We know that our students’ learning depends on receiving meaningful feedback, and receiving it in time to use it to improve their next project, paper, presentation, exam, or assignment. But the process of giving feedback is often time consuming, and if we fall too far behind in our work, the feedback may arrive too late. How can we balance our efforts to provide prompt feedback to students with our efforts to control the amount of time spent on any given course? In this workshop, we will explore a variety of feedback and grading practices that balance effectiveness and timeliness with efficiency. Participants will identify their own goals for student feedback and adapt relevant strategies for achieving those goals with greater ease and efficiency.

1. Feedback & Grading: Strategies
for Balancing Timeliness,
Effectiveness, and Efficiency
Julie Sievers
Center for Teaching Excellence
Jennifer Jefferson
University Studies
think.stedwards.edu/cte

2. Goals
• Learn how SLOs and a backwards design
approach can help you plan feedback
• Know a variety of feedback strategies
• Articulate your goals & scaffolding strategy
for student feedback related to 1 assignment
• Identify strategies to address your course
• Gain resources continued work on this issue.

3. Feedback by Design

4. Linda Nilson, Teaching At Its
Best, 2010
Outcomes-Based Design
recognizes
developmental
steps required to
progress towards
complex goals

6. Strategy
A feedback plan
driven by your
learning goals
A scaffolded
approach to making
decisions about
feedback and grading
Ask Yourself
What learning outcomes
will require the most
feedback?
Am I focusing my efforts
around these outcomes?
Am I scaffolding student
activities so that they
practice key skills towards
this goal, get feedback,
and then build upon that?

7. One Professor’s Approach
Jennifer Jefferson, University Studies
Brainstorming
• Comprehensive
• Varied
• Responsive
Different Techniques
• Specifications grading
• Draft commenting
• Student conferencing

8. Specifications
• In order to receive a B, one must:
– miss no more than one entry or have two late
entries
– have no more than two entries that do not fully
address the prompt
– have no more than two entries that are not
focused in their responses

9. Draft Guidance
• An “A” paper will have the following characteristics:
– Clear explanation of the social problem
– Well-phrased normative or explorative question to guide the research
– Revised and well-crafted introduction that sets up the entire paper
– Carefully developed social problem context that includes the history of the
problem and integrates significant laws/cases/statutes
– Clear and nicely supported understanding of the scope of the problem
– At least two well-selected perspectives on the social problem that are
developed equitably and holistically
– Underlying values embedded in each perspective are clearly integrated
– At least six carefully considered resources that are demonstrably accurate,
reliable, and authoritative
– Well-crafted, thoroughly revised, carefully edited, and proofread writing
with few minor writing issues
– Strong internal organization where the sections clearly build on one
another

10. • A “B” paper will have the following characteristics:
• Clear explanation of the social problem
• Normative or explorative question to guide the research
• Well-crafted introduction that sets up the entire paper
• Social problem context that includes the history of the problem
and integrates significant laws/cases/statutes
• Nicely supported understanding of the scope of the problem
• Two well-selected perspectives on the social problem
• A mention of the underlying values embedded in each perspective
• Six resources that are accurate, reliable, and authoritative
• Revised, edited, and proofread writing with some minor writing
issues
• Internal organization where the sections build on one another
Draft Guidance

11. Meeting Suggestions
• Meet in advance of presentations/paper/etc.
• Bring have a partial draft
• Bring 2 questions with you
– Related to assignment guidelines
– Related to research issues
– Related to structure
– Related to comments on previous assignments
– Anything that would be beneficial to you

12. Think / Pair / Share
1. Write down a course in
which you want to modify
your grading strategy.
2. Identify a key feedback challenge.
2. Identify what you’ve tried so far.
2. Identify strategies you’ve considered but
have not yet tried.

13. A Menu of Options
(and guiding principles)
Using Rubrics
• Scoring rubrics
• Feedback rubrics for substantive projects
• Minimal rubrics for informal or low-stakes
assignments
• Completion rubrics for tasks where
process is more important than product
• Digital rubrics to enhance speed

14. Cutting the Number of Feedback Tasks
• Fewer assignments
• Assignments w/ completion points (no
feedback on product quality)
• Assignments w/ peer feedback but no
instructor feedback

15. Limiting / focusing feedback:
• Limit comments to key developmental tasks
student needs to work on
• Focus on forward-looking and transferable
feedback: not error-marking, but how to
improve subsequent assignments
• Focus on drafts, early and middle stages of
work - not final products
• Don’t be an editor – use minimal marking
• Don’t overwhelm students

16. Strategically Planning Your Feedback Time
• Work on attitude to reduce avoidance
• Stagger due dates
• Schedule grading time
• Have a realistic return policy
• Be a teacher, not an editor
• Limit your comments (see above)
• Limit grading time on each essay or project

17. Letting Others Do Some of the Work
• Encourage Writing Center consults
• Peer review
Shifting Responsibility to Students
• Require students to fill out a checklist, self-
check whether there work has followed
requirements, fulfilled all tasks.
• Gateway requirements? (Walvoord &
Anderson)
• Self-evaluation (enables you to focus
feedback on areas where they are not
already aware)

18. 1. Do any strategies have potential for your
course?
1. What are potential barriers?
1. What more do you need to know before
you could use it?

19. Resources
At the CTE web site:
http://think.stedwards.edu/cte/blog/post/feed
back-grading-balancing-timeliness-
effectiveness-and-efficiency
In our Box folder:
“CTE Feedback & Grading Session –
Collaboration Folder”