Reading Responses

[Caracal]

Just curious if someone might have an easy solution I haven't thought of...

So, I've found over the years that where I teach nobody does the reading without some form of accountability. Like really, it used to be almost nobody and it made discussions in class terrible. I used to do in class quizzes, but those were a huge pain to collect and grade and drove me nuts. A few years ago, I switched to reading responses. Students write a paragraph or so on the reading on the CMS anytime before class and I give it a grade. Basically I give 100s to anybody who has written anything that vaguely indicates they might have done the reading. I've found this works quite well in getting reasonably responsible students to do the reading. Obviously, it is quite possible to not do the reading and google things or read the first couple pages and get away with it, but I don't really care about that, since it counts for a pretty small percentage of the overall grade. My better students read and have interesting things to say and we generally have pretty good conversations in class.

The problem is...well me. I always end up getting way behind in grading the damn responses. Like months behind. It doesn't really matter in practice, because I grade very generously and unless you're plagiarizing or just bsing on an epic level you'll get 100s if you submit the thing, but I know grading stuff so late just increases student anxiety and is bad practice. Every semester I promise to myself to set aside time every week to go through the response papers and every semester I do it for a few weeks and then it just gets caught behind all my other grading and class prep. In my defense, I have a lot of students and have about 250s of these to grade a week. Still, mostly I just suck, they are quick to get through, but I never can keep up with them.

My question is whether someone might have an idea, I know a lot of people do automated quizzes, but I'm leery of these for my purposes because I'm concerned it might encourage students to just read to the test and I don't want to emphasize a bunch of details rather than understanding the bigger picture. But maybe I'm missing a way this could work? Or something else?

[Hegemony]

Why not try the automated quizzes and see if it really does lead to poorer discussions?  If it doesn't, problem solved.  If it does, you can think up Plan B.

[Parasaurolophus]

I do the auto-graded quizzes via the LMS (Moodle), but as far as I can tell they haven't led to increased completion of the reading. It does make the grading much easier, but it also takes some time to set up the questions (especially the first time you do it). I have one class where all of their non-exam work is graded through/by the LMS, and it's a real treat. I love that class (because it makes my life so much easier), and wish I had more sections of it.

For the two classes I just took over from a colleague, the students have a short essay question on the previous week's material at the beginning of every class. They do seem relatively well prepared for it, but I suspect most of the prep just comes from attending class and having access to the lecture's slides. While some of them are doing the reading, I doubt it's anywhere near half the class. It's also a real pain in the ass to grade.

I'm contemplating switching back to reading responses, but submitted through the LMS to facilitate their collection and so that I don't have to worry about inputting the grades. If I do, I'm going to just dedicate a weekday to going through them all, because falling behind on those is pretty unpleasant.

[Caracal]

Why not try the automated quizzes and see if it really does lead to poorer discussions?  If it doesn't, problem solved.  If it does, you can think up Plan B.

Maybe I will just give that a shot. On Parasaurolophus' point, I'm sure almost nothing will get many students to do the reading. I suspect that has always been true and it is true at all different kinds of schools. The part that I'm always trying to get a handle is the impact of student culture. I've taught places where I just assigned reading and most, or at least, enough students just did it without any response papers or quizzes. When I tried that where I am now, almost nobody did the reading, not even the engaged students. But, just making it a small part of the grade in some way, even with a million obvious ways to game the system seems to do the trick, which I don't fully understand.

[dr_codex]

Bookmarking, since I plan to do some version of the reading responses again next semester.

One reason that I dislike in-class quizzes is that they devour class time. I dislike out-of-class ones because of policing issues.

But I have my own bad track record in returning reading responses promptly enough. I've sometimes used them as class prep, compiling lists of questions and comments, but that requires a great deal of communal organization which often breaks down.

I've been toying with two ideas for my upcoming course:

1. Asking students to revise one or more of these as the basis for a later essay -- once they inform me which one, I'll give it more than a casual thumbs-up / thumbs-down.

2. Calling (randomly) on students to present these in class.

My current plan is to require that they
* must be submitted the night before class;
* will be graded -- done/attempted/barely attempted/not done [3/2.5/2/0 out of 3]
* will not allowed late except in cases of documented emergency
* will be tallied top 8 of 10
* will count for 24% of the final grade
* will be replaceable (one time only) with an extra-credit assignment

I want to minimize paperwork, minimize deliberation, minimize complaints, and maximize preparation, timeliness, and engagement.

