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Designing Impactful Grading Rubrics

Originally published April 2024. 

New Resource for Faculty: Creating Rubrics that provide value to students and streamline grading

As the end of term arrives, so does grading season. It’s a final opportunity for students to be assessed by you and for you to give meaningful feedback that will help set students up for success in future courses and career pathways. Here are a few helpful suggestions to approach your grading and provide impactful feedback.

  1. Get into the mindset of ‘feedforward’ (versus feedback): Support student development and deeper learning with your evaluative comments by focusing on actionable improvements for future applications.
  2. Ensure any feedback is clear and not repetitive: If you find yourself writing the same comments over and over, consider using a feedback comment bank to speed up the process. Reviewing your comment bank can also help you see where students might need more support in subsequent iterations of your course.
  3. Consider the use of rubrics to help make your evaluation more consistent, measurable, and clearer for students while also reducing your grading time.

TEI’s new rubric design resource provides suggestions for strengthening your rubric design and includes curated rubric tools and templates to guide implementation. Reach out to the TEI team for further support with rubrics, and explore more about Assessment in TEI’s guide to teaching, learning and assessment. Happy grading!

 

New Conversation Series Episode with Amilah Baksh: Bringing the Energy of Social Work into the Classroom

Amilah Baksh from Laurier’s Faculty of Social Work shares her holistic approach to education, which acknowledges the significance of positionality and identity, and invites both educators and students to bring their entire selves into the classroom. Amilah discusses how establishing classroom community guidelines sets a foundation for respectful and supportive discussions on challenging topics. Explore how Amilah incorporates critical reflective journals as activities to encourage students to develop deep, personal introspection and insight into their experiences, perspectives, and cultural backgrounds. Watch the conversation >>

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