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[econ_anon]

This is a question for my husband, a first-year engineering professor.  (Who does not have time for the forums!)

Any tips on speeding up grading math-based homeworks?  (Doing a search here has found lots of tips on speeding up grading essays.)  Or thinking outside the box and eliminating grading?

He is completely swamped by grading homework assignments.  Next semester will be even worse because we will have additional demands on our time.

He has to give out (1x weekly) homework because otherwise the students don't learn the material.  They generally don't answer most of the questions, or give half-hearted very incorrect attempts which are difficult to grade.  Homework is only 10% of the grade, there are also quizzes and exams.  His students seem very happy to get Cs in the class overall, and their hw scores are bringing them way down.  He even offered to make cookies for any person who gets 100% on any homework assignment... so far no takers and no change in homework scores.

He's been using a 3 point per problem system so far (3 points correct and work shown, 2 points incorrect but substantial work shown, 1 point some work shown, 0 no work), but it hasn't been enough.  He's still spending most of his time grading into the night.

He's worried that if he gives homework quizzes (where you only grade randomly chosen problems) that it will penalize the better students and encourage the worse students to do even fewer homework problems every week.

As an economist, I tell him we should just pay someone out of pocket to do his grading for him if his department won't.  He's unconvinced.

Any ideas?

[sappho]

Having a grader can really be a blessing in such cases.  I was a grader as an undergraduate and didn't mind the minimum wage pay since I had flexibility of when I could do the work.  My department then actually sought out qualified students and paid for a certain number of hours per week per faculty member.  I would imagine an engineering program would have more money and value the time of its faculty members. 

From what you are describing, it doesn't sound like the students see the value in doing HW well and regularly.  Would it be possible for your husband to start grading a limited number of unannounced select problems, instead of the whole assignment?  Or maybe stop grading the problems but just look at the assignment overall and give a completion/attempt grade instead? 

Good luck!

[wiley]

The three-point per problem system sounds good. I think I'll try it.

One thing that I do is to grade only a few problems per assignment. Of course, I don't tell the students which ones in advance.

Tell him to let some students fail. No cookies. The points are the incentive to do the homework. If they're content with C's and D's, fine.

Good luck

[yatchie]

As a first year math instructor, I use homework as a method of feedback to see how well (or not) my students are understanding the material and to see what they think I'm actually teaching them, so I grade it myself each week.  That said, I look over all of them to get a basic idea of what they are doing or to see who is copying straight out of the solutions manual, etc.  I give them 5 points total for the homework assignment and grade 1 or 2 problems.  Each of the problems that I grade is worth 1 out of the 5 (so they basically get a minimum of 3 or 4 depending on how many I grade).  If they get the problem pretty much right, they get 1 point, if they miss the boat, they get .5, and if they skip it, they get 0 for that problem.  Many times I assign problems with answers or solutions, so it's on them to check it.  I also allow for questions at the beginning of each class, so the responsiblity is on them to ask if they don't understand something -- many of the "better" students take advantage of this.  I also give them a quiz each week that is based on their homework assignment.  It's a short 15-20 minute quiz that involves the highlights of the assignment that is worth about 10% of their overall grade.  After the quizzes are collected, I go over it in class, and then grade the quizzes over the weekend.  

Depending on what kind of class it is, I don't recommend grading every problem -- the students, particularly lower division students, don't take it really seriously.  I do have a collegue who does basically the same thing as me, but in addition, over the course of the semester, he will grade each person's entire assignment one time.

[bluelaser]

Homework is only 10% of the grade, there are also quizzes and exams. 

If HW is only 10%, I do not think he should be grading it at all?

If he can/will not hire a grader, he could just give students a check (they turned it in) no check (they didn't). He can then cover selected problems in class and post the complete answers outside of his office or on his website.

[francie_]

Econ Anon, here's what Mr. Francie (who teaches engineering also) has decided to do this semester.  He assigns homework but does not grade it.  Instead, he is giving a weekly quiz based on the homework problems, plus two or three exams during the term.  The quizzes take him about an hour to grade, despite having about 70 students in two sections.  Homework solutions are posted for two or three weeks in the locked case outside his office. 

In his opinion, homework should not count heavily toward a student's grade, if at all.  Students copy from each other or obtain the textbook's solution manual though various (and illegal) means.  There's really no way to know if they actually did the homework problems themselves.

