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Faculty Spotlight: Rich Ross turbocharges the grading process with Gradescope

I really think that to some extent one of the reasons Gradescope isn’t used more is that people just don’t realize how powerful it is.

Rich Ross is Assistant Professor of Statistics at UVA, and is teaching STAT 2120: Introduction to Statistical Analysis this semester. With 572 students in the course, grading assignments and exams can be challenging and time-consuming. Gradescope’s ability to build and apply custom, adaptable rubrics during the grading process has allowed him to grade quickly and accurately and focus more of his attention on interacting with his students.

We asked Rich to share some of his experiences with the tool and advice for those interested in exploring its potential.

Q. HOW ARE YOU USING GRADESCOPE IN YOUR COURSE?

A. The class that I teach right now, STAT 2120, we have an asynchronous lecture component where I pre-record videos and students are able to watch that content and re-watch it, which has been really valuable, and then we have a synchronous lab portion where there’s a lot of really active learning and students work and submit work in groups. So I have lots of individual work and lots of group work, and trying to figure out how to manage assessing all of that work or evaluating that work is a difficult thing, but having tools like Gradescope has been super helpful in thinking about how do we do this at scale.

You actually never have to take your hands off the keyboard because you can just select the grade items that apply to the student and then press a button to go to the next submission for that same question, and so you can get very, very quick and accurate at grading work and especially in comparison to grading paper submissions.

Q. HOW IS THE TOOL SUPPORTING YOUR ONLINE TEACHING?

A. When we were teaching in person in the spring … the first exam I gave in person, and so students wrote on paper and turned in the paper. Gradescope has a really cool way of managing those submissions. Basically, you can just scan all the student submissions in, and it does a lot of things that are pretty automatic. It can detect patterns of student responses. It reads your text and it does oftentimes a very good job, and so you can actually save a lot of time in grading that way as well.

But for the second midterm and the final, we were online. We had to figure out, how do we conduct an exam in an online format? And I still don’t think that we’ve perfected it, but Gradescope offers pretty smooth ways to run, evaluate, and have students take an online assessment that even can be somewhat high stakes. You can have some questions that are multiple choice or check all of the boxes that apply. You can have questions where students just type out their response. You can also have questions where students upload one or more files. There’s a lot of flexibility in how students get to interact as they’re taking an exam and I think that’s super valuable.

Q. WHAT FEATURES DO YOU FIND MOST USEFUL ABOUT GRADESCOPE?

A. With Gradescope, you can just change the point value for any item, and it applies that change to all submissions. The rubrics are highly customizable, and you can always change them even after you’ve started grading.

It also has a built-in regrade request system. When I publish grades, if a student says, “I think that maybe there was an error,” and in a class with 550 students, we’re bound to make errors once in a while. We hope that they’re minimal, but it sometimes happens. We’re just very upfront and tell students, if you think that we maybe made an error, submit a regrade request, and you can handle all of that directly in Gradescope’s website. You don’t have to have a bunch of emails going back and forth.

The only other thing that’s been super useful is that it’s very clear to students with disability accommodations. If they get extra time on an assignment, that’s built in … Is this revolutionary? No. Lots of tools can do this, but it’s an important feature that helps to accommodate needs.

Q. WHAT FEEDBACK HAVE YOU RECEIVED FROM STUDENTS ABOUT GRADESCOPE?

A. The feedback overall has been quite positive. I think that students would generally agree with me based on what I’ve heard as far as it’s nice to have that one stop where you can go and you can see, here are all the assignments, here’s when they’re due.

And I think students appreciate being able to submit a regrade request maybe partly because they realize that as a course staff, we’re admitting that we can make mistakes sometimes and that we’re happy to have those conversations. I think that actually builds a lot of trust between the instructor and the students.

Q. WHAT TIPS OR SUGGESTIONS DO YOU HAVE FOR INSTRUCTORS USING GRADESCOPE FOR THE FIRST TIME?

A. Although it may take a little bit of time to get used to, it will shock you how much time you will save. The thing that I’ve found as I teach that maybe shouldn’t have surprised me, but does surprise me, is that lots of the little stuff takes up a lot of your time.

