Grading at scale is a time-tested practice with many benefits, the most prominent being that a standardized and efficient grading system helps both educators and students track students’ learning progress throughout the course.
However, when it comes to deeper assessment of student work, traditional grading practices present shortcomings and can sometimes invite biases and inconsistencies, according to the Harvard Graduate School of Education. While this issue spans primary, secondary, and post-secondary education, it’s most common in large enrollment courses in higher education due to the sheer volume of student work instructors have to grade.
An increasing global trend (Yelkpiere, et al. 2012), the motivations behind these oversized courses include increased student enrollment, budget restraints, and resource management, and in the case of higher education, high demand for a required course. Large enrollment courses often number in the hundreds of students (At UC Berkeley, the largest course in 2013 reportedly had 1,098 students).
In this blog post, we’ll explore the challenges of large enrollment classes, the impact a large class size can have on students, and what instructors can do to counteract those effects. We’ll also look at the future of large classroom learning in the age of artificial intelligence and ever-evolving technology.
What is the challenge of large classrooms in higher education?
Although a vast amount of students are being taught in a model of large introductory classes, such courses have earned decreased ratings of quality and satisfaction compared to courses with lower enrollment (Ng & Newpher, 2021). A poor experience in an introductory course, according to a Chronicle of Higher Education article, makes students less likely to take the next course in the sequence; it stands to reason that a good experience in an introductory course leads students to more likely take the next course (Supiano, 2018).
Beyond managing a growing number of students in a physical or virtual classroom, high enrollment courses present instructors and teaching assistants with a staggering volume of assignments, exams, and projects to grade. Managing and recording grades for a large number of students adds to the administrative burden for instructors, an area, according to a survey by Merrimack College and the EdWeek Research Center, that more than 30 percent of teachers would prefer to dedicate less time to.
As a result of a cumbersome workload outside of the classroom, providing timely, constructive, personalized, or simply quality feedback to each student on assignments becomes challenging. The risk of errors, inconsistencies, and/or the “grading drift”—the tendency for an instructor to allow their grading standards to drift or slip—also increases with high-enrollment courses, any of which can lead to the potential hindrance of student progress overall.
How can large enrollments negatively impact students?
Most educators would agree with the National Education Association’s observation that today’s students have increasingly complicated academic and mental health needs. Traditional approaches to high-enrollment courses make it virtually impossible to meet those individual needs.
Joe Cuseo, an educational advisor and professor emeritus of psychology, researched several “deleterious outcomes” when it comes to high enrollment classes:
- Similar to instructors’ potential “grading drift,” increased faculty reliance on a lecture method in large-class settings, rather than a discussion-based method, may result in “attention drift”, even amongst the most highly-motivated post-grads.
- In large classes, students are less likely to engage, ask questions, or have the opportunity for one-on-one discussions, and were reported to be most dissatisfied with the decreased frequency of assessments.
- Lower levels of academic achievement (learning), academic performance (grades), and reduced overall course satisfaction (Cuseo, 2007).
The overall loss of personal interaction due to the number of students in large-sized courses can lead to more anonymity and a decreased sense of community among students. Faculty report the comforts common in small-sized courses, such as knowing students’ names, aren’t feasible with large enrollment (Schneiter, et al., 2021).
Additionally, summative assessment, the ‘assessment of learning,’ is dominant in large classrooms. This can lead to reduced opportunities for formative assessment, the ‘assessment for learning,” to support learning in low-stakes settings.
How can institutions make large classrooms feel small?
Though large class sizes may be unavoidable for those teaching in higher education, there are tactics to help instructors mitigate their negative impact; Cuseo advises instructors to “change the process of instructional delivery” (Cuseo, 2007). This can be achieved through several practices, including a flipped classroom model, peer-to-peer learning or mentorship opportunities, and small group activities facilitated by technology. Institutional support through training in educational technology and policies that promote innovative teaching practices are crucial.
Enhanced student engagement is vital to making a large class feel less so. Researchers Cooper and Chike offer more practical ways to infuse an oversized course with a small classroom feel to counteract student disengagement and boost students’ overall learning experience:
- Leverage online discussion boards to foster peer dialogue about particular topics or questions from class, or more informal subjects (Cooper, et al., 2017).
- Incorporate active learning activities such as digital “minute papers” or in-class polling with multiple choice questions utilizing clickers.
- Promote feedback loops using digital post-exam feedback or creating videos, available beyond in-class time, explaining the answer to specific assessment questions that many struggled with (Chike, 2022).
- Offer virtual office hours, which may be more accessible to students than traditional in-office meetings.
