THE HOLY GRAIL: INCREASING STUDENT SATISFACTION WHILE DECREASING TIME SPENT ON REPETITIOUS GRADING TASKS

Transparency, clarity and simplicity are criteria for effective student assessment. Student satisfaction (especially for the growing number of online students) is improved when assessment criteria are clear and when the opportunity for quality interaction with their instructors is maximized. Faculty satisfaction is improved when time spent on repetitive, "administrative" duties is minimized, making more time available for teaching, coaching, and mentoring students in their classes. As educational budgets tighten, schools increasingly turn to adjunct faculty yet still need student learning outcomes to be standardized across multiple instructors teaching the same course in a variety of modalities (traditional classroom, fully online and "blended" delivery). A single, integrated approach to student assessment -- the "automatic" gradesheet -- can effectively address all three of these educational objectives. Faculty, curriculum coordinators, instructional designers and Excel devotees will learn how to create cross-linked documents (assignment description, detailed rubric and automatic gradesheet) for any graded artifact that have been proven to increase student satisfaction, faculty satisfaction, and support common and comparable learning outcome measurement. (Note: This concept won a 2010 Sloan Consortium Effective Practice Award in San Jose, CA.)