The development of oral presentation skills requires multiple opportunities to present and receive focused feedback. In typical discipline-based and general-education courses, class time is precious, and even when oral presentations are part of a course, students may receive only one or two opportunities to present with feedback. Here we describe…

Standards-based grading ensures students are graded consistently and fairly based on mastery of objectives versus non-academic reasons, such as participation, behavior, and effort, but implementation of standards-based grading faces many challenges. This narrative qualitative study explored teachers' experiences with and stories about implementing…

Grading standards in college vary substantially across fields, especially among STEM fields that tend to give lower grades than non-STEM fields. Prior research has demonstrated that grades affect course and major choices, but less is known about how policies oriented to reduce differences in grading standards across fields affect persistence and…

High school science teacher Michelle Vanhala reflects on her (sometimes rocky) path to standards-based grading and a grading system that aligned with her educational philosophy.

Gaps in teacher communication can cause confusion, especially when it comes to grades. To reduce asymmetries of information when grading performance tasks and projects, teachers should seek to honor each student's unique learning trajectory. Here, authors Eric Carbaugh and Kristina Doubet, present five ways to improve communication--and…

Concept maps make connections between ideas apparent, and thus would seem ideally suited to demonstrate learning. Yet, they are not widely used by instructors, particularly in large university classes. In this paper we review the strengths and rationale behind concept maps and provide examples we have used to structure content for one of our…

Teachers spend much of their time on assessment, yet many higher education teachers have received minimal guidance on assessment design and marking. This means assessment can often be a source of stress and frustration. "Assessment and Feedback in Higher Education" aims to solve these problems. Offering a concise overview of assessment…

Purpose: The undergraduate dissertation (UD) can be considered to be a reflection of the influence of the sustainable developmental goals (SDG) and the professional identity of the students. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the extent to which the topics of the UD reflect the SDG, considering, moreover, that they may be related to the…

National assessments of mathematics are often used as an objective measurement of students' knowledge. However, various factors are believed to influence students' achievements on the national assessments, among which students' invested effort. Moreover, students' effort may vary between genders and might be influenced by the presence of external…

This paper examines students' patterns of success in classes with high DFW rates at a research-intensive university. We investigated whether certain assignment types were associated with inequitable grade distributions for underrepresented minority (URM) and transfer students and whether assignment grade patterns were similar to final grade…

This quantitative, correlational study compared the perceptions of grading practices and outcomes between teachers who teach in standards-based and traditional grading systems. Using the Teachers Perceptions of Grading Practices Scale, data was collected from a total of 217 elementary teachers and 120 middle school teachers representing seven…

In 2011, the state of Maine introduced a statute that required all diplomas to be awarded on the basis of proficiency by 2017. During this period of time, school districts moved to incorporate Proficiency-based Education (PBE) systems of instruction and learning. This prompted educators to bring clarity to standards, assessment, and grading…

As Computer Science course enrollments have increased over recent years, instructors have turned to automated grading systems to help relieve the burden of processing student assignments. However, the available autograding solutions have generally lacked support for traditionally difficult-to-grade advanced topics courses. In this thesis, I…

Background/Context: Pass/fail standardized exams frequently selectively rescore failing exams and retest failing examinees. This practice distorts the test score distribution and can confuse those who do analysis on these distributions. In 2011, the Wall Street Journal showed large discontinuities in the New York City Regent test score…

The current paper focusses on the teachers' attitude towards and experiences with e-learning tools at two universities in different phases of e-learning implementation. The study population comprises teachers at university level and a simple random sampling method was used. A total of 45 teachers in bachelor programmes from the Faculty of…