Hiring a private grader?

[glowdart]

We fired someone for hiring a grader once. The issues:

The grader refused to talk with students about their grades because she was only getting paid (by the instructor) to grade

The instructor refused to talk with students about their grades because he hadn't actually graded or read anything and couldn't answer their questions

A lack of vetting by the institution - and the instructor refused to tell us any information about the grader

[AvidReader]

If you are willing to pay for a grader yourself, could you donate the money to the university with enough stipulations that it has can only go to someone to support your classes?

A friend of mine who needed to give a set amount of money to charity once did this for a professor at a university in my hometown who needed research support to finish a book. My understanding was that it went to the development office tagged something like "Funds to support research assistance into new research on Y-shaped Caledonian Reeds at Local U."

I don't know if this would be different or awkward since the funds would be coming from you and then benefiting you (i.e. could that be some sort of tax violation?) but maybe you could discuss it with your development office to see if they have any suggestions.

AR.

[teach_write_research]

I'm also at a SLAC. I use undergraduate TAs for introductory courses. They sign up for pass/fail course credit (where my pass standard is B+ level performance) or can be federal work-study. They do a FERPA training. Anecdotally, things are smoother when I have 2-3 undergrad TAs for a 3 credit course. They split up the class meetings and attend at least once a week, take notes and upload meeting recordings to help with accommodation needs, and mark in Canvas with rubrics. They can also prep some content, proofread and edit a Canvas assignment, and other small tasks which can free me up for the substantive grading. Even give a mini-lecture if they have the presentation skills to do that. I keep the scores "hidden" in the grade book until I check them and make them viewable to students. Canvas shows who filled out the rubric or entered a comment. Ultimately I'm responsible for everything and any errors the undergrad TAs make.

Our department assistant has also helped set up Canvas quizzes and run scantrons. I make a separate Help Me course, give her tasks, and then import the quiz/assignment/etc into the course I need.

And then I productively procrastinate here rather than working on the substantive feedback that no one else can do...

[lightning]

We fired someone for hiring a grader once. The issues:

The grader refused to talk with students about their grades because she was only getting paid (by the instructor) to grade

The instructor refused to talk with students about their grades because he hadn't actually graded or read anything and couldn't answer their questions

A lack of vetting by the institution - and the instructor refused to tell us any information about the grader

Dealing with grade-grubbing students was the first thought that came to my mind. If someone else is doing the grading, you have no leg to stand on when someone complains about their grade.

At the same time, if I had 200 students and a 5/4 teaching load, I'm not sure I would have the time to deal with grade grubbers.

[Ruralguy]

The instructor should have regraded (and just fudged a way to the same answer if that's what he wanted), or have a stated policy about appealing grades.  But I don't see why it wouldn't work like a grad student TA. The person who grades hears the complaint, and if there's still an issue, it gets taken to a higher authority. In any case, foreseeing these issues and others, I haven't taken on a grader allowed to me for many years.

[Caracal]

The instructor should have regraded (and just fudged a way to the same answer if that's what he wanted), or have a stated policy about appealing grades.  But I don't see why it wouldn't work like a grad student TA. The person who grades hears the complaint, and if there's still an issue, it gets taken to a higher authority. In any case, foreseeing these issues and others, I haven't taken on a grader allowed to me for many years.

Yeah, that's such a bizarre stance to take that I assume there must have been larger problems with this person. One would hope that the instructor wrote the exam and instructed the person on how to grade it. Why couldn't they just look at the exam with the student and explain the grade?

[glowdart]

The instructor should have regraded (and just fudged a way to the same answer if that's what he wanted), or have a stated policy about appealing grades.  But I don't see why it wouldn't work like a grad student TA. The person who grades hears the complaint, and if there's still an issue, it gets taken to a higher authority. In any case, foreseeing these issues and others, I haven't taken on a grader allowed to me for many years.

Yeah, that's such a bizarre stance to take that I assume there must have been larger problems with this person. One would hope that the instructor wrote the exam and instructed the person on how to grade it. Why couldn't they just look at the exam with the student and explain the grade?

