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Having clear insight into students’ thinking and
where there might be gaps in their understanding of a topic is
incredibly valuable, summarizes Katy (Williams) Dumelle, Instructor Growth Specialist, Gradescope at Turnitin.
It allows a skilled instructor to adjust their
teaching to help all students learn more effectively. But with large
lecture classes, it can be hard for instructors to glean this kind of
detailed insight. The mathematics department at Oregon State University
has found a solution to this challenge.
Grading Exams: How Gradescope Revealed Deeper Insights into Our Teaching
Photo: Faculty Focus
OSU is a sizable institution with more than 30,000 students. At any one time, we have 600 to 800 students taking College Algebra. Our goal in teaching this many students effectively is to provide each student with as similar an experience as possible. In my role as a course coordinator, I lead a team of 11+ instructors and graduate teaching assistants who teach College Algebra each term.
In an effort to keep the many sections of College Algebra consistent, we, like many universities, give common exams. Where things get really difficult is in the grading of these common exams. In the past, each instructor would grade their students’ exams based on a rubric developed by the team, and we would cross our fingers that everyone interpreted and applied the rubric in the same way...
Suppose students are asked to sketch a graph of y = x2 + 3. Gradescope allows the grader to see individual thumbnails of all 800 students’ graphs and sort them based on the different ways each student answered, for the purpose of grading. This grouping mechanism provides the grader powerful data about the number of students that 1) drew the correct graph, or 2) shifted the parabola down instead of up, or 3) drew the wrong function.
For instance, if 70 percent of all students in the course drew the correct function with the correct translation; 20 percent knew it was a parabola, but got the translation incorrect; and 10 percent of responses were wrong for other reasons, instructors would know exactly what concepts students knew and which concepts to review again in class.
Source: Faculty Focus
