How many emails do you get from students asking why they received a particular grade? Let’s face it, grading is probably the most stressful and least enjoyable aspect of our teaching lives. That’s even before being inundated with calls for “ungrading” and other strategies which you might not be ready to try or you’re not sure would work for your classes. While I encourage you to evaluate and reflect on your grading policies and practices, that is not what I’m talking about here. This is about making the way you grade and how you assign final grades and making it as transparent as possible.

These suggestions and strategies are based on years of trial and error in my own teaching and from my experiences as a deputy chair. I get a lot of emails from students who are unhappy about the grade they received at the end of the semester. While most of these are resolved with a breakdown and explanation from their professor, some require formal grade reviews which I facilitate along with a more senior faculty member in that discipline. Communicating how you assess/grade students and making the process for determining final grades as clear as possible doesn’t mean that students will always be happy about their grades, but at least they will understand how they got there.

1. Use the LMS Gradebook

This may seem obvious but on our campus, before the pandemic, many faculty did not use the Learning Management System, in our case, Blackboard, thinking that it was not necessary in face-to-face classes. I did always recommend that my colleagues use it anyway, to post the syllabus, any handouts or readings that were given out in class and to have a way to communicate with students. I especially appreciated this option for weather emergencies or even just to remind students of upcoming due dates and assignments. One unexpected benefit of remote learning during the pandemic was that we required all faculty to use Blackboard, including a record and submission of assignments and grades.

Your LMS Gradebook is not your enemy, even if it is clunky and hard to use, as is the case with Blackboard. You can export grades to Excel if that’s your preference but the biggest benefit is that it is one central place for grades and it can be available to students so that they can check their progress at any time throughout the semester. (In Blackboard, you can even include a direct link to their grades from the course menu. (BMCC faculty can go to this link to access basic information about Blackboard Gradebook and learn how to format it to fit your grading approach.)

Finally, because life (and unfortunately worse) happens, having all your course information, including assignments as well as grades in the LMS, is crucial if there is ever an emergency that prevents you from being in your office (pandemic lockdown anyone?) or if you are unable to teach and a substitute instructor has to take your place.

2. Simplify the Grading Scheme or how grades are calculated

Let’s face it, nobody likes figuring out percentages. Just think about the last time you went out with people with advanced degrees struggling to figure out the tip when the bill arrives. I’ve seen grading schemes with complicated calculations with percentages and weighting that make my head spin so you can imagine how students feel.

If you can, use a POINTS system, rather than percentages. (You can still have percentages in your shadow personal syllabus.) I know this is a topic of some debate and have benefits and drawbacks. While some argue that there is more grade grubbing in a points system but I’m not certain that using percentages eliminates it and perhaps it only makes for surprises at the end of the semester and might result in more post-semester pleas for extra credit. You can build weighting into your points allocation and with clear rubrics, students will at least be aware of how much “credit” they are earning towards their final grade.

Since I converted to a points system and expanded my use of rubrics about ten years ago, it’s rare that students are confused about their final grade.

If you haven’t used or are not sure how to get started with a points system, our colleagues at Hostos Community College have created a resource with tips for creating a point grading system.

3. Rubrics, rubrics, rubrics

Most of you probably already use rubrics but if you don’t, I strongly suggest you provide a rubric for any graded assignment that is not automatically graded or has objective measures i.e. completed or not completed, multiple-choice exams, etc. Providing rubrics for journal assignments or discussion board posts is just as important as for formal paper assignments or essay exams. Moving backwards from the rubric, be sure to clearly communicate your expectations on your assignment guidelines and prompts. I recently worked on a grade review where the instructor’s assignment guidelines were not detailed and there was no rubric so while we supported the faculty’s original grade, the student “believed” that they fulfilled the assignment and should have received a higher grade. Rubrics are not perfect but provide students with clarity about what makes an assignment successful and you can always see what works best and revise them as needed.

If you have not used rubrics and want to learn more, this is a good place to start.

4. Update your students on grades and grading-in-progress

Students sometimes forget to check their grades or they are overly anxious about what grade they got on an exam or paper assignment. A quick announcement, like midterm grades are posted and the suggestion that if they received below a certain grade , they reach out for support, helps students keep track of their progress so they are not taken by surprise at the end of the semester. If you’re taking longer to finish grading a set of papers, it’s often helpful to say that you are working on completing the grading and hope to have them completed by a date that is realistic for you. It’s not only thoughtful to students, it will pre-empt the inevitable “did you grade my paper yet?” inquiries.

If at all possible, provide students with a mid-semester progress report and suggest things they can do to improve or encourage them to keep going if they are doing well. If you have limited time and energy, at the very least, do this for students who are struggling. Having your own course-specific “alert” system is generally more effective than an automatically generated email from the college.

5. Communicate your grading policies in multiple contexts

Yes, it is on the syllabus and you explained it at the beginning of the semester, but even if students read your syllabus, it’s helpful to remind students and given them a quick heads up, either verbally in class and/or in course announcements. I make a welcome video for students in my hybrid courses as I review the syllabus but I think I will also make several short videos to address specific concerns or aspects of the class–top of my list is an explanation of the grading system and how to be successful in the course.

Most of our students have complicated lives and some of them have learning differences that make it harder for them to keep track of the policies and providing this information in multiple forms can help them stay on track or get back on track.

Parting thoughts

When I worked in publishing in what feels like a lifetime ago, I had a boss who used to ask, “if you got hit by a bus, would we be able to make sense of your projects?” While I hope that none of us is hit by a bus, it is a useful exercise in thinking about how we can make our grading as organized and clear as possible. I have a running list of things I need to update or revise, based on the questions that students ask me when they are confused by the grading information on the syllabus.

While it is possible to make changes in the middle of the semester, it is easier to make these changes when we revise our syllabus for a new semester. So while you’re working on your course shell and making changes to your syllabus, think about how you can make your grading process and policies as clear and organized as possible. Do it for your students but also for your future self who will hopefully have to answer fewer emails in the hours and days after you submit grades at the end of the semester.