[cc_alan]

He needs to balance what he wants the students to get out of it, what they are likely getting out of it, and the amount of time it takes him to grade it.

Students should do the homework in order to better learn the material. If they don't do it then they probably won't understand the material very well and this will show up on the exam.

I teach chemistry and I assign problems in each section. I require that they put all of the work in a spiral-bound notebook and they turn it in on scheduled days. No late homework. No loose homework. No exceptions. I get the books back to them very quickly because I don't grade them. I look to see if they are working them, showing proper work, etc. I drop the lowest homework score. I don't have time to grade them!

I even make the solutions available online. Why? First to get them to go to my webpage which has a lot of helpful information (tutorials, quizzes, etc.). Second, this allows the students to get help if they can't come and see me. Yes, they can copy it but it's only worth 4% of their overall grade. If they copy it then they aren't learning it and it affects their overall grade.

I have done what Mr. Francie does (in realfrancie's post) in the past and it worked well. Give them a quiz every week or so to see if they are studying.

He could also try setting up homework at www.webassign.com. The physics guys where I work use it and they love it.

Alan

[atalanta]

It's hard to believe that an engineering department doesn't provide funds to pay for graders! Harrumph!

But, since you find yourself in this position... Yes, you (OP's spouse) have an obligation to your students, but you have a greater obligation to yourself. You simply must work out a system that allows you to set your own priorities and do what you gotta do (which I assume includes research, papers and grant proposals).

When compared with the extraordinary effort you're expending, the benefit to the students from all this grading is disproportionately small.

There are lots of good suggestions here already. Here are some options.

1. Only grade selected problems. "Randomly" select the toughest problems. This won't penalize the better students.

2. Assign only 2-3 problems to be turned in and graded. Add a list suggested practice problems (ungraded), and post detailed solutions on the web. The better students will gain a lot from this.

3. Replace some of the problems with a list of 1-point "right or wrong" questions. They can be short conceptual questions, one-step calculations, or a question about units/dimensional analysis. These are easy to grade and can be very effective! I'm always surprised at  the number of students who learn to plow through problem-solving without allowing any concepts to penetrate. (I put these questions on exams, too.) Drawback: it takes longer to prepare the problem sets.

4. Do NOT write comments on the papers. You don't have time for that. Just make a mark indicating where the error is. Refer them to the posted problem solutions. You can post solutions on the web if it's password protected (e.g. on WebCT, or ask your system administrator to set up a password protected domain on your web site.)

5. Can you hire someone to help with clerical tasks (recording grades, alphabetizing papers, checking off right/wrong answers that don't require decision making)?

6. Talk to your publisher's rep about the possibility of computer-graded homework assignments. I haven't used these services myself, but I know others (in physics) who have. My understanding is that online-grading of homework has come a long way.

7. Replace every other homework assignment with an online quiz. Someone on your campus who works with WebCT/Blackboard can help you set it up.

Good luck!


And when you agonize over grading decisions, keep in mind that some students are cheating, and you really can't do anything about that. That's why the exams are worth a lot more. The main purpose of the homework is not the homework grade. It's to give the students a chance to prepare for the type of problem-solving that they'll encounter on exams. Feedback in the form of detailed solutions on the web, and some in-class feedback about common errors, are at least as effective as marked papers.

[seventhyear]

I give my freshman chemistry students "assigned" problems with each chapter.  They do them in a notebook that they bring to exams.  While they work the exam, I browse the notebooks and give 10/10 if all of the problems are attempted or done completely, and scale down from there.  Notebooks are done by the time they turn in the exam.  I have successfully done 40 during a 1 hour exam.  They are allowed to come to my office and check their work with the solutions manual.  They've been warned about copying from the solutions manual, and few try it.  What I love about the notebooks is the post exam exchange "I don't know what I did wrong studying for the exam!"  "Well, let's look at your notebook.  Hmm.  Looks like you only attempted 5 of the 35 recommended problems in chapter 4."

Ditto to the ideas above about only grading one or two. 

When grading numerical answers on exams (also on short quizzes) I look through the whole stack, sorting into piles of the right answer and making different piles for each wrong answer or for ones that look like the mostly got it, kind of got it and WTF.  I go ahead and give 10/10 to all the right ones.  Next stack, I figure out partial credit, give that amount to that answer and  move to the next pile.  By the time I get to the WTF pile I'm generally looking for "pity points" and hoping for some operation that is correct.

