Grading Tips, From The "Basics" of the Basic Communication Course: A Graduate Student Teacher's Survival Guide

From The "Basics" of the Basic Communication Course: A Graduate Student Teacher's Survival Guide

 

We all develop our own strategies in time. But below are some tricks and tips that I’ve found useful in grading. 

1. Become adept at writing comments on the rubric during the speakers’ speeches. Don’t worry about making eye contact with the speakers the whole time. The rest of class should be good audience members. You can, however, do quick scans of the classroom every now and then. In short, it's okay to not look at students for their entire speech if it means making constructive comments. 

2. On a separate sheet of paper, record your first impressions honestly. You won’t show students these comments, but they will help you once you get back to your office to grade. After competing in and coaching collegiate speech and debate for 11 years, I can accurately predict a speaker’s grade in the first 30 seconds of their speech. After you’ve been teaching for a while, your instincts will be similarly honed. 

3. Get the lay of the land. Wait to assign scores, and do not assign grades after each speech. Tentatively give a score for each rubric item for the first three speeches. Later, reflect on whether these are accurate. If so, then use them as a gauge for the rest of the speeches. Yes, students may want their grades quickly, but grading is not only a time for you to assess your students; it's a time for you to be reflexive about your own teaching.

For example, if none of your students include transitions for their speeches, does that mean the entire class is clueless? Might it be something in your instructions to them that was confusing? Did you not provide clear examples? Maybe they don't think transitions are important. Did you stress the importance of transitions to students? Obviously, if the answers to these questions lead you to believe there was something you could have explained more clearly, you'll want to carefully consider how harshly you'll grade your students on this aspect of the speech

You might ask, "Well, if I've got a rubric and each part of the rubric has been given a point or percentage weight, how can I grade "less harshly"? Remember our previous discussion about meeting the minimum requirements: if you think you could have explained something more clearly, perhaps your "minimum" benchmark can be altered. The students won't see this alteration; you might just give a Satisfactory score based on a lower benchmark.

It's true that you could simply take those points out of the equation altogether and reduce the total number of points for the speech. But that requires more reconfiguring on the back end as the total possible points for your class will change. You could add another assignment to make up those points, but your supervising faculty member may frown upon changing the syllabus when you're already into the semester. If you've included the caveat that the number and frequency of assignments may change based on the progress of the class, then you're likely to be technically in the right if you were to add another assignment. But, you've got your own classes to worry about in the meantime--do you really want to create more work yourself?

Teaching Philosophy: Why Do We Need One?

As another semester is over, and my thoughts turn toward the summer and beyond, the coming Fall semester. I have begun to work full force on our graduate teacher handbook. One of the sections is about teaching philosophies. This is an overlooked yet invaluable stage in the process of begun a teacher; it emphasizes rigorous self-reflection and an engagement with one's audience (in this case, the students).

Below is an excerpt from that particular section:

Teaching Philosophy: Why Do You Need One?

Every teacher should have a teaching philosophy. Think of the teaching philosophy as your mission statement. Sure, everyone wants to be a good teacher, but “good” can mean different things to different people (as can “teacher”). For example, to think that you’re going to come into one of the first classes you’ve ever taught and become a best friend, mentor, guru, and life coach to all of your students is a bit unrealistic. That’s not what you should be striving for, and I’m not sure if any teacher should be attempting to be all of those things. Student attitudes like those are likely a by-product of what the teacher actually accomplishes, like encouraging students to make connections between the material and their own lives, fostering critical thinking, and creating a welcoming classroom environment. So, put out of your mind for the time being visions of students chanting “O Captain! My Captain! (a la the film Dead Poets Society), and let’s discuss some concrete things you should be instituting in your classroom communication.

While everyone’s teaching philosophy will read differently (you can read mine[1] and get the basics of a Teaching Philosophy at http://www.celt.iastate.edu/teaching/philosophy.html), there are some basic things you should keep in mind for your classroom communication with students. Each of these is explained below.

Frame Class Discussions and Activities

First, you can ask them to read the syllabus and assignment descriptions, but don’t assume they will. So, plan on providing summaries or overviews of the course policies and assignments. The same holds true for the textbook; we may assign them readings, but don’t assume they’ve read it. Any discussions you have on the textbook chapters should be preceded by a brief summary of the chapter. Don’t worry, you’re not doing their work for them because good discussion questions should prompt them to address things in much more detail than your summary (1-2 minutes) will provide.

