Online Grading of Lab Reports

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

So I found out today that I have been assigned three sections of online lab. If these sections max out, then I could be looking at grading 90 lab reports a week under my current model. This doesn't include other face-to-face classes I'll be teaching. We cover ten reports a semester, plus midterm and final exams. So, do I really want to grade a possible 900 lab reports in one semester? By hand??? I have no TA, so it would be me.

Does anyone have any ideas on how to streamline this type of grading? I considered creating quizzes for lab reports that would be autograded by the computer, but I think it would water down the content.

Suggestions?

[kiana]

People have said very good things about gradescope. I use the Canvas speedgrader for grading handwritten math homework.

I set it to accept PDF only. I have directions for how to make a multipage scan and I am an asshole about it. If you upload multiple pages I will grade only the first one I see. If I can't read it/it's illegible, it's wrong. This is because when I said "ok but next time fix it" they never did.

If someone does something really weird but not completely wrong I skip it and go to the next one. Then at the end I open all the "wtf?!" together in separate tabs so I can flip between them for comparison.

[doc700]

Just wanted to second the suggestion for Gradescope!  It worked very well in my large freshman intro physics course and was a significant improvement over Canvas speedgrader.

When a student turns in a long assignment, they tag each component -- ie each problem in a problem set or all each section of a lab report.  Then you can easily flip through all problem 1, then all problem 2 etc and it automatically goes to the right spot on the page (as long as they do the tagging correctly!).  You can set up a rubric in advance or as you grade add additional elements such as "-1 pt, no units".  Then when you see the next problem, all the prior points you have taken off and comments are there as a list so you just click to reuse a comment/deduction.  Particularly when you have to grade dozens of the same thing it makes it much more efficient.

At least my school has Gradescope integrated with Canvas so all the students who enrolled in the course were automatically added into Gradescope and I can post their grades back to Canvas.  Also a small feature of Gradescope -- you can see if the students look at their comments or just the grade!

But that sounds like a lot of lab reports.  Could you have the students turn in lab reports every 2 weeks or something instead of every 1?  Would that still allow them several reports but 50% grading reduction?

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm leaning towards automating most or all of it. These are introductory Astronomy labs and it looks like I may have 100 labs a week to grade. Ugh. Don't ask.

[Aster]

We're phasing out nearly all of our emergency "online labs" that we used last year, and are now reopening the regular facilities.

But even with the regular labs running, Big Urban College's faculty is not much into writing-based assessments. Arguments keep getting made (by all the old people) that "writing is too hard for our students", so we've mostly eliminated writing-based activities from most courses' curriculum across the board. Pretty much the only department that has writing-based activities is the English department.

My professional opinion is that Big Urban College just has a cultural attitude of lazy af professors. It's encouraging for me to read that so many (other) institutions operate their laboratory curriculum to include writing-based assessments.

[doc700]

Just wanted to say this is rough!

Can I ask what an introductory astronomy lab is?  I am in the physical sciences but have never taken an astro class.  Is it using a telescope?  Not related to grading just curious what type of activities one does.

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm leaning towards automating most or all of it. These are introductory Astronomy labs and it looks like I may have 100 labs a week to grade. Ugh. Don't ask.

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

Just wanted to say this is rough!

Can I ask what an introductory astronomy lab is?  I am in the physical sciences but have never taken an astro class.  Is it using a telescope?  Not related to grading just curious what type of activities one does.

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm leaning towards automating most or all of it. These are introductory Astronomy labs and it looks like I may have 100 labs a week to grade. Ugh. Don't ask.

This is a course for non-Science majors and so they take it because they think there's no Math in it. Surprise!

It mainly consists of computer simulations and analyzing graphical data and photos. For example, they have a lab that covers Kepler's Laws in which they calculate perihelion and aphelion distances, eccentricity, etc. They do this by watching a simulation of a planet orbiting a star and measuring the distance off the screen with a ruler. When we did this lab in person (pre-Covid), it was fine because everyone had the same laptop (school provided) and screen size. I had to modify the lab to take into account the differences in computer/screen size and just put a screenshot in the lab for them to measure (post-Covid). Students convert centimeters to AU to determine orbit size, etc. Did I mention that they think there's no Math in Astronomy and how much they dislike it? It's difficult enough to get them to understand an AU, much less understand how a centimeter can represent many AU.

