Meredith - Reading Notes #5

I appreciated Lang’s introduction to the chapter on assignments and grading. Rather than “sugar coat it”, he admitted that grading is complicated and unappealing to most teachers. Fortunately, he went on to offer suggestions for how to approach grading. He explained percentage- and points-based grading systems and highlighted the pros and cons of using each system (p. 141-147). I did not realize the difference between the two systems in terms of the final grades students are able to receive. This was helpful information that I will use as I continue to work on designing my course syllabus. 

Lang also discussed assignments and exams. He suggested including a variety of assignments, incorporating essay or other form of writing into exams, and tailoring assignments to the knowledge or skills students will need when they become professionals in the discipline (p. 130-131). In my discipline, we are required to pass a national exam. It is a timed, multiple choice exam. To help prepare students for this exam, should professors of undergraduate dietetics students administer only multiple choice exams? On a similar note, is it appropriate to “teach to the test”? This is a topic that I feel warrants further discussion since all of us will be responsible for selecting and designing assessment methods for the classes we teach. 

Both Lang and Davis mentioned the use of rubrics when grading assignments (Lang, p. 139; Davis, p. 326). As a student, I like rubrics because they indicate the specific expectations for the assignment and the criteria that will be used to evaluate each component. However, I was confused by the comment Davis made about not assigning a certain number of points to each criterion (p. 330). I thought assigning points to each criterion served to define the most important components of the assignment and allow for students’ ease of understanding when they receive a certain grade. Is this incorrect? I am interested in discussing the use of rubrics in class to clarify how rubrics should be formatted. 

In chapter 34, Davis provided examples of in-class writing exercises. One of the assignments mentioned was ungraded writing tasks, for which instructors give students credit without taking time to read or grade them (p. 309). I am not convinced that this strategy would be overly effective, especially if multiple ungraded writing tasks were assigned. I believe students would realize that the papers were not being read and would decrease the effort they put into the writing exercises. An alternative to this, as mentioned by Davis, is reading and grading only a sample of papers (p. 340). I feel this would be a more effective strategy because students would know that there is a chance their paper would be graded (thus, they would continue to make an effort). I would like to discuss the issue of assigning writing exercises and then reading all, some, or none of them prior to assigning grades. I think this topic deserves further discussion because I feel we would all benefit from discussing the most effective and efficient methods of grading assignments.