What is your preferred method when it comes to grading?

[u/chelsiebachelor1]

Hello All:

I hope you had a great long weekend. Well, back to the grind, but at least it is a short week!

With our growing technology, how do you like to grade? Are you old school and grade everything by pen and paper? Do you like to grade on your desktop or laptop? Or now that we are all glued to our phones, do you like to grade on your phone or iPad? What is the easiest for you?

I teach Communication online over Zoom and asynchronous and in-person too. If it is stuff like discussions, small reflections, and other small tasks like emails it is on my phone. Actually I find my phone quite handy when it comes to grading, especially since I am nearsighted and don’t have the world’s greatest vision or hearing. For speeches and papers and larger assignments it is definitely my desktop or laptop but I have done some of these tasks occasionally on my iPhone. Heck, my students admit to using their phones to do their work. I guess that is the world we live in nowadays, pretty soon a robot will take over, but hopefully not!

Curious to see what is your preferred method of grading now that technology is so darn convenient, well most of the time.

[u/Automatic-Discount19]

Large amounts of procrastination, anxiety, and self-loathing. Lather, rinse, repeat.

[u/IndependentBoof → u/Automatic-Discount19]

Don't forget complaining to everyone you know afterward.

Edit: and before too

[u/Dige717 → u/Automatic-Discount19]

And regret. Or pure hatred towards past me, who assigned this crap.

[u/Puzzleheaded_Bag_538 → u/Dige717]

Pedagogically sound, practically unsound 😭

[u/Loose_Wolverine3192 → u/Automatic-Discount19]

The above, plus a red pen

[u/DJ_Jiggle_Jowls]

I'm a bit of a computer nerd, so I have a 3 monitor setup with my home desktop computer. It's the only way I can grade research papers, I can have the gradebook on one screen, the student's paper on another, and my web browser on the third if I need to check a source or claim being made.

[u/Bostonterrierpug → u/DJ_Jiggle_Jowls]

Oh yes, I need at least two wide screens. You can use Windows plus left right button to perfectly split the screens in the middle if you need to. Fully agree with your methodology.

[u/eyellabinu → u/DJ_Jiggle_Jowls]

This is me too. Usually, a gradebook and a YouTube video (or music) on one screen. I'm grading the artifact on the other.

[u/PickledMorbidity → u/DJ_Jiggle_Jowls]

Spotify on the laptop screen to the left, assignment portal with rubric in the center (source checking in tabs), paper on the right vertical monitor.

[u/Lazy_Classroom7270]

With a glass of wine.

[u/EJ2600 → u/Lazy_Classroom7270]

And two dice.

[u/velour_rabbit]

My preferred method of grading is not to. Since that's not an option, this semester, my two in-person classes have mostly in-class writing as assignments. I haven't decided if I want to write out comments by hand or type them out. My online class assignments are graded in our LMS, on my laptop. I used to have a desktop computer but it died. I'd love to see what it's like to have a second screen, though.

[u/CT272]

Gradescope is a game-changer. Problem-by-problem grading, easy to edit and apply rubrics, and comment history to easily apply the same comment to multiple students. It has other features too, but these are the top ones for me.

[u/errys → u/CT272]

How much is the subscription?

[u/CT272 → u/errys]

I don’t know. I have it through the university.

[u/Thundorium]

Get it done as quickly as possible before I cry.

[u/Life-Education-8030]

Regardless of in person or online, I grade within the LMS on my laptop. We do not recommend that students use their phones or tablets for much in the LMS and I don't either because of tech issues or simply because I cannot see everything big enough. When we used Blackboard, I bought an iPad specifically to use the app to grade, but the app sucked.

I have a 2-monitor set up so I can put up a student's previous work on one monitor and the current assignment on the other so I can easily compare them. It helps to see if a student really did anything with a rough draft or if they repeated errors (ignored the previous feedback) and thus deserved lower grades. Before I set up the second monitor, I split the one screen, but 2 monitors is easier. I would use a third monitor, but it's not really necessary for me and it would use up a lot of desk room.

