit projects, et cetera.

Using an organized filing system

Set up an organized filing system for graded work, so you can easily locate and review it when needed.

Regrade assignments that are contested by students and explain your decision to them in writing.

Summarize students grade

Try different methods of summarizing grades, such as a full grading scale or rubric or a letter grade column on the class roster.

Pick and choose assignments

Don’t grade every single assignment pick and choose which assignments are worth the most effort for students to complete and those that will have a significant impact on their grades.

Return graded work promptly

Return graded work promptly so students can use it as learning material or study guide for future assessments.

Give comments

Give feedback on assignments with clear, specific, and applicable comments to the evaluated assignment or material.

Set aside time

Set aside time for grading each week and stick to it. This is a great way to stay organized and prioritize your class time and grading tasks.

Pick the Optimal Time

The time of day when you grade can significantly impact your overall performance and the accuracy of your evaluations. As an educator, finding the optimal time for grading to maintain focus and accuracy while providing fair assessments is crucial.

When choosing the best time of day to graders grade student work, consider factors such as energy level, type of material to be graded, and the amount of material. For example, if you’re grading a large quantity of work or need to pay close attention to detail, choose a time when you typically have more energy or focus.

Some people may find themselves most focused in the morning, while others feel they can better concentrate later in the day. If you are grading dense material, choosing a time when your brain is fresh is best.

Taking a break before or after grading can help you focus better spend extra time writing and be more productive.

As an educator, your grading is a priceless contribution to helping students learn and develop. To ensure that you can grade more effectively without being swayed by distractions, take the time to prioritize necessary blocks of uninterrupted work sessions.

Setting small goals or taking regular breaks throughout this process can help keep focus levels high, even during tedious tasks.

Before You Grade

You should consider several things before you start grading your students’ work.

First, make sure that the criteria used for grading are appropriate for the task and explicitly stated in advance. 

Second, ensure that the work is graded fairly and objectively, with minimal bias. You may want to use blind grading practices such as leaving out student names or using a code system so you can grade assignments without knowing who wrote them.

Third, be consistent in your approach to grading and ensure that each assignment is evaluated relatively. Consider setting up a consistent schedule for when assignments are due and when grades will be posted. It will help you keep track of your grading workload and ensure that each student is getting an equal opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge.

Finally, take the time to provide valuable and meaningful feedback on students’ work. To foster student learning and accountability, grading work promptly with thoughtful comments is essential.

By providing this transparent feedback before the evaluation, teachers can guarantee their students receive unbiased assessments of their efforts that support growth in conceptual understanding and excellence overall.

Techniques for Making Grading Efficient While Remaining Objective

There are several ways to make grading more efficient while maintaining objectivity. Some of them include the following:

Utilizing rubrics

Rubrics are a great way to provide students with clear expectations and grading criteria. They should align with the assignment’s goals and allow for easy comparison between student work.

Automated feedback systems

With automated feedback systems, instructors can quickly grade assignments and provide specific comments on each individual’s work. This system provides both speed and accuracy in grading while ensuring that each student gets the same level of feedback.

Peer review

Using peer review can help spread the workload when it comes to grading, as well as provide students with the opportunity to give and receive meaningful feedback from their peers.

Utilizing benchmarking

Benchmarking is a way to compare different student assignments against one another and assign points for each criterion.

Commenting on Student Work

As teachers, thoughtful feedback and student work comments are among our most powerful tools. By pinpointing where improvement is necessary or highlighting laudable accomplishments, we can truly engage students in their learning experience and empower them to take control of the process.

As educators, our words are powerful tools for student progress. We must offer specific feedback about their work in a way that is both helpful and objective. With clarity and precision, we can provide meaningful direction to help students reach new heights.

Educators should ensure understanding behind every grade and comment given to students. It encourages them to become active participants in their learning process, as it gives insight into how they can reach higher levels of achievement.

As educators, fostering an atmosphere of encouragement and support when providing feedback on student work is essential. Effective communication boosts morale and helps guide students in their pursuit of academic achievements.

Through meaningful feedback and insightful comments, teachers can provide a personalized learning experience encouraging their students to take ownership of their growth. Such individualized guidance is essential for helping foster success in the classroom.

