The arrival of autumn here in North America doesn’t equate to pumpkin spice lattes for all; in fact, for educators, it marks the start of a very busy fall conference and mid-term season. And with the extra to-do list items and stacks of papers, it’s no surprise that autumn also signals the arrival of The Gremlins of Grading: Overload, Deadline, Loop-Loop, Seesaw, and Domino. These crafty creatures find their way into classrooms across the US, causing trip-ups and trouble wherever they go.
If the Grading Gremlins have already paid you a visit, you know the destruction that is left in their wake. That’s why it’s helpful to have a tool like Turnitin Feedback Studio at your disposal, which can stop a grading gremlin in its tracks. Intrigued? Here are five ways Feedback Studio turns those gremlin tricks into treats:
- “All done! Wait, what?” Just when you think you’ve crossed off the final task on your list, Overload sneaks into your classroom and adds yet another to-do item. No doubt teachers feel like their work is never done when the schedule-scheming gremlin, Overload, is around.
- Lucky for you, Turnitin Feedback Studio keeps your work process streamlined, keeping all student work in one place, so Overload can't get in to leave those messes.
- “Attention: all final grades due to be inputted into the system… yesterday.” Wondering how your autumn schedule flew by? Blame Deadline, a ravenous gremlin that gluttonously chews up the time between when your students submit their work and the due date for their grades for progress reports. Beware: Deadline is awfully hungry and has a favorite fall meal... your spare time.
- Never fear: Feedback Studio tracks all your feedback and digitizes it--and saves you time. With Feedback Studio protecting your grading process, Deadline will have a very hard time finding anything to eat.
- “Needs review… See above… Needs review… See above…” Loop-Loop is at it again: you suddenly find yourself stuck in the same grading moment, over and over and over. The Loop-Loop grading gremlin is subtle, but merciless, trapping teachers in a tedious cycle of marking for what feels like an eternity. Once you’re Loop-Looped in, it can feel nearly impossible to get out.
- But wait: there’s a way to keep Loop-Loop out of the loop. By using Feedback Studio, rubrics allow for consistent grading across all papers, while QuickMarks ensure that your feedback rubrics and feedback are digitized, streamlining the grading process and creating consistency across papers. That way, you avoid the black holes of grading (and Loop-Loop’s wily ways!) with an efficient, built-in system.
- “Is it this, that, or something in the middle?” Loop-Loop’s conniving counterpart, Seesaw, makes grading even harder by shifting context and flip-flopping feedback, so instructors have a hard time offering clarity and structure when grading student papers. Seesaw delights in confusion and boggles the brain when it comes to educators providing actionable, consistent, and formative feedback.
- Sorry, not sorry, Seesaw: Feedback Studio rubrics make it so grading is efficient and applied to all papers. Better yet, Feedback Studio strongly upholds the tenants of actionable, specific, timely, and formative feedback with its Quickmarks, which means Seesaw will be unable to confuse you at any point while grading.
- “When it rains, it pours.” As if the mayhem of midterm season wasn’t enough, Domino shows up to make things worse. This grading gremlin adds additional chaos to the lives of students and teachers everywhere, wreaking havoc during an already stressful season. Whether it’s a sudden power outage, an unexpected traffic jam, a coffee spill on a laptop, or accidentally misplaced work, this grading gremlin causes a devious domino effect that befalls students and instructors alike.
- Thank goodness Feedback Studio enables grading anywhere, anytime, with a paperless system that keeps all student work portable and in one place. Where Domino depends on stacks of papers to spill coffee, Feedback Studio ensures that they're nowhere to be found! Domino: FOILED.
No matter which gremlin has paid you a visit, don’t let these crabby creatures bust your pumpkin. With the right organization and preparation — not to mention the help of tools like Feedback Studio — instructors can conquer the Gremlins of Grading and reclaim autumn, once and for all.
Want to provide meaningful student feedback and avoid those Gremlins of Grading? Learn more about Feedback Studio.