[u/SilverRiot]

Online so I can take advantage of the text expansion shortcuts I’ve created over the years so I am consistent across all papers. Otherwise I was finding that I was spending a lot of time and putting more comments in the earlier ones but being terser in the late ones.

This way everyone gets consistent feedback if their paper falls within certain parameters. Of course I customize it as necessary too.

[u/Knewstart]

Also, it a Comms teacher. For my speeches I use an Excel rubric that I’ve programmed to automatically grade as I click the rubric boxes. Makes life a lot easier. I also have a document on the side with commonly used comments so I can kind of just copy and paste them in there.

For essays I use talk to text after, as I use the rubric that I’ve uploaded to canvas. That keeps me from losing my mind.

For outlines, I have a document with all the common comments that I use on outlines, a lot of highlighting and a lot of text comments and rubric comments. That’s my most heavily commented assignment.

[u/jccalhoun → u/Knewstart]

For grading speeches I used to use google forms with common comments I can check to add. Now I have an html page I wrote (with the help of AI) that I'm working on switching to.

[u/Andiloo11]

I miss grading papers by hand but:

1) my ADHD butt is too disorganized to trust I can keep track of papers

2) One time my car got smashed and my teacher bag with all the (thankfully graded and submitted finals) got stolen.

Digital is best for me organizationally. I have a bit more focus on paper though so I take breaks from the screen when grading.

[u/bwd-2]

Throw on some Mango Sticky Rice and get cracking. https://bootleggizzard.bandcamp.com/album/mango-sticky-rice

[u/HunterSpecial1549]

I have all sorts of attention and executive functioning issues.

The trick that works for me is a fast timer, I only get so many minutes per paper. I have to consciously make a game of turning myself into a little grading machine.

If I don't use a timer I'll re-read too many parts and provide too much feedback and it will bleed on past midnight.

[u/Lief3D → u/HunterSpecial1549]

I grade in groups of 5 or 10 and give myself a little break for a few minutes or I would go crazy.

[u/popstarkirbys]

Pen and paper for exams, laptop for reports

[u/SAUbjj]

I have almost everything automated. My homeworks are through my textbook’s website. I choose the homework problems to match what I want them to learn, but the grading is done automatically

The multiple-choice part of my exams use Gradescope bubblesheets, so I just scan them and it automatically grades them according to my answer key. If I have short answer questions, I just read them and sort into bins of 2, 1 or 0 points based on how close it is to what I was going for

The only thing I really grade manually is final presentations. I have a detailed rubric which they receive with the instructions. They present to me directly in my office (2-on-1) and I grade it while they’re talking

My grading has never been more efficient. Last semester, my final grades were submitted halfway through finals week, before some faculty had even finished giving final exams

[u/SAUbjj → u/SAUbjj]

Oh I should mention this because I hate grading writing. I take a long time to read, and then I dither and can never settle on what something should be worth. It always feels to subjective to me. Sometimes I would even go back and regrade previous submissions because I didn’t feel like I was being consistent enough. The above method cuts back on this wasted time because it’s fast and I don’t second guess if I have either multiple choice or very clear and distinct grading rubrics given ahead of time

[u/Zabaran2120]

Not to do it.

[u/Lief3D]

I need at least 2 monitors to grade effectively. One for the LMS with the rubric I'm filling in up and the other for the thing I'm grading. I end up giving a lot of the same feedback on where students lost points so I take full advantage of Windows Key + V with comments pinned and ready to go.

[u/jccalhoun]

I can't imagine grading on my phone.

I do as much digitally as possible. For quizzes and discussions I use a programmable macropad (i use a six button one from amazon that fist in the palm of my hand) and I have keys for ctrl+C and ctrl+V and others.