Grade One Task at a Time

Grading can be overwhelming, especially if you have a lot of assignments to grade. The best way to tackle the grading load is to do it one task at a time. Doing so keeps your grading consistent because you won’t be jumping from one assignment to another, and it will keep you focused on the task in front of you rather than feeling overwhelmed.

Taking it one task at a time will help your mental clarity by not allowing yourself to become bogged down by too many assignments. Give your assessment and feedback the attention they deserve, and enjoy the satisfaction of ticking off each task as you go.

In conclusion, we’ve seen how grades issued by teachers can critically impact student success in the classroom. These strategies aren’t always straightforward to implement, but the commitment to these strategies is essential for helping students develop academically and emotionally.

Professional development seminars are ideal for honing grade-related skills like assessment techniques and critical feedback ensuring a consistent grading strategy across all courses can help save time and effort.

Finally, by acknowledging the potential power of grades to shape learning outcomes and experience, teachers can empower themselves and encourage teaching assistants to be champions of student success.

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Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Assignments

• Annotated Bibliography
• Analyzing a Scholarly Journal Article
• Group Presentations
• Dealing with Nervousness
• Using Visual Aids
• Grading Someone Else's Paper
• Types of Structured Group Activities
• Group Project Survival Skills
• Leading a Class Discussion
• Multiple Book Review Essay
• Reviewing Collected Works
• Writing a Case Analysis Paper
• Writing a Case Study
• About Informed Consent
• Writing Field Notes
• Writing a Policy Memo
• Writing a Reflective Paper
• Writing a Research Proposal
• Generative AI and Writing
• Acknowledgments

The act of grading someone else's paper [a.k.a., student peer grading, peer assessment; peer evaluation; self-regulated learning] is a cooperative learning technique that refers to activities conducted either inside or outside of the classroom whereby students review, evaluate, and, in some cases, actually recommend grades on the quality of their peer's work. Peer grading is usually guided by a rubric developed by the instructor. A rubric is a performance-based assessment tool that uses specific criteria as a basis for evaluation. An effective rubric makes grading more clear, consistent, and equitable.

Newton, Fred B. and Steven C. Ender. Students Helping Students: A Guide for Peer Educators on College Campuses . 2nd edition. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2010; Ramon-Casas, Marta et al. “The Different Impact of a Structured Peer-Assessment Task in Relation to University Undergraduates’ Initial Writing Skills.” Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education 44 (2019): 653-663.

Benefits of Peer Grading

Professors assign students to grade the work of their classmates because studies in educational research suggest that the act of grading someone else's paper increases positive learning outcomes for student s. Professors use peer grading as a way for students to practice recognizing quality research, with the hope that this will carry over to their own work, and as an aid for improving group performance or determining individual effort on team projects. Grading someone else's paper can also enhance learning outcomes by empowering students to take ownership over the selection of criteria used to evaluate the work of peers [the rubric]. Finally, professors may assign peer grading as a way to engage students in the act of seeing themselves as members of a community of researchers.

Other potential benefits include:

• Increasing the amount of feedback students receive about their work;
• Providing the instructor with an opportunity to verify student’s understanding, or lack of understanding, of key concepts or other course content;
• Encouraging students to be actively involved with, and to take responsibility for, their own learning;
• Providing an opportunity for reinforcing essential skills that can be used in professional life, including an ability to effectively assess the work of others and to become comfortable with having one's own work evaluated by others, and facilitating key skills, such as, self-reflection, time management, team skills building;
• Fostering a more in-depth and comprehensive process for understanding and analyzing a research problem through repetition and reinforcement of key criteria essential to learning a task;
• Providing motivation for improvement in course assignments and a more comprehensive perspective on learning; and,
• Can assist in deepening the student’s own perception of their learning style and ways of knowing [at a higher cognitive level, this is known as reflexivity, or, the process of understanding one's own contribution to the construction of meaning throughout the research process].

