Face-to-Face is a feature that allows two members of the Redwood community to grill each other, argue, or simply converse about a relevant issue or event. We provide the topic, and they do the rest. This month’s participants are sophomore CJ Chao and junior Sally Elton. The issue: Should TA’s be allowed to grade work?
Do you have the ability to grade papers based on value?
CJ Chao: Yes, I do. I have the ability to grade everything – tests, homework, you know.
Sally Elton: I don’t. I simply check to see if students turned in the assignments.
How do you grade assignments?
CC: I have a key and follow that.
SE: She [the teacher I TA for] just tells me where certain assignments are on her computer, and I look to see if the students fully finished the assignment. If they did, then I give them the points.
Do you think student TAs should be allowed to grade assignments?
CC: I do, because I see how much work my teacher has, and I know that he could not do all that work by himself.
SE: I don’t think so. It’s not fair, because some TAs don’t fully know what the subjects they’re grading are. And if they don’t understand, how can they grade an assignments they don’t know about based on content?
CC: I think you need to have faith in the teacher based on who they hire as a TA. Besides, my teacher is extremely specific about what he wants, and basically will tell me – if there are a couple words off, even one topic a bit off, it’s wrong. It’s very straightforward for me to grade.
SE: But how is that fair, though? If one word is off but means the same thing, shouldn’t the teacher be the one to decide what’s wrong and what’s right? You’re a student, you don’t fully understand the subject you’re grading. There could be certain ways of stating a fact, but you may not know.
CC: If it’s very close, I will ask my teacher. He’s usually there to give input, and is very specific. If it’s wrong, it’s wrong, though. That’s how he grades homework—just as specific as I do.
Have you ever had a complaint based on the way TAs grade?
SE: In my experience as a student, yes. almost every time I get an assignment back in a certain one of my classes, everyone is complaining about points off, and the TAs don’t even say what I did wrong, what isn’t right. A lot of times if I get the points off but I thought I had the right answer, I have to go to the teacher and ask him what happened. often he’ll give me one or two points back that I deserved. that whole process could be taken back if the teacher graded the work, or at least looked over it and made sure the TAs corrected the right thing.
CC: I rarely have complaints. If I do, students can definitely do that, ask the teacher, and if the teacher agrees that you should have more points, then go ahead.
So you (CJ) grade based on content, and you (Sally) grade based on whether it’s there. What do you think should be the general form of grading for TAs?
SE: I think that TAs should just be able to check whether a student turned in the assignment. It takes part of the work out for the teacher – I know my teacher has a lot of classes and a lot of students, so it’s hard to keep track of who turns in what. When I check it off, it takes one step off of her workload.
CC: You know, in a perfect world, that may be the best solution, but there is no way that teachers can get done all that stuff by themselves. A lot of the assignments are straightforward – multiple choice tests, for instance, are easy to grade – and short answers are easy because there is really only one right answer.
SE: Multiple choice is different, though. A lot of the times there’s a Scantron where you put it in and that’s it. That’s not grading on content. Otherwise, it’s clear what the answer is. But if it’s a written-out answer, a student could leave something out or not use a specific word, yet the teacher will probably know better.
CC: I think you should expect the teacher to make just as many mistakes as a TA would under the stress of having to grade all those assignments.
