Finally, a solution to end my 16-hour days of grading and prepping: simply hire 300 anonymous adjuncts to do my grading FOR me. This is the solution that online university Western Governors University has used to eliminate the problem of grade inflation. See this article in the Chronicle of Higher Education. This continues a discussion started last week
This quote about captures it for me: "[The adjuncts] think like assessors, not professors," says Diane Johnson, who is in charge of the university's cadre of graders. "The evaluators have no contact with the students at all. They don't know them. They don't know what color they are, what they look like, or where they live. Because of that, there is no temptation to skew results in any way other than to judge the students' work."
My first gleeful response is that if this were adopted by my college (assuming we had the money to hire 300 adjuncts to grade all of my work), I could be the kind of professor that my friends and students think I am: one who only works during the hours I am in class. Now THAT would be ideal! It would eliminate the problem of grade grubbing, brown-nosing, and practicing the art of deferring any and all gifts until after grades have been posted. It would also eliminate the stress, lack of sleep, and lack of time that currently plagues me during the nine months of the academic year.
My second response: why would an ONLINE university be more concerned that its professors, who already somewhat view students anonymously (generally), cannot be impartial? The argument seems to be that because professors interact daily with these students, we cannot possibly be qualified to assess their levels of learning because, as evidenced by the grade inflation curve, professors MUST be the cause of the grade inflation. I don't know about others, but when I teach online courses, these are generally students I do not know (at all). They are already anonymous to me (aside from having names). So why the need for further measures of 'impartiality?'
Moreover, the idea that getting to know a student makes one LESS able to judge this student's ability and knowledge is one that confounds me. Isn't this what we've been told to do--increase interaction with students to increase retention; get to know students so we can best teach to their specific abilities; accommodate out the wazoo; incorporate high-impact learning strategies so students can learn in a memorable way rather than through traditional lecture (which seemed to work best at keeping students anonymous; I KNOW that in larger lecture courses, my professors didn't know my name, or any of the 80 other students in the course with me). We can't have it both ways, can we?
Take this quote, for example: "These efforts raise the question: What if professors aren't that good at grading? What if the model of giving instructors full control over grades is fundamentally flawed? As more observers call for evidence of college value in an era of ever-rising tuition costs, game-changing models like these are getting serious consideration."
Professors do score poorly when it comes to fair grading, according to a study published in July in the journal Teachers College Record. After crunching the numbers on decades' worth of grade reports from about 135 colleges, the researchers found that average grades have risen for 30 years, and that A is now the most common grade given at most colleges. The authors, Stuart Rojstaczer and Christopher Healy, argue that a "consumer-based approach" to higher education has created subtle incentives for professors to give higher marks than deserved. "The standard practice of allowing professors free rein in grading has resulted in grades that bear little relation to actual performance," the two professors concluded."
The accusation that professors are simply unable to assess correctly because we are human and, therefore, doomed to only grade students based on how much we like them is, quite frankly, insulting. Yes, we have been encouraged by administrators to make sure our grades align with others in our departments (at least I have been encouraged to do so), and have griped about students treating their education as commodities for us to grant. But is that the ONLY reason grades could have gone up? I can name many a student I have really liked, and been sad to assign the grade earned, as I'm sure most of my colleagues can do. Yes, we have a problem, but is it automatically the professor who is the cause of the problem? That conclusion seems to be one that has been jumped on a little too quickly. Don't we teach our students to look at ALL variable for erroneous cause-effect (post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, anyone?) links? Yet this doesn't seem to be what researchers have done.
Sorry all, I can't seem to edit correctly to get all my fonts lined up! Yes, I am that much of a luddite.
ReplyDeleteIf you access the page through collegemisery.com, it is sometimes the case that clicking on the post title will NOT show you the address.
ReplyDeleteHowever, if you go through collegemisery.blogspot.com, you can always access the full article link.
Sorry for any inconvenience.
I actually wouldn't mind working in a system where the final assessment was done by someone else (preferably others who taught the same class). I rather like the idea of working *with* my students to meet a common standard, rather than having them feel that I could give them a higher grade if I chose to.