Boud, David, Ruth Chen, and Jane Sampson. "Peer Learning and Assessment." Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education 24 (1999): 413-426; Huisman, Bart et al. “The Impact of Formative Peer Feedback on Higher Education Students’ Academic Writing: A Meta-Analysis.” Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education 44 (September 2019): 863-880; Dochy, Filip et al. "The Use of Self-, Peer, and Co-Assessment in Higher Education: A Review." Studies in Higher Education 24 (1999): 331-350; Falchikov, Nancy. Improving Assessment through Student Involvement: Practical Solutions for Aiding Learning in Higher and Further Education . New York: Routledge/Falmer, 2005; Huisman, Bart, Nadira Saab, Jan van Driel, and Paul van den Broek. “Peer Feedback on Academic Writing: Undergraduate Students’ Peer Feedback Role, Peer Feedback Perceptions and Essay Performance.” Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education 43 (2018): 955-968; Ryan, Mary Elizabeth, editor. Teaching Reflective Learning in Higher Education: A Systematic Approach using Pedagogic Patterns . New York: Springer, 2014; Sadler, Philip M. and Eddie Good. "The Impact of Self- and Peer-Grading on Student Learning." Educational Assessment 11 (2006): 1-31;Topping, Keith J. “Peer Assessment.” Theory Into Practice 48 (2009): 20-27; Rachael Hains-Wesson. Peer and Self Assessment. Deakin Learning Futures, Deakin University, Australia.

How to Approach Peer Grading Assignments

I.  Best Practices

Best practices in peer assessment vary depending on the type of assignment or project you are evaluating and the type of course you are taking. A good quality experience also depends on having a clear and accurate rubric that effectively presents the proper criteria and standards for the assessment. The process can be intimidating, but know that everyone probably feels the same way you do when first informed you will be evaluating the work of others--cautious and uncomfortable!

Given this, if not stated, the following questions should be answered by your professor before beginning:

• Exactly who [which students] will be evaluated and by whom?
• What does the evaluation include? What parts are not to be evaluated?
• At what point during a group project or the assignment will the evaluation be done?
• What learning outcomes are expected from this exercise?
• How will their peers’ evaluation affect everyone's grades?
• What form of feedback will you receive regarding how you evaluated your peers?

II.  What to Consider

When informed that you will be assessing the work of others, consider the following:

• Carefully read the rubric given to you by the professor . If he/she hasn't distributed a rubric, be sure to clarify what guidelines or rules you are to follow and specifically what parts of the assignment or group project are to be evaluated. If you are asked to help develop a rubric, ask to see examples. The design and content of assessment rubrics can vary considerably and it is important to know what your professor is looking for.
• Consider how your assessment should be reported . Is it simply a rating [i.e., rate 1-5 the quality of work], are points given for each item graded [i.e., 0-20 points], are you expected to write a brief synopsis of your assessment, or is it any combination of these approaches? If you are asked to write an evaluation, be concise and avoid subjective or overly-broad modifiers. Whenever possible, cite specific examples of either good work or work you believe does not meet the standard outlined in the rubric.
• Clarify how you will receive feedback from your professor regarding how effectively you assessed the work of your peers . Take advantage of receiving this feedback to discuss how the rubric could be improved or whether the process of completing the assignment or group project was enhanced using peer grading methods.

III.  General Evaluative Elements of a Rubric

In the social and behavioral sciences, the elements of a rubric used to evaluate a writing assignment depend upon the content and purpose of the assignment. Rubrics are often presented in print or online as a grid with evaluative statements about what constitutes an effective, somewhat effective, or ineffective element of the content.

Here are the general types of assessment that your professor may ask you to examine or that you may want to consider if you are asked to help develop the rubric.

Grammar and Usage

The writing is free of misspellings. Words are capitalized correctly. There is proper verb tense agreement. The sentences are punctuated correctly and there are no sentence fragments or run-on sentences. Acronyms are spelled out when first used. The paper is neat, legible, and presented in an appropriate format. If there are any non-textual elements [e.g., charts, graphs, tables, pictures, etc.], assess whether they are labeled correctly and described in the text to help support an understanding the overall purpose of the paper.

Focus and Organization

The paper is structured logically. The research problem and supporting questions or hypotheses are clearly articulated and systematically addressed. Content is presented in an effective order that supports understanding of the main ideas or critical events. The narrative flow possesses overall unity and coherence and it is appropriately developed by means of description, example, illustration, or definition that effectively defines the scope of what is being investigated. Conclusions or recommended actions reflect astute connections to more than one perspective or point of view.

Elaboration and Style

The introduction engages your attention. Descriptions of ideas, concepts, events, and people are clearly related to the research problem. There is appropriate use of technical or specialized terminology required to make the content clear. Where needed, descriptions of cause and effect outcomes, compare and contrast, and classification and division of findings are effectively presented. Arguments, recommendations, best practices, or lessons learned are supported by the evidence gathered and presented. Limitations are acknowledged and described. Sources are selected from a variety of scholarly and creative sources that provide valid support for studying the problem. All sources are properly cited using a standard writing style.