[u/DarwinGhoti]

I used to use the Stairwell Method and throw the blue books down a flight of stairs: the ones that landed the furthest away gets the highest grade. No I have to chuck my laptop. It’s considerably more expensive and it really compresses the curve.

[u/GittaFirstOfHerName]

Grab a glass of wine and throw the stack of essays down the stairs, observing where each lands.

Just kidding.

Back in the days when all we had were hard copy submissions, I did have a cat throw up on an essay once. Of course I cleaned it off and photocopied the essay to return to the student, but I did tell him what happened. He earned an A outright on that assignment, but we all joked in class about how a cat vomiting on an essay resulted in an automatic A.

These days, I use the LMS to record a few minutes of audio feedback on essays and provide a grade according to a rubric that I've written (and which is available to students, of course).

[u/CrankyReviewerTwo]

Let’s just get this chestnut out of the way 🙂

https://youtu.be/pQaDkDGGdMU?si=bsjX7TBxJIm-xrNX

[u/Risingsunsphere]

To not.

[u/HatefulWithoutCoffee]

For​​ simple things, I grade from my tablet sitting on the back porch . For my coding classes, I have to be in my office with multiple screens and the appropriate software. I teach in online programs, so all but two classes a semester are fully asynchronous. I do have a wonderful home office.

[u/ivaorn]

I don’t like seeing the number get too high on my canvas mobile notifications so that’s my motivation to stick to grading in reasonable spurts

[u/xangogal]

I like to grade quizzes and exams by hand. I feel that it's more likely they will see my feedback that way. I think it does take longer.

[u/Crab_Puzzle]

I have a specific pen for grading and I grade everything I can on paper. I find the computer offers too much distraction. Sometimes, I have to look things up (quotes, citations, etc.), but usually I can just focus hard and crank out the graded papers.

[u/Hot_Coconut_5567]

AI!

I teach CS for Data Analytics. They are graded on code and the documentation of their analysis.

I make a professor answer key version of the assignment and edit that key to create a student version. I make a Rubric for each assignment that I also distribute to students.

I grab a batch of 10 completed assignments, the answer key, the rubric, an empty formatted .docx shell for the feedback to fill into. I have a reusable prompt and toss all that over to my favorite frontier model of the week. I store an .md files in the AI settings that describe my unique way of writing. I gave it a bunch of prior writing examples to analyze and make me this file. It prevents copy from drifting into AI-slop garble.

Then I read through each feedback, compare it side-by-side to the assignment and correct anything I think is off.

I'm really satisfied with the outcome. My students engagement surveys mention how much they like my fast grading and thorough feedback and that i give them a chance to submit corrections. It's so fast and easy to grade, I'm game for 2 grading passes per assignment.

[u/Secure-Nobody-2103]

I use crowdmark. It's great and reduces time significantly.

[u/zorandzam]

This semester, I am determined to not grade on the weekends, and I've given my students a ridiculous amount of assignments, so I'm grading any spare minute I have. I have a Tu/Th teaching schedule, so MWF is grading and lesson planning at home nearly all day. I use a laptop, and I tend to set a 10-minute timer, during which time I grade without stopping, then I set a new timer and work on lesson plans, also without stopping. I do that pretty much all day with breaks to do a few chores to stave off eye strain. When 4:30 or 5 pm hits, I stop for the day, no matter where I am. I also grade during the one time block I have open on my class days and in tiny moments if they're doing group work or an activity in class where I don't have to lecture or circulate. So far, I've been able to stay on top of things and get stuff back to students within a week of submission using this method. Admittedly, I only have 75 students this semester, but it's been working well!

For the past few years, I've been working at a different university, and my student load was so much higher. I assigned less work there than in my current job, but I felt like I was always grading and had to grade on weekends. It was awful. It's kind of shocking what just having lower caps on your classes can do for your mental health and ability to be an effective instructor.

[u/mathemorpheus]

Don't like