All papers, no exams, very small classes, and many many grade appeals. His refusal to do anything other than go to class made it easy to justify the nonrenewal.

[Caracal]

The instructor should have regraded (and just fudged a way to the same answer if that's what he wanted), or have a stated policy about appealing grades.  But I don't see why it wouldn't work like a grad student TA. The person who grades hears the complaint, and if there's still an issue, it gets taken to a higher authority. In any case, foreseeing these issues and others, I haven't taken on a grader allowed to me for many years.

Yeah, that's such a bizarre stance to take that I assume there must have been larger problems with this person. One would hope that the instructor wrote the exam and instructed the person on how to grade it. Why couldn't they just look at the exam with the student and explain the grade?

All papers, no exams, very small classes, and many many grade appeals. His refusal to do anything other than go to class made it easy to justify the nonrenewal.

I'm quite sure that if in the middle of the semester there was some sort of Freaky Friday situation where I switched places with one of the other historians, we would both be able to meet with students about the papers the other one of us had graded without much trouble. I hear my colleagues meet with students and we all say the same things to the students who mostly write versions of the same papers.

[downer]

That's an interesting question, to what extent it would be possible to step into the course of a colleague and teach one of their classes or give feedback on a paper. I don't see their syllabi so I'm not sure, but I suspect there's a lot of variation. There's one who teaches from his own eccentric book, which I would not have any idea about.
But to some extent giving feedback on a student paper is simple enough even if it is in a completely different discipline. It's always possible to highlight unclarities and problems with structure.

[marshwiggle]

That's an interesting question, to what extent it would be possible to step into the course of a colleague and teach one of their classes or give feedback on a paper. I don't see their syllabi so I'm not sure, but I suspect there's a lot of variation. There's one who teaches from his own eccentric book, which I would not have any idea about.
But to some extent giving feedback on a student paper is simple enough even if it is in a completely different discipline. It's always possible to highlight unclarities and problems with structure.

It would vary by discipline, but I'd guess that some of the most creative instructors would have assignments that would baffle their colleagues. For instance, scaffolding would not be obvious to someone that did not see the syllabus for the entire course, so realizing what elements were most important would not be automatic out of context.
(General instructions about grammar, clear logic, etc. would still be the same, but their weighting would not be a given.)

[Puget]

That's an interesting question, to what extent it would be possible to step into the course of a colleague and teach one of their classes or give feedback on a paper. I don't see their syllabi so I'm not sure, but I suspect there's a lot of variation. There's one who teaches from his own eccentric book, which I would not have any idea about.
But to some extent giving feedback on a student paper is simple enough even if it is in a completely different discipline. It's always possible to highlight unclarities and problems with structure.

It would vary by discipline, but I'd guess that some of the most creative instructors would have assignments that would baffle their colleagues. For instance, scaffolding would not be obvious to someone that did not see the syllabus for the entire course, so realizing what elements were most important would not be automatic out of context.
(General instructions about grammar, clear logic, etc. would still be the same, but their weighting would not be a given.)

Yet another reason to use a detailed grading rubric. Any of my colleagues who is reasonably conversant with the topic area could probably do a pretty good job grading papers in my class using the rubric. (More importantly since that doesn't happen, the students know exactly what the expectations are, and it massively speeds up grading as I don't have to leave many comments).

[downer]

That's an interesting question, to what extent it would be possible to step into the course of a colleague and teach one of their classes or give feedback on a paper. I don't see their syllabi so I'm not sure, but I suspect there's a lot of variation. There's one who teaches from his own eccentric book, which I would not have any idea about.
But to some extent giving feedback on a student paper is simple enough even if it is in a completely different discipline. It's always possible to highlight unclarities and problems with structure.

It would vary by discipline, but I'd guess that some of the most creative instructors would have assignments that would baffle their colleagues. For instance, scaffolding would not be obvious to someone that did not see the syllabus for the entire course, so realizing what elements were most important would not be automatic out of context.
(General instructions about grammar, clear logic, etc. would still be the same, but their weighting would not be a given.)