I think that Gradescope has implemented several mechanisms that meaningfully reduce the amount of time you have to spend … grading and let you do more of one of my favorite things as a teacher, which is interacting directly with my students, talking to them about content questions, talking to them about potential career options. I feel like I have a lot more flexibility to do what I hope to do as a professor and spend a little bit less time doing some of the things that we just have to do.

I really think that to some extent one of the reasons that Gradescope isn’t used more is that people just don’t realize how powerful it is. I think that once you take a tour, you’ll come back to visit again.

Gradescope can be added to course sites in Collab, in Blackboard and Brightspace at the McIntire School of Commerce, and in Canvas at the School of Education and Human Development. It can also be accessed directly via NetBadge by faculty and students in all schools and departments. Contact the Learning Tech team or Gradescope Support if you have questions about the tool or need help getting started.

If you’re interested in sharing your experience with Gradescope or another tool in the Learning Tech catalog with your colleagues, we’d love to hear from you! Email Kristin Sloane at ks8yx@virginia.edu.

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Faculty Spotlight

Faculty Spotlight: Jennifer Sessions on the power of Peerceptiv

The thing I really appreciate about Peerceptiv is that it doesn’t just help students improve individual papers. It helps them become more effective readers and editors.

Jennifer Sessions is Associate Professor of History at UVA. She is a historian of modern France and its colonial empire, with an emphasis on French relations with North Africa, particularly Algeria, and interests in comparative empires, settler colonialism, and cultural history. Her recent courses include lectures and seminars on Modern Europe and the World; Modern European Imperialism; Immigration, Race, and Islam in Paris; and France and Algeria: From Piracy to Terrorism.

Peer review of writing assignments is an important component of many of Jennifer’s courses, and she regularly uses Peerceptiv to facilitate this process. We asked her to share some of her experiences with the tool and recommendations for others who might be considering a similar approach.

Q. How have you used Peerceptiv in your courses?

A. I started using Peerceptiv for guided peer review of essay assignments in my modern European history course in Fall 2017, and since then have used it in everything from big introductory surveys with several hundred students to specialized upper-level courses of a few dozen. This fall, we’re even using it in a graduate seminar. Students at any level use Peerceptiv to review drafts of each other’s writing, and then use the feedback they receive to revise those drafts for final assessment by me and/or their graduate instructors. To reinforce the importance of peer review as a learning process, I treat the Peerceptiv and the revised essay as two separate assignments, with separate grades.

Q. What kinds of things has Peerceptiv helped you and your students achieve?

A. The thing I really appreciate about Peerceptiv is that it doesn’t just help students improve individual papers. It helps them become more effective readers and editors. It sounds hyperbolic, I know, but I regularly use the term “magical” in describing this power to colleagues. The anonymous online system depersonalizes the peer review process and facilitates more objective, honest feedback, which means writers get better, more useful feedback on their own drafts. But even more important, reading and providing feedback on several of their colleagues’ drafts allows students to see what does and doesn’t work for the assignment, to think through why, and to talk about how to make a given piece of writing more effective.

Q. How has Peerceptiv changed the way you design and conduct your courses?

A. Using Peerceptiv has made me much more deliberate in designing courses to scaffold concepts and skills over the course of a semester. More particularly, it has pushed me to shift the focus of writing assignments from outcomes to process. Instead of approaching each essay as a stand-alone assessment of students’ writing skills and understanding of course material, I now think about the essays in a course collectively, as an iterative, cumulative practice that helps students get better as writers and readers.

Q. What tips or suggestions do you have for instructors using Peerceptiv for the first time?

A. Leave plenty of lead time to create assignments, and work with the staff in the Center for Teaching Excellence and at Peerceptiv to design and set them up. Getting the most out of Peerceptiv requires effective rubrics that are specific but not overwhelming. Consultation with an expert in the teaching of writing was invaluable in helping me to strike that balance and articulate my expectations in ways that would be accessible to student writers. This is time-consuming on the front end, but once assignments are set up properly, the review process can be as hands on or hands off as desired.