Lesson Plans, Goals, and Assessments

Second, you should have a lesson plan for every class meeting. Experienced teachers may tell you they don’t need them, but they have likely internalized the important parts of the lesson plan and are incorporating them into their classroom communication. We’ll go over writing lesson plans in more detail later in the handbook. But for now, you should keep the following things in mind for each class meeting: what you want to accomplish, how you’re going to accomplish it, and—perhaps most importantly—how you will know you accomplished what you want.

This last part is one many teachers overlook. It requires some kind of assessment on your part. When most teachers hear the word “assessment,” they likely think of statistical measurements. What I mean is that you need some way to assess your students so that you know you’ve accomplished what you intended. If not, you can tweak the lesson plan for next time. This assessment could come in the form of a group discussion with carefully written questions that pertain to your objectives, a speech or some other classroom activity, or a written component (maybe some combination of these). Remember that we have assessments at the course level as well: graded speeches, exams, and quizzes in particular. But you need to approach your classes with assessment in mind, too.

Strive for Clarity and Transparency

Third, you should strive for clarity and transparency. We present the students with detailed rubrics for each speech assignment at the beginning of the semester. We also provide them with study guides for each chapter and sample exam questions. We have course policies regarding classroom conduct, treatment of classmates, absences, and so on. So, you already have a structure of clarity and transparency within which to work. The one thing we can’t provide the students with beforehand is grades, obviously. And this is where you should strive for clarity and transparency. This means provided substantial comments on grading rubrics that allow students to understand why they received the grade they did; they may not agree with you, but they should understand. It also means grading and posting grades, activity points, etc. in a timely fashion on their BlackBoard.

Create a Welcoming Environment

Finally, consider the ways in which you might create a safe and welcoming environment. Learning student names by the second week, altering seating arrangements when possible (for example, in a circle rather than rows), and being encouraging in your written and oral feedback to the students are ways you can create a welcoming environment. We’ll address more of these issues in the classroom management chapter and in our weekly orientations.

To Lead or To Manage?

In time, you’ll develop your own teaching philosophy. But here are some important questions to ask yourself: What does it mean to manage a class? What does it mean to lead a class? Are there different communication behaviors you must do for each? On what occasions might it be necessary to manage your class? When should you lead your class? These are all questions you will answer in your own way, in time.

Ultimately, two approaches have helped me in my teaching. The first is a quotation from John Cotton Dana, an influential librarian from the late 18^th and early 19^th century: “He [or she] who dares to teach must never cease to learn.” I like this, because I like to think of learning and teaching as inextricably intertwined. The second approach is taken from yoga, which I practice regularly. In short, if you think you’ve mastered yoga, you’re not really doing yoga. I think of teaching in the same way; if, at some point, you think you’ve mastered teaching, you’re not really teaching. Because teaching is about learning. We can readily accept that without teaching, there would be no learning. Of course, we need teachers to teach students. But I also believe that without learning, there would be no teaching. This not only means that we need students to teach. It also means that teachers need to continue learning.

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[1] http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~klindema/Lindemann%20Statement%20of%20Teaching%20Philosophy.pdf

Top Ten Graduate Teacher Mistakes: Number 9

This is a continuation of the "Top Ten" list I started several months ago. I realize now it was a pretty ambitious goal for me. I should have made it a Top Five list. At any rate, as promised, here's number nine:

Number Nine: Asking Too Many Questions
Some of my graduate student teachers may be reading this thinking, "Is he talking about me?" Well, yes, but not in a bad way. I'm talking about myself as well, I suppose. As I prep for my Fall classes, I'm faced with making assignments new again. And while I can plan things out, starting with learning outcomes and following through to some kind of assessment, there's no way I can really tell if something's going to work.

The more experience a teacher has, the better she can anticipate what questions and difficulties students might have. But she can never really know how a new lesson plan will turn out. Sometimes we have great stuff we think the students will love, and they don't. Other times, we might go in and wing it only to have things go great. When this happens I sometimes walk out of class thinking, "It's too bad I won't be able to replicate that dynamic every time, because that was great."

