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Grading Tips

As a class assistant or mentor, you will often have to grade homework. At the beginning of each semester, Lead will hold a grading session which covers some basic strategies for homework grading. If you are a class assistant, your TA often will have some way that they want homework graded. If not, here are some guidelines to help:
First of all, there is no predetermined way that you must grade homework. Everyone is free to develop their own style.

  • Encourage students to work in groups, and have each group submit only one homework.
  • Students should highlight their answer cells in a bright background (yellow, green, etc.) so that their answers are easy for you to find.
  • Grade more than one homework at a time. If you have two or three homework files tiled across the desktop, you can grade the same problem simultaneously on multiple homeworks. This also helps you to be more consistent.
  • Try to be as consistent as possible when grading. Occasionally, a TA will give you an answer key, but usually you are on your own.
  • Don't be lazy and get a huge build-up of ungraded homework files. A week turnaround on grading is pretty good.
  • If you are grading for your first time, then you should expect that it will go a little slowly at first. If you are having a lot of trouble, then talk to a Lead about getting some help.

Comments from Students

The problems we solved . . . apply to our classes and to our lives. I learned 10 times more than I would've in [a traditional calculus class] . I actually feel smart. Because we do everything by computer, we are forced to know why we do what we do. The style and the types of questions are things we can relate to and picture. I personally learn more when I understand and am interested... I gotta tell you, this is the most fun I have ever had in a math class. Seriously.

— Several students on C&M BioCalc

Tech Support

Techs support both the lab machines and the software used in this program.
In the event of a problem, send an e-mail to tech@cm.math.uiuc.edu.