I'll have about 75 per set, so I'm going to have to devote a morning per set to grade them. I'll try to develop a set of standard comments that would apply to most.

I'm open to other ideas, so keep 'em coming!

dc

[Hegemony]

Dr Codex, your plan sounds infernally complex and time-consuming.  There is going to be a whole lot of grading, processing, answering questions, and fielding requests for exceptions for you. They won't have a computer at home and will ask for exceptions on the timing.  Their computer will be broken or their internet down and they will ask for exceptions on the timing.  They will run into umpteen emergencies that have to be adjudicated by you.  (For instance, one of my students had a grandmother with dementia, who disappeared from her care home.  The whole family was out looking for her frantically for 36 hours.  How do you document that?)   Not to mention the people who have lost their assignment and can't make a paper out of it (even if it has been submitted to the LMS, a fact which they won't know how to access or will have forgotten).  As someone who has gotten way in over my head with grand plans like this before, I strongly implore you just to do an LMS-graded quiz. Have 5 questions with multiple-choice answers, one or two factual and the rest analytical, give them all 5 minutes at the start of class to do them, and that is the end of your grading.  Merciful to all!

And I think Rule No. 1 of Not Driving Yourself Crazy and Preserving Time to Think is: In a class of 75, never, ever assign anything that has to be graded by hand, by you, on a regular basis.

[Morden]

I've had success with what I call "seminar prep sheets." To get a B, they have to demonstrate that they have read at least two things by summarizing plus come up with a discussion question connected to the reading. If they want an A, they have to read at least three things plus create a discussion question. Each student has to do it a certain number of times each term (so I'm not looking at all of them all the time); they decide which days they want to do it. It doesn't mean that they all read all the time, but it seems to mean that at least some of them have read all the time.

[present_mirth]

For some reason, online assignments always tempt me to ignore or put off grading in ways that a physical stack of things-to-be-graded does not, so I use index cards. They have to write a question or observation about the reading and turn it in on the card, which I collect at the beginning of class. I always hand them back at the beginning of the next class, which means I CANNOT procrastinate no matter how much I want to. Plus, I have them right in front of my eyes during class discussion, which means I can call on people who have interesting questions or ideas that I want to bring out in front of the class (or, if I feel like being mean, innocently ask the ones who copied from SparkNotes about something on their card and watch them squirm). Pretty much anything that isn't plagiarized from SparkNotes and isn't hopelessly vague (like writing "What is the author's purpose for writing?" on every single card) gets full credit.

[dr_codex]

Dr Codex, your plan sounds infernally complex and time-consuming.  There is going to be a whole lot of grading, processing, answering questions, and fielding requests for exceptions for you. They won't have a computer at home and will ask for exceptions on the timing.  Their computer will be broken or their internet down and they will ask for exceptions on the timing.  They will run into umpteen emergencies that have to be adjudicated by you.  (For instance, one of my students had a grandmother with dementia, who disappeared from her care home.  The whole family was out looking for her frantically for 36 hours.  How do you document that?)   Not to mention the people who have lost their assignment and can't make a paper out of it (even if it has been submitted to the LMS, a fact which they won't know how to access or will have forgotten).  As someone who has gotten way in over my head with grand plans like this before, I strongly implore you just to do an LMS-graded quiz. Have 5 questions with multiple-choice answers, one or two factual and the rest analytical, give them all 5 minutes at the start of class to do them, and that is the end of your grading.  Merciful to all!

And I think Rule No. 1 of Not Driving Yourself Crazy and Preserving Time to Think is: In a class of 75, never, ever assign anything that has to be graded by hand, by you, on a regular basis.

I am mulling this, and thanks for the feedback.

I'll admit, I'm thinking of each of the responses as taking one minute (at most) to grade -- make the most rudimentary attempt at describing the text, with a quotation and/or a question, that's 100%. Miss a major component, that's a B. Miss more, that's a D. Don't do it, that's a 0. I should be able to knock out 60 of these in an hour. I don't think that designing 3 sets of m/c quiz questions, comparable and balanced, would take less time.

Others, too, have suggested that something so intricate invites trouble. But I'm looking at them, and they also seem to be buried under mountains of grading, so I wonder.

But I've got an open mind, and a month before I have to hand out syllabi. If I'm nuts, let me know. Fire away!

[Parasaurolophus]

It doesn't actually take very long. But it feels like a real slog, and halfway thrpugh the semester it'll feel worse. Over the course of the semester, that's what? 14-28 hours spent on this one activity?

I think the main idea behind multiple choice, t/f, etc. is just that the LMS can grade it automatically.

