NSF Award
2418494
Typical university classrooms use traditional grading practices where points are allocated to assignments, mistakes result in point deductions, and assignment scores are combined using some form of weighted averaging to determine grades. Often, student behaviors are assessed within grades as well, including timeliness, effort, and conformity to standards. Several alternative and equitable grading practices have been proposed to combat the implicit bias often embedded in these practices. However, a significant barrier to adoption of these equitable grading practices has been the lack of tool support for educators. Virginia Tech and University of Buffalo will develop and integrate educational tools to deploy equitable grading practices (EGP), which have been shown to engage students more deeply with the learning process, to provide more equitable feedback to students about their learning. The project will bring equitable grading practices into the hands of many more educators because of the integration with already popular online learning tools and the most common learning management systems (LMS). Because these learning management systems are used by all levels (high school, community college, university), this technology integration will make adopting these practices much easier at all levels. <br/><br/>This project will provide educators with the tools necessary to transform grading practices in their classrooms towards equitable grading practices and thereby better support student learning and achievement of course outcomes. The current set of tools available for instructors to use when adopting equitable grading practices is lacking in several respects. The project will resolve these technology issues by (1) designing a concise and expressive way for instructors to describe the way they want results from learning tools to be mapped into their chosen grading strategy; (2) developing a Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) “proxy” for equitable grading practices that can serve as a software adapter that uses the instructor description to map results from any LTI-based educational tool into an LMS in an EGP-supportive way; (3) devising corresponding practical strategies for using learning management systems (Canvas) as the umbrella to integrate equitable grading practices seamlessly into existing courses; and (4) building a pathway for learning tools to directly support these approaches, research and develop proof-of-concept integrations of EGP-based grading and feedback processes into a selection of existing community learning tools for practice exercises, automatically graded assignments, and electronic textbooks. In addition, this project will address the following educational research questions that investigate the impact of equitable grading practices as a teaching innovation [RQ1] How does student engagement with and use of educational learning tools (such as autograding tools, homework practice tools, e-textbook tools, etc.) change with the use of EGP integrated tools? [RQ2] Are EGP-driven changes in the feedback given to students on assignments from these tools associated with any changes in student behavior or achievement? [RQ3] Is achievement of course learning objectives measured more consistently and uniformly under EGP supported by tools, compared to traditional grading practices?<br/><br/>This project is funded by the Research on Innovative Technologies for Enhanced Learning (RITEL) program that supports early-stage exploratory research in emerging technologies for teaching and learning.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