Hodgsona, Yvonne, Robyn Benson, and Charlotte Brack. “Student Conceptions of Peer-Assisted Learning.” Journal of Further and Higher Education 39 (2015): 579-597; Getting Feedback. The Writing Center. University of North Carolina; Gueldenzoph, Lisa E. and Gary L. May. “Collaborative Peer Evaluation: Best Practices for Group Member Assessments.” Business and Professional Communication Quarterly 65 (March 2002): 9-20; Huisman, Bart et al. “Peer Feedback on College Students' Writing: Exploring the Relation between Students' Ability Match, Feedback Quality and Essay Performance.” Higher Education Research and Development 36 (2017): 1433-1447; Lladó, Anna Planas et al. “Student Perceptions of Peer Assessment: An Interdisciplinary Study.” Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education 39 (2014): 592-610; Froyd, Jeffrey. Peer Assessment and Peer Evaluation. The Foundation Coalition; Newton, Fred B. and Steven C. Ender. Students Helping Students: A Guide for Peer Educators on College Campuses . 2nd edition. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2010; Liu, Ngar-Fun and David Carless. “Peer Feedback: The Learning Element of Peer Assessment.” Teaching in Higher Education 11 (2006): 279-290; Peer Assessment Resource Document . Montreal, Quebec: Teaching and Learning Services, McGill University, 2017; Peer Review. Psychology Writing Center. Department of Psychology. University of Washington; Revision: Peer Editing--Serving As a Reader. The Reading/Writing Center. Hunter College; Peer Review.  Writing@CSU. Colorado State University; Suñola, Joan Josep et al. “Peer and Self-Assessment Applied to Oral Presentations from a Multidisciplinary Perspective.” Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education 41 (2016): 622-637; Writer's Choice: Grammar and Composition. Writing Assessment and Evaluation Rubrics . New York: Glencoe-McGraw-Hill, n.d.

Assessment Tip

Pay Close Attention to the Guiding Questions

Most forms of peer assessment include a set of open-ended questions that ask you to focus on aspects of the assignment that you can respond specifically to as an evaluator. These questions may ask you to summarize and critique parts of the paper or assess [or list, outline, or paraphrase] particular elements of the other student's paper as opposed to answering basic closed-ended questions that elicit only a yes/no response or making subjective judgements about the overall quality of the paper. Examples of guiding questions could include:

• What do you think is the research problem of the paper? Paraphrase it.
• What do you think is the strongest evidence for the author's position? Why?
• What are the key takeaways from the study?

Peer Assessment Resource Document . Montreal, Quebec: Teaching and Learning Services, McGill University, 2017; Iglesias Pérez, M. C., J. Vidal-Puga, and M. R. Pino Juste. "The Role of Self and Peer Assessment in Higher Education." Studies in Higher Education 47 (2020): 1-10.

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What is Ungrading?

Ungrading seems to be growing in popularity: there are hundreds of Tweets with the #ungrading hashtag, dozens of articles about ungrading and other alternative assessment practices regularly published in major higher ed outlets such as Inside Higher Ed and the Chronicle of Higher Education , and even some Duke professors, such as Cecilia Marquez , have begun sharing their experiences with ungrading here at Duke. If you’re interested in learning more about this growing practice, this blog post provides a basic introduction. 

Ungrading is a practice which eliminates or greatly minimizes the use of assigned points or letter grades in a course, focusing instead on providing frequent and detailed feedback to students on their work, in relation to the course learning goals. Ungrading is a form of “ grading for growth ,” in that the primary purpose of the assessment is to help students learn and improve their knowledge and skills , rather than to create a summative score that students use to compare themselves against an external credential.

Often, ungrading occurs in an educational environment in which a final letter grade does need to be assigned; in this case, typically the instructor (sometimes with input from or jointly with students) assigns a grade at the end of the course. In some courses the instructor will ask the students to self-assign a final, summative grade, using some specific guiding questions. The grade assigned may also be based on acceptable completion of work from a list of specifications, similar to contract or specifications grading .

The focus in a class which uses ungrading is student learning, growth and reflection in relation to the course learning objectives. A fundamental requirement in a course implementing ungrading is learning goals and objectives defined at both the course and unit/module level, with clear alignment between those objectives and the assignments used in the course, and with a well-thought-out understanding by the faculty and students of the expectations for what success on the assignments looks like.

