Grading
When it comes time to grade, it is important to know the approach that you will take. Typically your instructor or course coordinator will have a process established. This can include their approach to rubrics or grading criteria, assigning grades, and what to do when common issues arise such as grade review requests or when multiple TAs are marking in the same course. If not, you can consult this chapter to help guide you in your grading process.
Rubrics and grading criteria
The best tool to calibrate grading using a set of criteria is a rubric or marking guide. Using a rubric helps to focus feedback and make grading as objective and consistent as possible, especially if there are multiple TAs assigned to a course. Before you start grading any assignment, we recommend you ask the course instructor if they have prepared a rubric.
A rubric specifies evaluation criteria to improve reliability or consistency when grading. Best practice is that the rubric is shared with students when they receive the assignment instructions to ensure transparency. It will also allow you to easily respond to student questions about their grades and justify your assessment decisions.
What if there’s no rubric?
Although rubrics are becoming increasingly common for summative assessments in university-level coursework; not all instructors use them. To guide your grading and feedback in the absence of a rubric, the assignment description provided by the instructor and the learning outcomes of the assignment are your main points of reference. By cross-referencing the language used in both of these materials, you can start to formulate your own set of grading criteria or checklist.
Determining grading criteria
- What are the requirements of the assignment (i.e. specific parts to be included) and what specifically are you looking for when you grade the assignment? These will be aligned with the learning outcomes you are evaluating with the particular assessment. For example, if you are grading a traditional academic paper, you might be looking for: a good thesis, strength of arguments, use of supporting evidence, cohesion, etc.
- What is the value for each grading criteria? Will all components be weighted equally? (i.e. Strength of the argument, Use of supporting evidence might be valued at 5 points while the Thesis might be valued at 1 point). For example, Writing may be weighted heavily in a language-focused course, but weighted less in a course that is not.
- What are the grading standards? What separates an A from a B, or an excellent paper from a fair one? Can the instructor provide you with examples?
For more on rubrics, see our Teaching Academy micro-module on Grading criteria.
Practice exercise
Read through the sample essay assignment description for a Political Science course below and write three criteria that you would grade this assignment. You can cite phrases directly from the assignment description if you believe it to be relevant. Press ‘check’ to validate your answers and to read an explanation.
Thank you to Dr. Ceren Belge for sharing the sample assignment.
Assigning a grade
Grading scale
When it comes time to assign a grade to the assessment, be sure to refer to your department’s grading scale. The grading scale, or ‘grading norms’ is a number or grade value applied to various levels of achievement, ideally with descriptors for instructors and students to align their expectations. Grading scales often vary by department, so your instructor will usually provide you with the one to reference when grading.
Here is a sample grading system from the Theological studies department. Pay attention to the language that describes each grade value as an aid to help you differentiate between levels when grading:
| Letter grade GPA | Description |
| A+
4.3 |
Outstanding. The A+ in the grading system allows for truly outstanding work to be recognized. Normally achieved by a small number of students. |
| A
4.0 |
Excellent skills and great originality. Superior work in both content and presentation. |
| A-
3.7 |
Excellent. The student has an insightful grasp of the subject matter. Academic work demonstrates clear and persuasive argument. It is a well structured text that features solid introductory and concluding arguments. There are few presentation errors. |
| B+ 3.3 |
Very Good performance. Thorough knowledge of concepts and/or techniques. Student has the ability to learn independently and to use relevant evidence to develop logically valid arguments. Some minor but noticeable errors in presentation may detract from the otherwise high quality of work. |
| B
3.0 |
A good grasp of the subject matter. The student’s paper is clear and well structured. Minor components of an answer may be missing. |
| B-
2.7 |
Good level of knowledge. Has the ability to go beyond the simple reiteration of the material presented in class. Papers are articulate and fulfill the course requirements. |
| C+
2.3 |
Competent. The student’s work is competent and demonstrates an adequate understanding of the subject matter. Academic work of an acceptable quality. Ideas are presented in a style that is at least coherent and orderly. Presentation errors that affect the quality of the work are present. |
| C
2.0 |
Fairly competent. Acceptable level of knowledge. Papers need structuring. Student has some difficulty in clarifying his/her thoughts. |
| C-
1.7 |
Satisfactory. Command of only the basic concepts of knowledge. Student has obvious difficulty structuring and developing ideas. |
| D+
1.3 |
Marginal performance. Superficial grasp of the subject matter. A sense of organization and development is often not demonstrated. Major components of a question may have been neglected. Difficulty in expressing ideas. |
| D
1.0 |
Minimal grasp of the material. Ideas are not clear to the reader. |
| D-
0.5 |
Deficient in many of the objectives of the course. Important skills not attained. |
| F
0 |
Failure: Basic concepts and principles not learned. Essential skills cannot be demonstrated. |
Grading with points
Some disciplines may grade using a points-based system. For example, an assignment may have multiple problems where each problem is assigned a maximum point value. The final grade is calculated by adding the student’s score on all criteria and dividing that by the total maximum point value. Weighting for different criteria or problems do not need to be determined.
This grading scheme is typically pre-determined by the instructor or course coordinator. You likely will need to align on when partial points (i.e. half marks) are assigned.
| Problem | Maximum points |
| 1 | 2 |
| 2 | 2 |
| 3 | 4 |
| Total points = 10 |
Learn more
The Centre for Teaching and Learning typically hosts a Grading & feedback workshop online every semester through GradProSkills. To see a list of upcoming workshops, visit this page and filter by ‘teaching’.
Grading on Moodle
Marking guides or rubrics can be set up in Moodle to facilitate more efficient grading. Rubrics provide performance levels for each criterion, which can increase consistency and save time. When using a marking guide, you can create a reusable bank of feedback comments, which is also a time saver. It is also possible, when enabled, to provide audio feedback on assignments. Another important thing to note is that Moodle allows you to download all submissions, in one click, for review offline and to upload annotated papers in a zip file. We encourage TAs who are using Moodle for grading to take the training on Grading in Moodle from IITS.
Common issues when grading
You’re having trouble assigning a grade to an assignment
When you have a question or notice an outlier while grading an assignment, it is helpful to make a quick note to yourself, either on paper or digitally. This record-keeping helps catch recurring questions and priority questions for the instructor (e.g., I noticed several students who took xyz approach to this assignment and that made it difficult to assign them a grade. How should we move forward with those?).
There are several TAs responsible for grading
Keeping a list of notes while grading also facilitates identifying potential issues and outliers between TAs. If there are many TAs or if you are sharing the grading responsibilities with the instructor, comparing these notes can help you collaboratively reach a decision that impacts all affected students fairly.
You receive a request from a student to review their grade
Occasionally, you may receive a request from a student to review a grade that was assigned to them. Typically, this is the instructor’s responsibility but be sure to consult with them in your initial meeting about who should address the student’s request.
