When we become teachers, we understand that we will provide learning experiences for students and give them feedback about their performance. We know that this feedback helps students develop their skills and informs them of the quality of their achievement. In recent years, however, an even greater focus on student performance and achievement has increased assessment expectations of teachers everywhere. Besides giving formative and summative feedback to students on how well they meet objectives, teachers must now

• observe and measure students’ ability to meet learning outcomes and
• report and document outcomes and grades to programs, schools, and accrediting bodies.

Focusing on student achievement is important and laudable, and so today’s “culture of assessment” is likely here to stay. Yet for teachers in intensive English programs (IEPs), whose classes often meet 5 days per week and whose curricula are ambitious and extensive, these increased reporting and documentation requirements can become overwhelming. Students need and deserve timely feedback, but busy teachers have finite time and energy for additional documentation.

In our IEP at a university in the midwestern United States, we began in recent years to feel overwhelmed by the increasing documentation load. The “intensive” in intensive English program took on a new meaning for instructors, and we had concern that constant measurement and evaluation by teacherstook students out of the learning equation, making them less independent. We decided to devote an in-service day to assessment issues, and after discussion the faculty developed our program’s Assessment Vision. In our ideal world, students receive frequent and timely feedback from multiple sources, and instructors grade and assess enough to document students’ achievement of outcomes. In addition, instructors strike a balance in the freedom of assessment, using as appropriate response, assessment, evaluation, or grading (Tschudi, 1997). Finally, assessment and evaluation is a responsibility that is shared by both the teacher and the student.

As we worked to achieve our vision, we took specific steps:

1. Define Expectations for Frequency of Assessment

How often should we measure whether students meet learning outcomes? Unless expectations for frequency of assessment are defined by a program, teachers may be overassessing for their documentation, leading to stress. At our in-service day, we had a group discussion and reached consensus about assessment frequency for our specific program and for our specific learning outcomes. This gives all faculty—both new hires and senior instructors—benchmarks for assessment frequency. Focusing our definition on outcomes puts emphasis on student learning, not on what teachers “do” in the classroom. Here is one example:

Intermediate-Level Outcome: Student will be able to write a short essay with rudimentary organization (introduction, body, and conclusion)
Assessment Type: Program rubric
Frequency: 3-4 times per semester

By setting specific expectations for frequency, we avoid the possibility that instructors might be underassessing or overassessing. By defining “enough,” we can prevent instructor overload.

2. Share Ideas and Models for Assessment Types

Great ideas for dealing with the grading load may be close at hand from your own colleagues. Another agenda item at our in-service day was to brainstorm and share models for assessment types for all of the subjects we teach. Then we selected from this list assessment types that documented observable and measurable outcomes, that saved time, or that promoted students’ independence and ability to self-assess.All of these criteria were important to us. Some of the ideas in this article were gleaned from our program’s meeting.

3. Adopt Technology

Technology can help teachers handle the grading load. In our IEP, we have used freeware and also programs licensed by our university to assist us with grading, reporting, and documentation. Engrade is a free online grade book program we have adopted. ¨Instructors can record grades, students can see them in real time, and—most significant for us—we can tag assignments with standards that document specific outcomes. Turnitin and its companion program, GradeMark allow us to check for plagiarism and originality; they also allow instructors to drag and drop their comments onto uploaded student essays from a customizable comment library. Instructors can also set up their own rubric in GradeMark or import Common Core rubrics to assess writing. Jing is a freeware program that allows instructors to make short screencast movies with audio. An instructor can open a document sent electronically from a student and use Jing to highlight problem areas while making voice commentary to explain the issues. Sending the student a link to the screencast means paperless grading. Camtasia, the paid version, has more features and capabilities. Using Blackboard, Moodle, or similar learning environments can also help instructors manage their grading loads when testing applications are incorporated in the setup.

