Grading student assignments is a significant feature of many academics’ workload, especially as the end of semester nears. In the years since our first round up post, From the Archives: On Grading we’ve written quite a few useful posts about grading philosopies, tools, and approaches:
Philosophies and Methods
In Cross-Disciplinary Grading Techniques, Heather wrote about adopting humanities methods for grading open-ended assignments to her physics courses.
Ryan writes about how he can Avoid ‘Grading Jail’ through Course Writing Contracts, which allow students to turn work in according to their individual schedules rather than all at the same time.
Jason explains by scheduling student appointments.
Jason gives a good overview of strategies for Avoiding Grade Appeals with clear communication and record-keeping.
After trying various digital interfaces, George writes about realizing that he prefers responding with pen in hand in When It’s Time to Abandon the Digital
Nels explores the differences between saying “I gave you a B” versus “You earned a B” in You Earned It
In a Grading Differently and a follow-up Report on Grading Differently, Brian described an experiment in only giving full letter grades rather than plus or minus grades.
I wrote about Three Reasons You Dread Grading (and what to do about them)
In a similar vein, Lincoln wrote From Grading to Helping Students: A Mind Hack
GradeBook Apps
Erin recommended an iPad app for managing your gradebook in GradeBook Pro, or One Grading App to Rule them All
Ryan explains using an online gradebook tool in Create an Easy Online Gradebook with Learnboost
Tools for Grading
Amy uses Google Documents for grading student essays
Erin recommends the ProfHacker favorite iAnnotate as a Grading Tool
Amy explores Quick Grading with Flubaroo, a tool for grading T/F and multiple choice quizzes
Grading for Online Teaching
Jason offers useful suggestions for planning and managing grading for online courses in Keeping up With Online Assignments and Grading
In My Online Summer: Grading, Jason says it’s been easier for him to grade for an online course than a conventional one.
Grading by Voice
Heather explains how she used voice grading for a programming course with screencasting tools
Guest author Doug Ward explained Grading with Voice on an iPad
Billie wrote about Responding to Student Writing (audio style)
[Creative Commons licensed image by flickr user Sean MacEntee]