My other trick is that I set my grading key for partial credit and I grade the whole stack according to that key.  If the problem seems to have become a disaster or I'm grading too stringently I still finish the stack.   I don't try to adjust midstream.  After a break I'll look at the grading again and if I decide to change grades I do so then, using a different color. The students are actually very gratified to see that the points went up, and generally don't argue too much about grading when they see that they've already gotten some "extra points". 

Both these strategies help me with consistancy in grading. 

[dismal_sci]

I assign homework that involves some algebra.  I don't want to look (or have my TA look) through a bunch of messy equations to find the right answer, so I leave some room for the student to solve the problem but then I write "The answer is _____________".

Then I just look at the answer in the blank.  I only have to spend time looking at through their calculations when their answer is wrong to see how much partial credit to give.

The key is I provide the paper with the questions on it - I don't want to look through several pages of notebook paper for each student.  However, I guess this wouldn't work if the calculations are really long.

[atalanta]

When grading numerical answers on exams (also on short quizzes) I look through the whole stack, sorting into piles of the right answer and making different piles for each wrong answer or for ones that look like the mostly got it, kind of got it and WTF.  I go ahead and give 10/10 to all the right ones.  Next stack, I figure out partial credit, give that amount to that answer and  move to the next pile.  By the time I get to the WTF pile I'm generally looking for "pity points" and hoping for some operation that is correct.

I do exactly the same thing when grading exams. But I find it too time consuming to apply the same strategy to weekly homework assignments.

[zharkov]

For intro level classes, I often have the students do the online quizzes on the textbook's web site, and email me the grade. The get points for doing the homework and the computer grades it. (That is, the web site grades it automatically.)  I give students full credit for online quizzes if it looks like they put reasonable effort into it, say 7/10.  (I call that soft grading.)

I also assign a few homework problems to hand in, but just one or two, not a whole set. 

My exams are based mostly on the homework problems, so students figure out it is in their own best interest to keep up with homework.

[econ_anon]

Professor Husband has carefully read all of your replies and realized that he can't save everyone.  A little cynicism injected into his formerly optimistic missionary soul.  He has decided to move to a check/check plus/check minus system, possibly with homework quizzes.... and people who don't do the homework and don't know the material, not his problem.  Sad, but probably good to learn early on.  He will be rescinding his offer of cookies.

This decision has freed up enough time to do some yard work today, since we just got a home owners association notice saying we'd have to fix our lawn OR ELSE.

I had better get back to my own class prep now otherwise I'll run out of stuff to say mid-lecture.

[pythagoras]

I am also swamped with grading, but not for my math classes as much as the other type of classes I teach. I assign weekly problems with a worksheet attached, and first I give 0 - 5 points for completion. Then, I grade a random 10 - 15 problems. It doesn't take too long because I jot down a key and then I can get through them pretty quickly. To grade an entire class of 30, it usually takes me about an hour.

Other options I'm considering in the future:

1) Randomly collect certain sections, which the students don't know in advance.

2) Give open-note homework quizzes.

3) Don't collect bookwork, but remind students that test and quiz questions will be taken directly from them.

Some of my students turn in crap, and I let them know I know they're turning in crap. I emphasize they must copy the original problem (except story problems) and show all work for credit. I do not give credit if they don't show work.

I only give one quiz a week because time in class is so limited, but another professor in my department doesn't collect homework at all and gives short quizzes every day instead that take her no time to grade. She says this works. I like the idea, but then I have to get quizzes ready and it does take class time, which is short enough.

I've yet to find the best solution to this. But perhaps some of my ideas will help your husband. I think something has to be done to make sure the students are understanding the material and to keep them being responsible for their work, but I'm not sure what I'm doing is the best either.

[cc_alan]

I am also swamped with grading, but not for my math classes as much as the other type of classes I teach. I assign weekly problems with a worksheet attached, and first I give 0 - 5 points for completion. Then, I grade a random 10 - 15 problems. It doesn't take too long because I jot down a key and then I can get through them pretty quickly. To grade an entire class of 30, it usually takes me about an hour.

Other options I'm considering in the future:

1) Randomly collect certain sections, which the students don't know in advance.

2) Give open-note homework quizzes.

I've given open-note quizzes in the past. The students who have been studying do well and the students who haen't been studying find that the notes don't help them since they don't understand the individual parts.

One of the math instructors gives homework quizzes. He tells them the homework assignment and when it's time for a quiz, if they've done it already then all they have to do is copying down their work.

Alan