Technology can also be used to outsource some of the grading that instructors have to do. Online textbook ancillaries are increasingly common, and textbook publishers are moving some of their workbooks online. Intentional adoption of these supporting ancillaries can lighten the checking and grading responsibilities of teachers and may be motivating to students.

4. Use Multiple Modes of Assessment and Feedback

Some of the pressure on teachers in today’s culture of assessment is the time factor—getting feedback to students quickly. The following strategies can decrease pressure on instructors to “mark and return” students’ work to them, yet still provide them with timely feedback:

• Special scratch-off answer sheets, IF-AT (Immediate Feedback Assessment Technique). These can be used for clear multiple-choice tests. Students know the correct answer immediately, so instructors have more time to record scores in the grade book. Anecdotally, students seem to answer with greater consideration and care. These can also be used for group tests on which students share a grade, encouraging greater discussion and critical thinking. IF-AT answer sheets are available from Epstein Educational Enterprises.
• Projecting answers immediately after a test or quiz, with PowerPoint or a document camera.
• Online quizzes (with Engrade, Blackboard, etc.). Quizzes are automatically scored and uploaded to the grade book. These might be best reserved for low-stakes evaluation and review.
• Rubrics for observable outcomes. Rather than always marking up and correcting student work, instructors can focus on one outcome and record whether students met this specific outcome. These are especially useful for in-class work. Example:

Observed Outcomes Chart

• Portfolios: Items are not formally assessed until students submit a “best of” example.
• Fluency journals (graded: accept/revise): Students gain experience as writers and spend important time on task without requiring detailed marking by the instructor. Students can also later revise a piece of writing in the journal as a graded essay.
• A summative continuum: After a student submits a first draft and receives formative feedback according to a specific rubric, final feedback can be more summative. Example:

Summative Continuum Rubric

• Oral feedback: Instructors can do this in person or with a recording.
• On-the-spot grading: Useful for oral presentations. With a well-designed rubric, instructors evaluate during class, while students are speaking.
• Audio and video recordings: Students can view and self-assess with a checklist or rubric prior to the instructor’s assessment. This is very powerful feedback, and recordings are also documentation of outcomes.

5. Stack the Deck for Student Independence and Responsibility

The last thing we want to hear students say is, “I haven’t worked on this anymore because I haven’t received your corrections on my first draft yet.” Ensuring that students are doing their own part in achieving outcomes is also a goal of those who wish to “handle the grading load.” Consider trying the following:

• In a class that focuses on note taking, assess students’ lecture notes every other chapter. Students self-assess on the other chapters.
• Require multiple drafts of an assignment prior to submission for final evaluation (giving process points along the way). This can result in a better final product to grade and evaluate.
• Require students to assess their own work before submission, with a checklist or rubric. They can include things as basic as “Is your paper double-spaced? ___yes ___no. Is your Reference list alphabetized? ___yes ___no”—or anything you find yourself correcting over and over.
• Require students to assess themselves with the assignment rubric and attach it to the final draft when submitting it. The rubric can have two columns: one for students, one for the teacher.
• If you do peer editing, support the peer editors with a checklist to guide them. Have peer editors focus on big-picture ideas and support, and reserve the grammar feedback for the instructor.
• Develop a program-wide editing checklist, if you use editing symbols in feedback, so that students become familiar with them and with the meta-language.

All teachers share the goal of wanting students to learn and improve. Documenting this student learning beyond simple grades in today’s culture of assessment may be time-consuming, but it can be done. By defining expectations for frequency of assessment, sharing ideas for assessment collaboratively, adopting technology, using multiple modes of assessment and feedback, and encouraging student independence and responsibility, IEPs can strike a balance in grading and assessment. Teachers can document student learning outcomes as they “handle the grading load.”

REFERENCES:

Tschudi, S. (Ed.). (1997). Alternatives to grading student writing. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.

Jane Conzett is the director of the Intensive English Program at Xavier University, in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Lara Dorger is a longtime Instructor in the Intensive English Program at Xavier University.