University of Exeter Learning and Teaching in HE programme

Marking assignments: Dillys practical tips

1. Before even setting the assignments, make sure that you and the students
know exactly what the expectations for the assignment are, what marking
criteria youll use, and what these mean. The criteria should give guidance
about what constitutes a particular grade/percentage. Ask a mentor or
colleague in your School for clarification if you need it.
2. If possible, look at the ways in which others in your School have marked
and fed back on similar assignments, using the same criteria.
3. Make sure you know what kind of feedback is expected on this batch of
assignments (e.g. on a Feedback Sheet, and/or on the assignment itself,
and/or oral feedback), and when the deadline for marking is.
4. Check whether the assignments will be second marked, second blind
marked, or moderated; make sure that students know that any mark you give
is provisional and subject to the usual procedures of second marking and
external examining.
5. Once youre left with a batch of assignments to mark, especially with longer
written assignments such as essays, read through them all very briefly if you
possibly can first, to get a sense of the range of responses and the highs
and lows of the batch. This is especially useful if youre new to marking.
6. Then take one assignment at a time, and mark against the criteria. For
longer assignments, apply a best fit principle: which grade band does this
assignment fit best into, even if its not a perfect match? If youre marking
short answer questions rather than a longer written assignment, you can work
consistently through each assignment in whatever way suits you. (Some tutors
like to mark all of the Section A answers, then all of Section B, for example.)
7. Use a pencil to start with, when applying numbers or grades, so that you can
easily amend your marks later if you need to.
8. Depending on the size of the batch of assignments, give yourself stopping off
points, when you can take time to look back and check that your latest
approach to marking seems congruent with the way in which you started
marking. (This is especially useful if you are marking over days or weeks!)
9. When youve finished your provisional marking, put the assignments in rank
order, from best to worst according to your marks. Compare assignments
with similar marks do they still seem similar? Adjust marks by comparison
where you feel you need to do so.
10. Dont be afraid to use the full range of marks: if you have work which is very
poor and/or excellent, that should be reflected in your marks.
11. Make sure that when you give feedback you start with a positive comment,
then give specific guidance about what the student could do next time to
raise their grade, then finish with a positive comment: this is the feedback
sandwich, which helps prevent students from feeling negative about their
marks.
12. If in doubt at any stage, ask for further advice from a mentor or colleague
in your School.