ReplyDeleteBut (and this is a big "but") such an approach requires a high degree of standardization among sections of a course, which can be both a plus and a minus. I think that I push my students to do some things that are a bit more challenging than the standard assignments, and that they learn more in the process, but someone looking for a "research paper" that follows the standard comp-class formula might actually grade my students down (mind you, my students are mastering all the same skills, they're just going a bit beyond that). The ideal would definitely be assessment by a group of faculty who both taught the class and assessed each others' students' work, and who met regularly to set goals, norm grading, etc. That's not at all what WGU is doing if it's hiring a bunch of adjuncts who never communicate with each other (and who presumably get no credit for "service" or "scholarship of teaching" or whatever else one wants to call the collective knowledge-making that goes on among a group of faculty who work closely with each other over time).
This system also seems to assume that there's a bright line between formative feedback and grading, which is definitely not the case in my experience. I suppose I could provide feedback only on drafts, with no grade, but, realistically, students often decide whether and how much to revise based in part on the preliminary grade that usually comes with such feedback. I bet that the teachers in this system will end up getting a lot of pressure to try to predict grades, which sort of defeats the purpose.
P.S. to Cynic: I've noticed the same thing when trying to make references back to earlier parts of our ongoing conversation (which strikes me as a practice to be encouraged when possible). At least in my setup (Windows/Firefox), right-clicking on one of the links in the archive in the right-hand column gives me the choice to "copy link location," which produces a full link that can then be pasted into the "link" box (or the "href=", if you can remember the formula, which I sometimes can). Maybe there's a better way (this advice probably counts as an example of a luddite leading a luddite), but that's how I've been doing it.
And I see the moderator posted another solution while I was typing. So there are at least two.
ReplyDeleteI like this idea in general but there are two sticking points. Cynic mentions the cost, which would be significant. With that workload outsourced, what would faculty and graduate students be expected to do to earn their keep? Probably teach more. Things would change although I don't anticipate many faculty complaining if anything replaces grading.
ReplyDeleteThis would not be a cure for grade inflation. Universities would hire assessment companies to provide temporary independent contractors. These companies would develop reputations for not just quality of grading but rigor also. A few would fill the small niche by being extremely tough while most would grade easy enough to attract lots of university customers while maintaining high enough standards to look like they aren't too easy. Basically, if a school wants all their students to get A's, they can pressure faculty to do it or hire a third party.
Cynic, I don't think getting to know our students makes us better graders. I could grade the same poorly worded answer and think "she's very smart, I know what she's trying to tell me" or "she's an idiot, does she expect me to translate this into English?" Knowing the students can lessen my objectivity. There's less of that influence in a large lecture class or in an online class but it's still there.
I don't see grade inflation as an accusation of professors' abilities but just a recognition that we are human. Faculty respond to external incentives, such as maintaining job security and the desire to be well-liked. It's not surprising that these factors cause grade inflation.
"My second response: why would an ONLINE university be more concerned that its professors, who already somewhat view students anonymously (generally), cannot be impartial?"
ReplyDeleteI am a bit embarrassed to admit that I didn't even think of such an excellent and obvious point. Maybe it's because so far I've met all of my online students in person. My school is quite small and even our online students are local.
@Beaker Ben: I don't think getting to know our students makes us better graders, but I think it makes us better able to judge how to best present information to them so they can better learn. That's what we seem to be told to do (to personalize education). This, I agree with you, CAN lead to some people wanting to let a student 'slide' if they know the person, but I don't think THAT alone, is the reason for grade inflation.
ReplyDelete@Prissy Prof: I've taught both local students who come to my office to meet with me and students who have enrolled in online courses whom I will never meet face-to-face. :o) And I sometimes like the ones I never meet a whole lot more... so who knows what that says about my point overall. :o)
ReplyDelete@Moderator: thanks! :o)
ReplyDeleteThis solution is more about policing the professors than it is about relieving their burden or grade inflation. It's also another step in de-valuing professors; as you noted, you would not longer be assessing. You would be teaching, hoping that your teaching corresponds with "passing" and then taking more time for research or drinking.
ReplyDeleteWith less official duties, your time and qualifications are worth less and the continued lack of raises will be a new way of devaluing academic scholarship.
We actually (in my department) grade all final exams blind for the general education sequence of courses we teach (i.e. comp). We mix up the essay exams and grade. This still doesn't seem to stop grade inflation (perhaps because the final exam is only worth 10% of the final grade?), but it makes students happy to know there is SOME level of impartiality.