A class using ungrading is typically designed to include multiple avenues for feedback and reflection, from the students themselves, as well as from peers, the instructor, and sometimes external experts or clients. There are often multiple opportunities to resubmit at least some of the assignments to allow students to learn from and improve in response to feedback.

My definition of ungrading is rather broad and is dependent on context. Mostly ungrading for me requires (at a minimum): 1. ways to give better feedback that encourages and supports mastery levels of learning and 2. methods that enable students to take charge of their own learning (i.e., increase their agency), such that they can continue to excel even after my class ends. Clarissa Sorensen-Unruh, Ungrading: What is it and why should we use it? , 1/14/2020, accessed 6/17/2022.

Ungrading has benefits for student learning, but faculty should be aware of potential drawbacks as well. Given that GPA is still part of the admissions decision process for most grad/professional programs and the selection process for some first jobs, if part of the ungrading process in a course involves students grading or rating themselves, there is external pressure on students to have a high final course grade. Not all students are equally equipped to self-evaluate , so faculty should be aware of this and provide support or guidance as necessary. Dr. Sharon Lauricella, a Communications Professor at Ontario Tech University, uses ungrading and has students self-assign a final grade. She has found that students haven’t typically over-rated themselves in her courses, but she still retains the option to adjust self-assigned final grades if she deems fit. Some of potential biases in self-rating may be mitigated by using well-described rubrics or explanations for how to self-rate , which may include asking students to present a body of evidence of their work in the course supporting their selected rating. 

Rather than having students rate themselves for a final grade, many faculty use some version of specifications grading . Instructors create a set of standards or specifications for each assignment that clearly lay out what success looks like on that assignment. Then they review student work according to that standard , provide detailed feedback, and assign a rating (met the standard or didn’t meet the standard). Typically students have multiple attempts to meet the standard if they fail to do so the first time. Specs grading still results in a final letter grade, but the grade is determined in a different way. Students earn a particular letter grade by successfully completing “bundles” of assignments which have been pre-determined to correspond to a particular grade:

The idea is that students who want a “C” in the course have to do a certain amount of work that meets the specs; those wanting a “B” have to do everything the “C” people do, but more of it and of higher quality and/or difficulty level. Similarly the “A” students do everything the “B” students do plus even greater quantity and quality. Done right, specs grading allows students choice and agency in how and when they are assessed; students are graded on what they can eventually show that they know, and they get to learn from mistakes and build upon failures; their grades are based on actual concrete evidence of learning; and the grades themselves convey actual meaning because they can be traced back to concrete evidence tied to detailed specifications of quality. The instructor often saves time too, because instead of determining how to allocate points (which takes more time than you think), she just determines whether the work is good enough or not, and gives feedback instead. Robert Talbert, Specifications grading: we may have a winner , 4/28/2017, accessed 9/9/2022

Other concerns about ungrading or similar alternatives in which providing significant feedback on student performance is key, is how time-consuming that is and how to scale that to larger courses . Some suggestions:

• Use peer review based on guiding questions or rubrics for at least some of the assignments (this has an added benefit of building students’ evaluation skills). This may work better for students who have some background in the subject. 
• If it makes sense for the assignment, provide an answer key or explanation and have students self-review or mark up where they may need more work. Students could then be asked to submit a reflection on their work after one or a group of related assignments; you could read these and provide a general response in class.
• Use some group assignments to reduce the number of submitted works on which you need to give feedback. 

In summary, you’ll need to consider how a final summative grade will be determined for your course, and you’ll need to determine how you’ll set up your assignments to provide enough feedback to students and to allow revisions.

If you are considering using ungrading or related alternative assessment methods such as specs or contract-based grading, let us know – we’d love to learn more about your approach and what’s working for you.

Additional readings:

Ungrading: An introduction and Ungrading: An FAQ , Jesse Stommel

Anything at Grading for Growth , a blog by David Clark and Robert Talbert, mathematics professors at Grand Valley State University focusing on research and ideas about reforming grading practices in higher education and beyond.

Tips for Teaching Professors, a blog by Breanna Bayraktar, a Community College ESL professor and educational developer

• Tip: Thinking about Ungrading
• Tip: Specs Grading