Tag: grading

Grading and Assessment

This fall the Jackson Center for Teaching and Learning is offering a faculty book club where we will read Specifications Grading by Linda Nilson. This book club is intended to spark discussion about grading and assessment practices and strategies for using grading and assessment to support student learning and communicate student achievement.

Grading and Assessment

What is the difference between grading and assessment? Are they the same thing? According to the Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence and Educational Innovation, “the goal of grading is to evaluate individual students’ learning and performance;” whereas “the goal of assessment is to improve student learning” (What is the difference between assessment and grading). When grading and assessment are aligned, they can support student learning and growth as well as provide information about student proficiency at the end of a course.

Assessment

It’s important for faculty to include many opportunities for assessment in their courses. This gives both faculty and students insight into what and how well students are learning. Based on the results of assessments, faculty may decide to change their teaching strategies, course assignments, and/or exam questions. Based on the results of assessments, students may decide to change their study strategies, note-taking habits, and/or class participation. Assessment results may also help faculty and students begin a conversation about how to improve teaching and learning in a specific course.

Grading

Grading can be a challenging part of teaching, but, when grading and assessment are aligned, grading can become less challenging. Ideally, grades should indicate what students know and can do within the scope of the course that students have completed. Assessment results can help students adjust their learning strategies so that they gain more knowledge and skills during a course, which should improve their course grade. However, it can be challenging to connect course assessments with a final course grade in ways that meaningfully communicate student knowledge and skill levels.

In Specifications Grading, Nilson (2015) suggests that faculty consider revising their grading systems to ensure that their systems:

  • “Uphold high academic standards” (p. 9)
  • “Reflect student learning outcomes” (p. 9)
  • “Motivate students to learn” (p. 10)
  • “Motivate students to excel” (p. 10)
  • “Discourage cheating” (p. 10)
  • “Reduce student stress” (p. 10)
  • “Make students feel responsible for their grades” (p. 11)
  • “Minimize conflict between faculty and students” (p. 11)
  • “Save faculty time” (p. 11)
  • “Give students feedback they will use” (p. 12)

If you would like to learn about Nilson’s ideas for how to do this, please register and join us for the Fall 2025 Faculty Book Club. Participants will receive a copy of the book.

References

Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence & Educational Innovation. (n.d.). What is the difference between assessment and grading? Carnegie Mellon University. https://www.cmu.edu/teaching/assessment/basics/grading-assessment.html

Nilson, L. B. (2015). Specifications grading: Restoring rigor, motivating students, and saving faculty time. Routledge.

Need help grading?

Are you teaching a large class section this semester and feeling overwhelmed by all the assignment submissions that need grading? MichiganTech has recently added Gradescope to its list of university-supported EdTech Tools. Gradescope is an AI-assisted grading tool. It is designed to help the instructor efficiently grade assessments while still providing detailed feedback. Gradescope can support variable-length assignments such as homework problems as well as fixed-template assignments such as worksheets and exams. Gradescope easily links with Canvas allowing you to set up Gradescope assignments that students can access via your Canvas course. The scores from Gradescope assignments can sync to your Canvas gradebook. Instructors have commented that Gradescope has cut their grading time in half!

Interested in getting started? Follow this KnowledgeBase article that will provide guidance on logging into Gradescope and setting up a Gradescope course.

Photo courtesy of Pexels.com (Lum3n)

Gradescope Assignment Types

So, now that you have logged into Gradescope and set up a new course, lets take a look at the various assignment types that can be created in Gradescope:

Homework & Problem Sets — supports variable length assignments such as handwritten homework problems. It is designed to allow the students to submit their work to Gradescope. Our Gradescope – Homework & Problem Sets article provides additional details to assist you in setting up this type of assignment.

Exams & Quizzes – this assignment type allows the instructor to upload the blank copy of the exam and create an outline that defines the details of the exam such as question regions and question point values. The completed student exams would be collected by the instructor and scanned into Gradescope for grading. Our Gradescope-Exams & Quizzes article goes into further detail.

Programming Assignments – This assignment type allows students to submit code projects which can be automatically graded with a custom written autograder or (if you prefer) you can manually grade the code project using the traditional gradescope interface. You will want to reference our Gradescope – Programming Assignment article for information on how to set up the autograder feature.

Linking your Canvas course to Gradescope

Once you have your Gradescope course and assignments defined, you will need to be sure to link your Canvas course with your Gradescope course and sync your roster so that grades from assignments can be pulled into your Canvas gradebook.

Grading Assignments

We have finally reached the point where you can see the benefits of Gradescope — the grading of the submissions! Once the submissions are scanned in by the instructor or submitted by the student, you are ready to grade by applying the appropriate points and comments to the submissions. Before you get started on grading that first stack of assignments, you may want to reference Gradescope’s tutorial on this process.

Follow up with us!

If you would like to discuss Gradescope in more detail or just want to let us know how Gradescope is working for you….please reach out to us at elearning@mtu.edu or call 7-3000.