I encourage asking questions, and believe me, some graduate student teachers take this to heart and ask all sorts of things I honestly had never thought of before. While I can answer some--or most, I hope, some questions teachers have are better left unanswered. "Will this work?" I don't know. Maybe. Consider so-and-so and give it a try. "Is this activity a good idea?" Unless you're talking explicitly about sex or admonishing students about a particular religious point of view, you're probably safe. Give it a try. And so on.

The short answer: I don't know. The longer answer involves a communication theory, as most of my longer answers do: specifically, sense-making. Karl Weick, who forwarded said theory, is famous for a saying, which I'll paraphrase here: How do I know what I want to say until I see what I said? Setting aside for a moment the ableist language in that colloquialism (it privileges speaking and hearing as the primary knowledge-gaining senses), I like it and think it applies here. I realize this doesn't really hold water if we're accountable for students' test scores and such. But even within such constraints, in fact, some say only within constraints,  creativity and problem-solving coalesce in the art that is teaching.

Top Ten Graduate Student Teacher Mistakes: Number 10

As I wrap up another year of serving as Basic Course Director for our school, I'm reflecting on the progress of our graduate student teachers. They do some amazing things, make me look good, and--to my bemusement--attribute their teaching success to me when it sometimes appears to me if I've had little to do with how good they've become.

I think I only really, truly, began to get the hang of teaching in about my sixth year. I've been teaching college and university classes for about 18 years, and only now do I begin to feel like I might have some sort of advice to offer those just beginning to teach. Of course, I've been doing for this several years but have relied heavily on what others have said. Like any good scholar, I've begun to internalize those things, synthesize them, and take credit for them.

So, here is the first in a series of installments on some mistakes I've not witnessed graduate student teachers commit, and mistakes of which I myself am guilty (and how could I effectively teach them if I didn't first experience them?). I've resisted doing the typical scholarly thing and use parentheses, as in "Top Ten (Graduate Student) Teacher Mistakes." But hopefully you get the idea.

These are in no particular order, although I think the lower-stake mistakes are generally near the bottom.

Number Ten: No Lesson Plan
I used to think lesson plans were for elementary school teachers. College professors didn't need them, right? After all, they were teaching their specialty. They were afforded academic freedom, which meant talking about what they deemed relevant and appropriate. Students, basking in the glow of professors' knowledge, would write things down and ask questions, allowing the teacher to re-direct where necessary. Right?

Thankfully, I didn't actually put these ideas, accumulated from years of bad movies about college life, into practice. But I was shocked when I got into the college classroom and found it difficult to fill the hour or so talking about what I was already supposed to know. Teaching my first college class as a first-year M.A. student was terrifying, and I had done theatre and competitive speech and debate my whole life. I believe I spent the first 10 minutes or so reading from the book and hoping students would react to it. No lesson plan. I wasn't taught about lesson plans in my orientation, wasn't taught Bloom's taxonomy, learning objectives or outcomes, assessment...nothing.

So, one of the things I stress to my graduate student teachers is to create lesson plans. To not just think about what they want to say, but literally write out a lesson plan, beginning with learning outcomes and ending with assessment strategies (qualitative, e.g. discussions, and/or quantitative) that pair with a particular learning outcome. I ask them to also include the time each section might take and, if appropriate, the learning styles to which they might be appealing (I know some people have issues with the whole "learning styles" approach, but that's another subject for another post--for that matter, so is assessment).


I realize this sounds both simple and simplistic. But I'm always surprised, especially in the second semester onward, how many GTAs take the "been there, done that" approach and just go into class thinking, "I'm going to do this activity and it's going to be really cool." Okay, you've got the activity. So what? What's the purpose? How are you going to know whether the activity made any difference?

Now, I find myself doing this in my lectures: just going in and talking. Of course, I know what I want to say and what I have to cover, but I find myself glossing over learning outcomes as well.

As I write this, I can hear some of my colleagues advising teachers to stay flexible and not plan everything out, as some of the best teaching and learning moments emerge organically. And I agree. But I'm not sure beginning teachers can go there just yet. So, I advise creating lesson plans but maintain a flexible mind just in case.

One of the things I like about teaching is that I'm constantly learning. I'm learning as I write these, and as I present them to our graduate student teachers. And I encourage them not to take these as edicts, but as guidelines that will prompt a thoughtful and reflexive consideration of the classroom and of their teaching.

Next up, Number Nine: Asking Too Many Questions