ReplyDeleteOnce upon a time, I was appalled that TAs did at least half the grading. Now I hardly notice. But it is truly bizarre to have someone else assess your students' learning of what you, not they, have taught.
ReplyDeleteThere's a key point here that needs emphasizing. WGU doesn't use the traditional educational model that we're used to; they teach by assigning modular chunks of information that the student then demonstrates mastery of by turning in a project. As the article's author phrases it, "Technically it doesn't offer courses; instead it provides mentors who help students prepare for a series of high-stakes homework assignments. Those assignments are designed by a team of professional test-makers to prove competence in various subject areas." Based on this kind of educational model, using a third-party grader makes sense.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I've been involved in a freshman composition program that uses blind, distributed grading for all assignments. It's similar to but not quite the same thing as the WGU program, and I'll give no more specifics in order to maintain my anonymity, but I'll say that outside some outraged squawking from touchy-feely sorts who feed off the "let us coddle the precious darlings and guide them to enlightenment," the distributed grading model works pretty well.
I agree with everything you've written except for wondering why online professors would "know" their students. If one teaches online well, that professor in some ways knows his or her students better than one who sees them only in class. I'm in my online classrooms at least five days a week. All my students write extensively, so everyone participates and I get a sense of them that I wouldn't if Sheila Snowflake were just sitting in the back of the class. I chat, IM, text, and email them. Sometimes I talk with them on the phone as well. Some do come to campus to meet me, but others never do. I have written recommendation letters for students I've never met in person because I know them from the quality of their work and our interactions. I do feel a connection with them, but, just as in my in-person classes, that connection should not influence my grading.
ReplyDeleteRegarding outsourced grading, the only experience I've had comes from work at two previous schools at which both used exit exams for freshman comp. All faculty whose disciplines required writing were asked to grade at one; at the other, only English faculty participated. We received blind papers with only a participant number on them, did calibrating sessions with papers from previous years, and usually knocked them all out within a day. I thought it was a good experience, and I generally found my overall grading was validated by my colleagues' perceptions of the finals.
@F&T: although it's horribly, unforgivably exploited these days, I do think the TA system has something worthwhile at its core: the idea of a community of teachers, or, in the case of TAs, a community of apprentices led by a master teacher. Of course plenty of master teachers fall down on the job (or are given such ridiculous schedules that they have no time to give to the TAs -- mentoring more than one or two TAs should really count as a course in itself, to my mind), but the principle is there. Or maybe I've only seen the better side of the system (at my grad institution, the original tradition was for profs to run discussion sections for each others' lectures, and there was still a pretty strong tradition of mentoring and coordinating with the TAs that had almost entirely taken the place of the other professors).
ReplyDelete@MindBender & EnglishDoc: though I've had extremely limited experience with distributed grading, I, too, think it can be a good idea. But, at its best, distributed grading and the practices that go along with it (e.g. norming/calibrating sessions) facilitate a conversation among faculty that leads to ongoing small (and sometimes large) revisions of course and assignment methods, goals, etc. Basically, it's a form of ongoing research, with the opportunity to immediately apply some of the results of that research very quickly (often next semester). When you lose the ongoing conversation (by using adjuncts and a central administrator rather than a group of continuing, ideally full-time and TT, colleagues), you lose one of the most valuable products of the exercise (knowledge of changing student needs/what needs to be measured) and end up with only a more impoverished one (grades calculated according to a system that will be changed only when some central administrator decides it's time). WGU's model actually sounds intriguing to me, but unless the assessments are being regularly updated by people who work with the students under average conditions, they're going to end up falling behind in discerning and meeting their students' needs. As someone who teaches skill- rather than content-focused classes (writing), I'm also suspicious of the "demonstrating mastery" (presumably of content) model. Ideally, good writing assignments are complex enough to produce idiosyncratic responses, and need to be graded by people who can judge whether such responses demonstrate more or less skill than a more conventional response.
Cassandra, ohhhhh. OK. That must have been before they crammed 100s of students into a lecture hall, such that managing them takes so much time that working with TAs is impossible. TAs are now just graders, period.
ReplyDelete