Peerceptiv can be added to course sites in Collab, and also in Canvas at the Darden School of Business and the School of Continuing and Professional Studies. Contact the Learning Tech team or Peerceptiv Support if you have questions about getting started or creating assignments—we’re here to help!

If you’re interested in sharing your experience with Peerceptiv or another tool in the Learning Tech catalog with your colleagues, we’d love to hear from you! Email Kristin Sloane at ks8yx@virginia.edu.

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Faculty Spotlight

Organizing course content to encourage engagement

Recent studies have suggested that students’ emotional connections to courses are key contributors to successful online learning, alongside other more traditional elements such as the effective use of technology and access to the assigned content. In their latest article in the EDUCAUSE Review, Melissa Fanshawe, Katie Burke, Eseta Tualaulelei, and Cath Cameron offer three general recommendations for encouraging emotional engagement among students learning online:

  • Focus on the teacher-student relationship.
  • Let students know that you care about their progress.
  • Organize the online platform clearly and logically.

While the first two recommendations seem fairly straightforward, the potential benefits of well-structured course content and activities are more easily overlooked. Fortunately, learning management systems like Collab and Canvas include handy tools to transform your syllabus or other materials into interactive pages—which streamlines navigation, reduces confusion, and prioritizes progress and learning.

Collab: Lessons/Activities

If you use Collab for your course sites, you can use the Lessons tool for this purpose (also known as the Activities tool in some of the site templates available in Collab). Lessons includes options to add direct links to items in other tools in your course sites, including Resources, Assignments, Discussions, and Tests & Quizzes, allowing students to access everything in a single location. You can also add and embed text, images, videos, and checklists to track the completion of important requirements, and more.

If you’re familiar with Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), you can customize the design of your pages even further. Check out the video below for a brief introduction to custom CSS in Lessons, and contact the Learning Tech team for a sample CSS file if you’d like to try it out.

Canvas: Modules

If you use Canvas for your course sites, you can use the Modules tool for this purpose. Modules also allows you to add direct links to items in other tools in your course sites. Check out the video below for an overview of Modules in action.

Further reading

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Digital Pedagogy

Getting started with activities in Poll Everywhere

Poll Everywhere is a versatile option for encouraging engagement in your courses. Use it to present general polls, attendance items, review questions, quizzes, and more; students respond by following links to your activities in a web browser or app on their computers or mobile devices. Results are received and updated instantly and can be displayed at your discretion to generate reflection and discussion.

The steps below will guide you through creating your account in Poll Everywhere, importing your course roster, and creating your activities. Once you’re up and running, Poll Everywhere’s Essential Distance Learning Guide provides a great overview of many key features. And of course, you can always contact us with any questions or comments that pop up as you get started—we’d love to hear from you.

Step 1: Create your account in Poll Everywhere

Creating an account in Poll Everywhere is quick and easy. Because you sign in with NetBadge, there’s no hassle of creating yet another username and password combination.

  1. Visit polleverywhere.com, and select the Log in link at the top of the page.
  2. Enter your UVA email address (computing ID@virginia.edu) into the box, then select the Next button.
  3. Select the Log in with UVA NetBadge button, then sign in with NetBadge.
  4. Select the Sign up for my Poll Everywhere account button. Your account has now been created!

If you previously created a free account with Poll Everywhere using your UVA email address, we’ll need to invite you to join the UVA account in Poll Everywhere. Send us a message at learningtech@virginia.edu and we’ll take it from there!

Step 2: Import your course roster into Poll Everywhere

Now that you’ve created your account in Poll Everywhere, you can import your course roster, which registers your students as participants for your activities and allows you to review their responses and export them to your gradebook. If you’re using Poll Everywhere for basic engagement and you don’t need these features, you can skip to Step 3 below.

  1. Visit your course site. If you’re using Collab, you can follow the steps for adding tools to sites to add the Poll Everywhere tool to your site. If you’re using Blackboard or Canvas, you may need to contact your system administrator to make sure you have access to the tool.
  2. Access the tool in your course site. If you’re using Collab, you can select Poll Everywhere in the toolbar on the left side of the page in your site. If you’re using Blackboard or Canvas, you can follow the steps in the Blackboard and Canvas educator guides to access the tool.
  3. If you see a Continue to LMS to login button, such as Continue to collab.its.virginia.edu, select it to continue the process.
  4. Select the Import Roster button.
  5. Select the Go to Participants page button. Your participants will be listed on the page, and your course roster will be listed among the Groups on the right side of the page.