[fishbrains]

People have said very good things about gradescope. I use the Canvas speedgrader for grading handwritten math homework.

I set it to accept PDF only. I have directions for how to make a multipage scan and I am an asshole about it. If you upload multiple pages I will grade only the first one I see. If I can't read it/it's illegible, it's wrong. This is because when I said "ok but next time fix it" they never did.

If someone does something really weird but not completely wrong I skip it and go to the next one. Then at the end I open all the "wtf?!" together in separate tabs so I can flip between them for comparison.

Like kiana says, find a format that works best for you, and be an a$$hole about it. A report submitted in the wrong format is 100% incorrect and won't be graded. Ever. Consider dropping the lowest grade, so one infraction won't hurt a student's overall grade.

Also, consider auto-graded quizzes every once in a while (maybe every third week) to give yourself a break and a chance to catch up if you fall behind in grading (we are in a pandemic, after all). Auto-graded quizzes may water down the content a little bit, but you losing your mental health will water down the content even more.

I'm in English, so take my advice with a huge grain of salt. Good luck with this.

[arcturus]

We use template Word documents for our GenEd lab reports (or equivalents). This means that the information is located in similar places in all submissions, which makes it easier to grade. We limit submission format to .docx (i.e., the original format) and pdf. While this eliminates the composition aspect of a true lab report, we prioritize clear communication of results and interpretation in these pre-formated documents, since we are not trying to teach GenEd students the art of scientific writing.

Our institution uses Canvas as our LMS, so we use SpeedGrader for grading. I only download the submissions that require reporting for academic misconduct.

ETA: Also, for context, our online sections are capped around 150 people, so we do make certain that our grading can be as efficient as possible. That means that we do not provide individual feedback on each report, but rather make class announcements about common issues.

[marshwiggle]

ETA: Also, for context, our online sections are capped around 150 people, so we do make certain that our grading can be as efficient as possible. That means that we do not provide individual feedback on each report, but rather make class announcements about common issues.

Related to this, my experience from grading online within the LMS:

• Only one or two point form comments at most per report, in the text box for the LMS.
• Only download/read each report ONCE; don't agonize.
• Record grades and comments in a spreadsheet while grading; then transfer into LMS after all are done to avoid trickle of questions, comments as grades show up in LMS. (Spreadsheet also makes it easy to re-use comments to be copy-and-pasted into LMS.)

[doc700]

Interesting!  Thanks for sharing.

Units!  I teach intro physics and we have a whole lecture on units and dimensional analysis (ie how if you are looking for time and your answer is meters, something went wrong).  Very powerful stuff!

Just wanted to say this is rough!

Can I ask what an introductory astronomy lab is?  I am in the physical sciences but have never taken an astro class.  Is it using a telescope?  Not related to grading just curious what type of activities one does.

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm leaning towards automating most or all of it. These are introductory Astronomy labs and it looks like I may have 100 labs a week to grade. Ugh. Don't ask.

This is a course for non-Science majors and so they take it because they think there's no Math in it. Surprise!

It mainly consists of computer simulations and analyzing graphical data and photos. For example, they have a lab that covers Kepler's Laws in which they calculate perihelion and aphelion distances, eccentricity, etc. They do this by watching a simulation of a planet orbiting a star and measuring the distance off the screen with a ruler. When we did this lab in person (pre-Covid), it was fine because everyone had the same laptop (school provided) and screen size. I had to modify the lab to take into account the differences in computer/screen size and just put a screenshot in the lab for them to measure (post-Covid). Students convert centimeters to AU to determine orbit size, etc. Did I mention that they think there's no Math in Astronomy and how much they dislike it? It's difficult enough to get them to understand an AU, much less understand how a centimeter can represent many AU.