One area of grading that I struggle with is group work. I personally have been assiged to a group and there were several members that left the rest of us do the work and they hung on for the ride. Fortunately, in one particular case, the professor caught this and graded accordingly. In other instances, if the group project did not meet standards, the entire group suffered even though some did their part and others did not.
I understand the importance of group work but believe it poses the most problems for grading. As an instructor you have to be very observant when the group presents or observe when the group has time to work during class.
On the other hand, I have been part of a group that totally jelled and put together a great project. There definitely are two sides of the coin on this topic.
The other point I would like to make is regarding correcting papers. I found it very helpful when one of my instuctors would return the paper for modification electronically and included specific notes regarding what the problem was. This was very beneficial for me to see what I had done incorrectly and learned while making the corrections.
The last topic for my blog is plagarism. I understand this fully, however, I believe that it is the easiest to make a mistake on without being intentional. There are those that just plain and simply copy but I find this is one area I struggle with as a student. I tend to get things put together and inadvertently miss one of my sources. Thankfully, I have had the ability to rectify the situation when I have missed a source but clearly understand that is not always the case.
This would be a challenging area for me as an instructor. I believe I would talk to the student and get an sense if they were intentional about copying work or if they genuinely missed it. The object of teaching is student learning and how are we helping them learn and develop if we do not have conversations with them about topics such as this.
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You make a good point about the importance of discussing academic integrity with students (and the potential for a learning in such instances). I would add that it is helpful to have this type of discussion with the whole class at the beginning of the semester, or before the first major assignment, to help students avoid unintentional plagiarism, and to communicate the fact that you are serious about academic integrity to those who might intentionally plagiarize.
ReplyDeleteYou are doing a great job of incorporating personal experience - both as a student and as a facilitator - into your blog. For future entries, I would like to see (1) more detail from the readings, and (2) links to relevant resources. The book can be incorporated in many different ways. In this entry, for example, after discussing the problems you foresee with grading group projects, you could include the strategies outlined in the book for grading group work in an equitable manner.