Grading key for assignments

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(12)

 

For one particular application, I want to use a rubric as a marking key that adds marks up automatically, and to record all of this in a nice auditable way for external examiners. This would be incredibly helpful for marking and for QA, but worthless (and possibly confusing) for students. Rubrics are used to communicate standards and expectations in advance of an assessment, and giving detailed and specific feedback, is extremely valuable. I routinely use rubrics in this way. 

Since this isn't what rubrics are designed to do, I'd like to request a purpose-built tool that allows instructors to refer to an answer key in Speedgrader during the grading process.

15 Comments
Stef_retired
Instructure Alumni
Instructure Alumni
Status changed to: Open
 
timothy_maw
Community Champion

Yes, please. I had an instructor asking me if there were a way to do this yesterday. It would really help the grading process on some projects.

trolson
Community Participant

YES, please allow users to distinguish RUBRICS from GRADING.

A RUBRIC is meant to guide all students before/while doing the assignment.

A GRADING KEY provides feedback after the assignment is complete (regarding individual mistakes/omissions and scoring).

I'm pretty sure the following users would support separating these two functionalities (and improving each separately):

@jenacal 

@jessica422 

@sraeker-jordan 

 @JTipping 

@Dustin2000 

@lanthanide 

@Econgrad 

@SusanNiemeyer 

@EStinkens 

@CJHerman 

trolson
Community Participant

YES, please allow users to distinguish RUBRICS from GRADING.

A RUBRIC is meant to guide all students before/while doing the assignment.

A GRADING KEY provides feedback after the assignment is complete (regarding individual mistakes/omissions and scoring).

I'm pretty sure the following users would support separating these two functionalities (and improving each separately):

@EF1 

@cdona @cdona 

@MichaelJanas @MichaelJanas 

@ashok_thapa @ashok_thapa 

@ginner_hudson @ginner_hudson 

@vgupta @vgupta 

@cloutier @cloutier 

@chemlectures @chemlectures 

@matthew_heering @matthew_heering 

@m_weintraub @m_weintraub 

trolson
Community Participant

YES, please allow users to distinguish RUBRICS from GRADING.

A RUBRIC is meant to guide all students before/while doing the assignment.

A GRADING KEY provides feedback after the assignment is complete (regarding individual mistakes/omissions and scoring).

I'm pretty sure the following users would support separating these two functionalities (and improving each separately):

@nash1 

@SEleahy 

@dadmiraal 

@technoteachertx 

SusanNiemeyer
Community Contributor

Yes, yes, and yes!

I would very much like to be able to use a "Grading Key" to provide feedback after my students have submitted their work. 

The key difference between a "Grading Key" and a "Rubric" is that the former would contain the correct answers, which I obviously don't want to provide my students before or while they are completing the assignment.

chemlectures
Community Participant

Yes!  A grading key is a necessary function. 

I hack this by making rubrics on not-visible assignments and moving them to the assignment for grading and making answers available to students.  It would make my life much easier if this functionality was supported with an intentional grading key tool.

smykke
Community Explorer

As a science teacher I love the rubrics.  BUT...While I want to give students the rubric to know what is expected.  I also want to have the answers with the rubric so I can actually SPEEDGRADE.  

 

Can this be implemented?   

For example a science worksheet/ with numeric answers.

 

I'd like to be able to place the answer in the rubric somewhere so that when I view it in speedgrader it shows my answer next to the points so it is easy to grade.

 

BUT I don't want the answer to be displayed  to the student in the rubric.

smykke
Community Explorer

This is the reply I received to my above post:

 

Thanks for sharing this idea. Rubrics have a specific purpose in assessing students' work, and we don't plan to implement changes to rubrics that would serve to employ them as a grading key. With that in mind, we worked with a Canvas user to position an idea that is specific to grading keys, and we've merged your idea into that conversation: "Grading key for assignments."

 

#Wewantgradingkeys

#listentousers

#callitwhateveryouwantjustmakeitfunctionalsforteachers

 

So my question is WHY NOT!   I can honestly say I don't care what you call it.   I want to be able to use Canvas as a functional piece of software but the idea that admins don't want to have a rubric perceived as a grading key is crazy.  

 

Sorry for venting, but why isn't this a thing already?

jdabb
Community Member

When you speed grade assignment, it would be nice to have the answer key file also launch.

pwiltshireuts
Community Member

Great idea to create a separate tool to a rubric. I would use a tool like this for staff only - to assist with marking, not necessarily to be released to students at any point.

cejones
Community Explorer

The rubric allows us to type specific feedback for each criterion, and then to assign points.  It already thus functions as a grading key.  The only problem is that when the scores are hidden in the gradebook, Canvas STUPIDLY sends out a message each and every time I make a comment on their written work AND it reveals my grading in progress.

All Canvas has to do is to hide all of the in-progress grading until the instructor reveals the final scores in the gradebook.

Why would Canvas design a system that SECRETLY sends a notification every time I make a comment on their essay?  Is this how instructors normally graded papers in times of old, with students looking over their shoulder?  Why would Canvas provide space to comment along side the rubric criteria and reveal these comments in real time while the instructor is still working through the essay, EVEN THOUGH THE INSTRUCTOR HAS HIDDEN THE GRADES?

There is nothing worse than software that behaves in both secret and unexpected ways.

I will now go see if GradeScope does a better job.  It can't do worse!

creiser127
Community Member

Yes, please! It is bizarre to me that Canvas does not view rubrics as a grading tool. Rubrics have always traditionally been a scoring tool. 

Consider discussions or other assignments which are often open-ended. We do not want to give students the answer but want to provide overall standards for what an "A" post might look like. But, as the instructor, I know what I am specifically looking for and should have the ability to score that appropriately. 

For example, consider some discussion prompt and the standard for exemplary:

  1. The rubric visible to students might say that an exemplary post "displays an excellent understanding of the required instructional materials and underlying concepts including accurate use and application of terminology, graphs,..."
  2. A second, hidden "scoring" rubric or scoring tool would say that the exemplary post  "accurately and completely includes the following concepts from the learning materials: comparative advantage, gains from trade,... includes accurate and complete graph of...." and might even include a sample post. 

It would just be so much easier to open up SpeedGrader and have a dropdown menu of a hidden Scoring Rubric to use. 

Blackboard Learn had the ability to use multiple rubrics and hide them. It was incredibly useful, particularly given the increasing number of students in online classrooms and having teaching assistants. 

 

amixon
Community Member

I don't know who at Canvas and elsewhere are saying rubrics are not for grading.  That's literally their purpose 

In US education terminology, rubric is "a scoring guide used to evaluate the quality of students' constructed responses". Put simply, it is a set of criteria for grading assignments. Rubrics usually contain evaluative criteria, quality definitions for those criteria at particular levels of achievement, and a scoring strategy.

So if you are stating in the rubric, students must show mole to mole ratios, molar mass calculations, complete and correct units, correct sig figs as part of you rubric which you use for grading and assessment and said rubric is VISIBLE, then students can use the rubric to discover what you are looking for when GRADING.

And to those that say, oh well the students should see that - NO.  Students are asked to KNOW what they need to do with good problem solving as presented in lectures, non-Canvas assignments, and Canvas quizzes.  You are literally assessing them on if they learned the correct process!

If Canvas wants to use rubrics for instructional criteria and expectations then they SHOULD NOT HAVE POINTS!!

You have given us a grading tool, not an instructional tool.  We should be able to hide grading tools from students at will.

ProductPanda
Instructure
Instructure
Status changed to: Archived
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