If new students are added to the course roster after you import it into Poll Everywhere, you’ll need to repeat the roster import process to add them to your group in Poll Everywhere.

Step 3: Create your activities

Now that the setup is out of the way, you’re ready to get started with Poll Everywhere!

  1. Visit polleverywhere.com and sign into your account.
  2. Select the Create button.
  3. Follow the steps for creating activities to create your activity, then activate it when you’re ready for your students to respond. You can even insert your activities directly into your PowerPoint, Keynote, or Google Slides presentation!

By default, newly created activities are restricted to registered participants, which requires students to be registered with you (through their inclusion on a course roster you imported into Poll Everywhere) and signed into Poll Everywhere with NetBadge in order to respond. However, you can change this setting and make your activity accessible to everyone who visits the activity link by visiting the Configuration menu.

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Tool Features

New year, new tools

With many courses transitioning to online instruction, it’s safe to say that this semester will present unique challenges for faculty, staff, and students alike. That’s why we’ve spent the summer strengthening and expanding the digital part of our Academical Village to accommodate more features and potential applications than ever before.

Thanks to generous support from the Executive Vice President and Provost and the Chief Information Officer, seven tools have been newly added or significantly expanded for use in your course sites and activities. The Learning Tech catalog includes more information about these tools and their potential for teaching and learning, along with resources and contacts to help you get started.

The list includes:

  • Digication: Design and publish simple, elegant ePortfolio websites for academic projects and professional development.
  • Gradescope: Streamline the grading process for exams, problem sets, and other assignments by building intuitive, dynamic rubrics as you work.
  • Hypothesis: Add annotations alongside digital texts to provide context, offer reflections, ask and answer questions, and more.
  • MATLAB Grader: Build autograded programming assignments that provide immediate, contextual feedback, with detailed analytics.
  • Peerceptiv: Encourage student development as teachers and learners through a research-validated cycle of anonymous feedback.
  • Poll Everywhere: Post attendance items, quick quizzes, or polls, display live updates on your screen, and transfer scores to your gradebook.
  • VoiceThread: Create a virtual seminar discussion by recording and embedding video commentary within posted documents or clips.

Stay tuned for tips, tricks, and examples of each tool! Don’t hesitate to send us an email at learningtech@virginia.edu with your questions or ideas, or leave us a note in the comments below.

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Tool Announcements

Welcome! We’re glad you’re here.

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Learning Tech is live! This site is your connection to learning technologies available across UVA, but it’s also much more. It’s a unique space that spans the intersection between the physical, the digital, and the missional parts of our Academical Village, and helps you harness the power and potential of each of these parts in your teaching and learning. Whether your classroom is on Grounds, online, or a combination of the two, the resources presented here offer opportunities to enhance, refine, or even reimagine your courses.

For now, the core component of Learning Tech is its innovative, searchable catalog of tools, which provides vital information about their pedagogical purposes, functions, availability, and support options. Many tools are accessible directly from the catalog with a single click, while others may be integrated into your course sites in UVACollab, Canvas, or Blackboard. Most importantly, each tool is described in the context of its practical applications for teaching and learning, from fostering a range of learning activities and improving assessment and evaluation processes to encouraging increased student engagement and collaboration.

As exciting as these features are, we think the best is still to come. Together with our partners—the Learning Design & Technology Group, UVACollab Applications Group, and Information Technology Services—and with the support of the Executive Vice President and Provost and the Chief Information Officer, we’re already working on more enhancements. These include a ratings system that will allow you to share detailed feedback on tools you’ve used previously, review similar feedback from your colleagues, and connect with additional use cases.

Follow us on Twitter @learningtechuva for new additions, updates, profiles, and more. You can also contact us at learningtech@virginia.edu with your questions and ideas—we’d love to hear from you.

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News/Announcements