[Hegemony]

Dr. Codex, 60 per hour is 1 hour and 15 minutes for every set, if you keep up that rapid pace — plus you have to log the grades.  If you do these twice a week for a 15-week semester, that's 37 and a half hours on that small grading assignment alone.  Ugh!  Whereas devising a multiple-choice question takes, I would say, about three minutes.  I will now time myself:

The statement that best denotes the theme of The Sun Also Rises is:

A. War is a chance for glory and heroism.
B. War leaves people wounded emotionally as well as physically.
C. Youth is a time when people can be truly carefree.
D. Youth is the time to behave responsibly.

Three minutes for that one.  If you write four questions, that's 12 minutes, for a savings of an hour and three minutes per class, or around 30 hours per semester. I think spending 37 1/2 hours grading something that's liable not to be a huge part of the grade anyway is disproportionate.  Not to mention, are your publications, hobbies, and relaxation time all taken care of, or would you benefit for some more time for those?

[marshwiggle]

It doesn't actually take very long. But it feels like a real slog, and halfway thrpugh the semester it'll feel worse. Over the course of the semester, that's what? 14-28 hours spent on this one activity?

I think the main idea behind multiple choice, t/f, etc. is just that the LMS can grade it automatically.

This is the BIG value of these things. Once you've created the online auto-graded quizzes, they're free to administer and grade for as long as you want.  That's a huge payoff.

[polly_mer]

For some reason, online assignments always tempt me to ignore or put off grading in ways that a physical stack of things-to-be-graded does not, so I use index cards. They have to write a question or observation about the reading and turn it in on the card, which I collect at the beginning of class. I always hand them back at the beginning of the next class, which means I CANNOT procrastinate no matter how much I want to. Plus, I have them right in front of my eyes during class discussion, which means I can call on people who have interesting questions or ideas that I want to bring out in front of the class (or, if I feel like being mean, innocently ask the ones who copied from SparkNotes about something on their card and watch them squirm). Pretty much anything that isn't plagiarized from SparkNotes and isn't hopelessly vague (like writing "What is the author's purpose for writing?" on every single card) gets full credit.

I did something similar and it was pretty easy.  A physical stack that I can do yep/nope on each one means it's far faster to grade than 1 per minute. 

Otherwise, complete autograding through the CMS is another good way to go for the time-savings that Hegemony mentioned.  Having a quick check half an hour before class on what most people missed to bring those points up in discussion was a far better use of my time than reading everything and making decisions.

[dr_codex]

Dr. Codex, 60 per hour is 1 hour and 15 minutes for every set, if you keep up that rapid pace — plus you have to log the grades.  If you do these twice a week for a 15-week semester, that's 37 and a half hours on that small grading assignment alone.  Ugh!  Whereas devising a multiple-choice question takes, I would say, about three minutes.  I will now time myself:

The statement that best denotes the theme of The Sun Also Rises is:

A. War is a chance for glory and heroism.
B. War leaves people wounded emotionally as well as physically.
C. Youth is a time when people can be truly carefree.
D. Youth is the time to behave responsibly.

Three minutes for that one.  If you write four questions, that's 12 minutes, for a savings of an hour and three minutes per class, or around 30 hours per semester. I think spending 37 1/2 hours grading something that's liable not to be a huge part of the grade anyway is disproportionate.  Not to mention, are your publications, hobbies, and relaxation time all taken care of, or would you benefit for some more time for those?

Well, I was thinking more along the lines of 10 assignments x 75 minutes, for 24% of the final grade. I would expect to spend 10 minutes on an essay worth a quarter of the final grade, assuming that I'm giving feedback, so it seems about right.

Do I wish that I spent less time grading? Sure. But it's part of the job.

I should add that I'm only partly doing this to get students to read. I'm also doing it to models ways in which they can read. That is, these assignments are meant to introduce skills that are later developed.

Maybe I'm crazy. I'll let you know how it goes.

[marshwiggle]

Well, I was thinking more along the lines of 10 assignments x 75 minutes, for 24% of the final grade.

All right, at the risk of identifying myself as either ridiculously petty or OCDish, why 24 percent? Even though I use spreadsheets myself, so I could in theory have individual components worth 7.3% if I wanted, I still tend to stick with multiples of 5%, so that the weights of various things are easily compared.

(FWIW, I've seen this lots of times here, with people talking about things worth "3%" of the final grade, or whatever, But since 24 is SO CLOSE to 25, it really stands out.)

Yes, I probably should look into treatment for this.......