TA training/CoP meetings/February 24, 2015
| UBC TA Training Community of Practice | |
|---|---|
| |
| Site content | |
| Main Page | |
| Overview by Departments | |
| CoP Meetings | |
| Site map | |
TA Support: Evaluation of Student Work
Facilitators: Liz Hodgson from English department, Silvia Bartolic from Sociology department
This page gathers notes and thoughts about this meeting.
Agenda
- Intro
- Outstanding questions
- Serbulant Turan from Political Science suggested that a few departments get together and apply for TLEF funding to video record Critical Incidences videos that would replace the ones made in UVIC that are currently used in the TA Training Programs.
- It was suggested that a pre-survey could be sent out to TAs in all departments asking for challenges they had faced in the roles as TAs.
- Facilitated activities.
Objective of this session:
- identify challenges around evaluating students work
- identify strategies/best practices to help TAs overcome those challenges
Facilitated Activity: How to Teach TAs how to evaluation
There are several concerns around TAs evaluating student work. For example:
- worries around how to deal with student complaints
- TA relationship with students (They might be too close to some of the students Or mark more rigorously than the Instructor)
- How does evaluation work in the disciplines we work in?
- What are some of the Tasks/assignments students engage in?
- What kind of evaluation methods are used?
| Student work | Evaluation method |
|---|---|
| Essays | Comments |
| Lab reports |
|
| mid-term exams | Comments |
| final exams | % or scoring |
| Quiz in connect |
|
| Oral exams (face2face) | Accuracy; speed; grammar; choice of words - synthesized |
| Oral exam (Online recordings) | Comments |
| Presentations |
|
| Group Projects | Comments+scoring - peer evaluation |
| Lab technique | Scoring rubric |
| Class/tutorial participation | Soft rubric; ? |
| Online participation (not attendance) | Rubric |
- What kind of evaluation methods do you use in your departments?
- Strengths and weaknesses of those methods? (awareness of these issues will help TAs)
1. Essays: Problems:
- system of rubric is flexible
- implicit rules in essay marking
- 100%
- fail?
- different things you are looking at (how do you weigh them?) - Process Vs Product - Achievement Vs Reach
2. Lab reports (strict guidelines for TAs to do the marking) Potential difficulty:
- Are they following guidelines?
- Did they understand the guidelines
3. Many TAs (Or TAs+faculty) making the same paper Problems: [Blind Marking as a solution]
- Problem in qualitative marking
- check-in balance
- Process Vs Product
Best Practices:
- Be clear about the limitation of the method you are using
- Get their consent, check-in with other TAs and prof when they start talking
- Practice marking during the training
- Mark first and then review your marking
- Parameters on the process they use - (time)
- Share goals of the marking with TAs (what are they being assessed for? What are they supposed to have learned?)
Facilitated Activity: Academic Integrity
Are TAs fully aware of what academic integrity means?
What are different issues?
- plagiarism
- impersonating someone
- smuggling notes
- bathroom breaks during exams
- reference lists
- fake data
- collaborating
- asking for extension without a good excuse
- failing to cite
- submitting work done by TA
- etc.
- Where is the line between doing the work and helping students? How do we tell TAs where the line is?
- What can TAs do to help students avoid the temptation of plagiarism?
- What advice can you give TAs to help them detect plagiarism?
questions/suggestions/etc. that were discussed:
- gap between TA training and faculty expectation
- report to faculty about what has been done in the TA Training programs
- what to do when TAs pay someone to write a paper for them?
- design assignments that make it hard to cheat
- get Students to write essays in class
- get them to submit draft and notes
- split final exams into half (with a bathroom break)
- explain what is cheating
- When students get help, ask them to submit original paper and corrected paper plus reflection paper on the changes that were made.
Best Practices around Academic Integrity
- if we are looking at students drafts - open it to all students
- don't comments on electronic copies - just talk to students about their assignments so that they will have to do the work
- don't give students topics (if they ask for suggestions) - ask them questions and get them to figure it out.
- professional distance (don't TA your friends)
- Share clear policy with TAs around what they need to do when students complain about their marks
- put information on the syllabus
- share the link to handbook on plagiarism
- talk about academic integrity in your first class
- create assignments that make it hard to cheat on
- no cellphone during exams
- tell TAs that if they decide to share rules about cheating with students, they need to check with the instructor first
- keep records of all events/make notes