Yet another reason to use a detailed grading rubric. Any of my colleagues who is reasonably conversant with the topic area could probably do a pretty good job grading papers in my class using the rubric. (More importantly since that doesn't happen, the students know exactly what the expectations are, and it massively speeds up grading as I don't have to leave many comments).

How detailed is a good grading rubric? I generally use a 5x5 grid. I've seen some rubrics with 10 - 20 criteria. That seems basically unusable to me.

[Puget]

That's an interesting question, to what extent it would be possible to step into the course of a colleague and teach one of their classes or give feedback on a paper. I don't see their syllabi so I'm not sure, but I suspect there's a lot of variation. There's one who teaches from his own eccentric book, which I would not have any idea about.
But to some extent giving feedback on a student paper is simple enough even if it is in a completely different discipline. It's always possible to highlight unclarities and problems with structure.

It would vary by discipline, but I'd guess that some of the most creative instructors would have assignments that would baffle their colleagues. For instance, scaffolding would not be obvious to someone that did not see the syllabus for the entire course, so realizing what elements were most important would not be automatic out of context.
(General instructions about grammar, clear logic, etc. would still be the same, but their weighting would not be a given.)

Yet another reason to use a detailed grading rubric. Any of my colleagues who is reasonably conversant with the topic area could probably do a pretty good job grading papers in my class using the rubric. (More importantly since that doesn't happen, the students know exactly what the expectations are, and it massively speeds up grading as I don't have to leave many comments).

How detailed is a good grading rubric? I generally use a 5x5 grid. I've seen some rubrics with 10 - 20 criteria. That seems basically unusable to me.

Depends on the paper. For my seminar, they are writing the equivalent of a review article that would be submitted to a journal-- synthesizing and evaluating the research on a topic of their choice and proposing future directions based on that. They work on this all semester, so it is pretty involved, not a "5 paragraph essay" type paper.

Mine has 12 criteria, because there are specific things they need to do in each section, plus general criteria like proper citations and writing clarity. I give descriptions for 3 point ranges (poor, ok, good) for each criteria, with a note that the point value they get within the range corresponds to how close it is to the next level up.

I make them do a self-evaluation of their draft using the rubric about a month before it is due so they have to really think carefully about the criteria and have an opportunity to ask questions about them. This cuts way back on complaints about grading, as they can't claim they didn't know that they had to do such and such.

[Caracal]

That's an interesting question, to what extent it would be possible to step into the course of a colleague and teach one of their classes or give feedback on a paper. I don't see their syllabi so I'm not sure, but I suspect there's a lot of variation. There's one who teaches from his own eccentric book, which I would not have any idea about.
But to some extent giving feedback on a student paper is simple enough even if it is in a completely different discipline. It's always possible to highlight unclarities and problems with structure.

It would vary by discipline, but I'd guess that some of the most creative instructors would have assignments that would baffle their colleagues. For instance, scaffolding would not be obvious to someone that did not see the syllabus for the entire course, so realizing what elements were most important would not be automatic out of context.
(General instructions about grammar, clear logic, etc. would still be the same, but their weighting would not be a given.)

Well, I'm imagining I have access to the assignment, the syllabus and any grading rubric that exists.

I agree about more unusual assignments, particularly ones that are baked into the structure of the class. I've been experimenting with some new things in one of my courses, and I think it would have been hard for someone to grade the assignments from that class. I have a rubric, but my grading reflected the things that I thought worked and didn't work in the class. There were things that I just didn't realize I needed to teach students to do, and I didn't want them to get punished because there's a learning curve for me. 

However, for standard papers and assignments, it really would be fine in my discipline. Most of the differences in a assignments are cosmetic, the basic things we want students to do are quite similar.

[secundem_artem]

If you can outsource your grading with a private grader, could students do the same by hiring a private grade grubber?  Sounds like win-win.