Prof Lisa K's - Adventures in Teaching & Learning

For the last few weeks I’ve been thinking about how to motivate my students. So many of them seem to walk out the door and leave math behind. I realize that students’ lives are busier than they ever have been. So many of them have families, full-time jobs, etc.. I try not to assign too much homework, but in math the best way to learn is to practice. To balance the homework, I try and have as much time as possible in class to work on problems. This way I’m there to help them if they need it. Either way, they need to allocate some time to learning and practicing math in order to succeed.

A majority of the students are International and I know that their backgrounds and experience with school vary and that add its own challenge.

I guess you could say I have two problems. In class and out of class.

Many of them don’t do the assigned homework questions and are constantly asking for extensions when I do assign work for marks.  I find this to be a problem for all types of students, both international and domestic.  The number of commitments that students have has increased and this makes is difficult to balance work/school.

During class, I try to assign seat work which can be an issue because a number of them don’t come prepared to write anything. No pencil/pen, calculator or paper. I’ve started printing out practice questions so they have something to work on.  Even with something to write with/on, many sit there and wait until I take up the problem before writing anything (and some still don’t write anything).  I walk around and I try and ask if they need help or prompt them to start the question by asking about it. That usually works (sometimes). Not all my students are like this.  I have some that work very hard for every mark they get.

The other issue I have in class is lateness.  I won’t spend much time on this as Denise Nielson has already dealt with this issue in her blog post: https://nielsenportfolio.wordpress.com/2018/10/11/knock-knock/.

What’s frustrating is some of these students who don’t do much work, come back at the end of the semester begging for second chances because they haven’t earned enough marks to pass the course.  Some just straight up ask me to pass them.

I’ve looked around on the web. Thankfully there are a lot of Teaching and Learning Centres who have great resources on their websites to help out. I’ve been thinking of starting a list.

I’ve tried some of the suggestions, such as adding in-class assessments at the beginning or end of class to encourage students to get to class on time and/or stay until the end of class.  I make a point of tying course material to real examples.  However, I think I will work to find better, more relevant examples to help students to make connections.

One particular class loves to talk. I am going to try cooperative learning to see if working in a group on problems might get everyone participating.

I also like to know what others have done. I would love it if you would share some of your wisdom and tips that worked for you.

I’ve been teaching a lot of math courses and one of the things I struggle with is marking. When you mark a math problem it’s not only about the final answer. The process is very important. Students could do everything right but make one small mistake and the final answer will be wrong. It’s important to recognize that a student understands the process as well as the final answer. I tell my students if they want full marks on a test, they need to show their work.  And for the most part, they are pretty good at it.

It can take a long time to mark math tests because I have to mark both the process and final answer.  I write lots of comments on my tests to help students understand where they went wrong. I know that most of them won’t read them, but for the ones that do, I want them to have the chance to learn from their mistakes. The problem is, students tend to make similar mistakes and as a result, I end up writing the same comments over and over again. When you are marking 40+ papers, that can take a long time.

A colleague of mine, Nancy Nelson told me about a program called Gradescope. She said she found it helped her be more efficient with her marking. I did some exploring and decided to give it a try. I have to say I’m sold. Rather than writing the same comments over and over again, I was able to set up a rubric with the comments I wanted to have (and associated points deductions) and apply them as I marked each question. Not only was it more efficient but it insured that I was marking consistently.

Gradescope is very simple and intuitive to use.  First, scan or upload your test (or assignment) and identify the name and student number sections on the paper.  Then identify the areas on the test/assignment were each question will be answered and assign marks for each question. You can set up your rubric here, or do it when you are marking. Once you have set up the test/assignment, you can import your class list with student numbers.

When students write the test or submit their assignment,  you scan the tests into a PDF and import them into Gradescope. Gradescope matches each paper to the student number and you are ready to mark.

The one thing that Gradescope gives me that I can’t get by manual marking (without a lot of time spend doing the calculations) is data about the test; how students did on each question, the breakdown of the grades etc..

Being able to take my laptop and mark anywhere, without having all the papers to flip through was an additional benefit. It easy to start and stop. Whenever I had some spare time and I had my laptop or tablet close by, I could open up Gradescope and mark a question.

One other feature I really liked was the summary report that Gradescope produces.  It shows the details of each question and what errors were made (if any).  Students can see very quickly where they went wrong and what kinds of mistakes they made.  As their teacher, I can see if there is a pattern to their mistakes and use that to focus how I help them.

Between the ease of marking, the reports and the data, I am hooked. This was such a great experience, I plan on using Gradescope for all my marking!

Happy Marking Everyone!

For more information on Gradescope go to their website: https://www.gradescope.com/

I just found out that Gradescope was bought by Turnitin (Turnitin acquires Gradescope). Maybe like Turnitin, Gradescope will become a standard on every campus.