Writing, and the feedback writing requires, makes students feel seen and engages personalized feedback and learning. According to Cuseo’s findings, “Test scores in large classes were most often based on multiple-choice tests, whereas test scores in the smallest classes were most often based on tests that required students to write.” When the latter assessment format is lacking in large courses, there is a detrimental effect on students’ motivation and depth of learning (Cuseo, 2007).
Consider, also, the possibilities for adapting the lecture format and its ‘passive’ learning to create opportunities for participation that mimic the feel of smaller classroom settings. “Undergraduate students in classes with traditional stand-and-deliver lectures are 1.5 times more likely to fail than students in classes that use more stimulating, so-called active learning methods,” Science magazine reported (Bajak, 2014).
Bottom line, increasing class sizes is an institutional choice. According to Martha Oakley, Associate Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education at Indiana University Bloomington, “a university that makes that choice has an obligation to provide instructors sufficient support to do so equitably” (Chronicle of Higher Education, 2022).
That support can come in the form of investment in adaptive learning technologies and AI, which are revolutionizing how educators identify and address learning gaps. Instructors can easily tailor content to individual students’ needs, and collect and analyze data to aid in closing gaps and improve learning performance (Laak & Aru, 2024). Additionally, innovations in grading at scale can support a variety of assessment formats while saving instructors’ time and effort.
What role does technology play in streamlining grading workflows?
Assessment is recognized as one of the most significant aspects of an educational experience. Modern developments in educational technology complement the competencies, knowledge, and skills today’s students need to flourish in a changing world (Oldfield, et al., 2012). These strides in edtech also serve as an enabler of assessment and reduce administrative burdens for individuals and collaborative grading teams alike.
In collaborative grading, instructors (the teaching assistants and professor) for one course will traditionally convene and grade assignments together, swapping physical student papers. Education technology can increase the flexibility of collaborative grading so it’s not bound to in-person settings, but rather, capable of being done remotely or asynchronously.
In partnership with edtech, what are some tactics to engage fast and fair grading teams?
- Utilize teaching assistants as a de facto grading team, and set clear priorities and standards for their grading and feedback.
- Develop an answer key or rubric that offers guidelines to expected student responses and a definition of performance level, allowing graders to understand and coordinate feedback. Grading tools like Paper to Digital enable personalized feedback while upholding fair and consistent grading.
- Grading by question, rather than by student, can reduce grading bias and inconsistencies between members of a grading team. Traditionally, it may consist of ‘dog-earing’ pages containing names, and is now a function supported by Paper to Digital for unprecedented ease and application.
Turnitin understands the learning journey involves feedback loops and a constant cycle of improvement and innovation. The new Turnitin Feedback Studio add-on, Paper to Digital, helps educators overcome the logistical barriers of paper-based assessment through digital workflows and aids in collaborative grading; a primary solution in managing the workload of grading for large enrollment courses.
Dynamic rubrics within Paper to Digital support consistency and fairness; the platform allows instructors to make scoring and rubric changes that apply retroactively, no matter where they are in the grading process. It also provides instructors with the ability to grade horizontally to reduce task switching and allows for reusable comments, further saving time. With AI-assisted grading and answer grouping, grading is streamlined across multiple-choice and short-answer questions to reduce the workload on instructors.
Automatic roster matching allows educators to efficiently manage student data and grades, ultimately reducing administrative overhead and seamlessly integrating with Learning Management Systems. Beyond complementing the existing teaching environment and instructor methods, Paper to Digital can collect data on student performance and engagement and form part of early warning systems to identify at-risk students.
The future of large classroom learning
As institutions continue to scale enrollment and course offerings, making large classrooms feel small is of benefit to students and educators alike. Investment in technology and training will be essential for educators to adapt to students’ evolving educational needs, and ongoing advancements in edtech and AI will only serve to further streamline grading at scale, alleviating much of the administrative burden of teaching.
Beyond the benefits of efficiency and consistency, these advancements reinforce the promise of greater inclusivity of diverse learning needs, student-educator interactivity, and enhanced learning outcomes.
Turnitin’s goal has always been to empower educators in instructional delivery and help make students feel seen and supported in their learning journey. Enabling instructors to grade faster and more fairly in every subject and in every setting is a key aspect of this.
Turnitin Feedback Studio has long addressed and deterred academic misconduct, streamlined grading and feedback and guided student writing, and the Paper to Digital feature works further to unite the instructional flexibility of paper with the speed and precision of digital grading. Use them to scale your teaching and grading efforts and future-proof your course offerings.