Grading Your Assignments: No, You Can't Use Pink Ink

I've successfully graded two periods of labs!  I have another period to do today, but here are a few thoughts.

• Pink ink is nice...if you're 7.  And drawing unicorns.  Pink ink on a lab report is not nice.  Ever.
  Plus, it clashes with my Stipula Calamo Red Fountain Pen Ink I'm using to grade.
• There is an obvious connection between the quality of the question to the quality of an answer.
  There was another variable that I hadn't considered.  The questions I asked in class are very different than the questions asked on the lab and this changed caused confusion.  There's a middle ground somewhere; I need to be able to ask better questions, but questions on the lab need to be modified to be a bit more user-friendly.
• As I grade the students, I grade my own instruction.
• Writing is a window to the mind.  Mostly.  A majority of students demonstrated a clear grasp of the information; some demonstrated a clear misunderstanding.  However, there were some students that I know understand the content but performed poorly on the response questions.  I think that modifying the questions a bit will help these students communicate what they know.  

Possible Solutions

At the beginning of the year, I do plan on spending extra class time to prepare the students for the year, and even the rest of their education.  I can think of two ways that may help.  First is to show students how to examine a question.  If they understand the question, they can better answer it.  Second is to set expectations for some of the repeated things we'll do in class.  Glitter gel pens: bad.  Bic Blue: good.  One-word answers: bad.  Thorough answers in complete sentences: good.

A Final Note

It seems like students are used to answering low-level questions or receiving completion grades on assignments in the past.  Spending a few periods at the beginning of the year may help show students that comprehension is good, but we'll also need to learn how to analyze, make connections, and communicate their knowledge.

First Grade - 190 Papers!

I graded my first batch of papers!  While students were working on a lab, I graded their assignments.

There were two parts of the assignment.  The first part was a paragraph on five of the major contributors to the thoughts of Charles Darwin.  In each paragraph, I was looking for the name of the scientist, the contribution to science in general, and the specific influence the scientist had on Charles Darwin.  The second part was 10 vocabulary word definitions; this part was credit/no credit.

I took a look at each paragraph and made sure the student had what I was looking for.  It took about 5-6 assignments before I began to get an eye for it and grading got a lot faster.  Eventually, each paper took about 15-20 seconds and I was able to get through each period's work before the bell rang.  The grading time investment seemed to fit the scope of the assignment; 15 seconds didn't seem like a fair amount of time until I thought about the importance and purpose of the assignment.

Assignment Purpose: Independent Practice
Assessment: Low Assessment Value
Literacy Level: Low - Looking for specific pieces of information; less stress on paragraph structure and syntax.  Made marks on several papers with egregious errors but these didn't impact grades.

The only issues I had was with students who simply didn't do the work.  I spoke to each of these students and it was more that the student didn't want to do the work than forgetting to do the work.  This was rather disappointing but not surprising.

I also got to use my new Stipula Calamo Red fountain pen ink I got for Christmas.  It looks sharp!  An "A" looks particularly nice on lined paper.

Also, my Master Teacher is back!  She's not 100%, but I'm glad she's on the mend.