The more common problem across multiple sections of large courses taught by several different instructors is content drift, not grade drift. At my institution we have three General Chemistry I sections, and the distributions of A's, B's, and C's among the students does not change significantly depending on which of 6 people teach the course. The distribution of D's and F's does vary, however. What is more troublesome to us is that some instructors will cover 8 chapters, some will cover 9, some 10, and so on.
However, if you really want to minimize grade drift, then do the following, which will also eliminate content drift:
- Coordinate the class - same textbook, same syllabus, identical assignments, exams, everything.
- Agree ahead of time on a common grading policy, including cutoffs, curves, grade disputes, etc., and enforce it uniformly.
- Teach from a common outline so that all sections get the same material in the same week.
- Meet frequently, including at least one meeting before the class starts.
- Grade equitably, which may seem difficult, unless you do the following: Professor A grades all of Assignment 1 across all 4 sections. Professor B grades all of assignment 2, etc. Better yet, hire one person (a grad student maybe) to do all of the grading for all 4 sections.
manpreet
Best Answer
2 years ago
A typical freshman course on calculus has about 100 students every semester. If the course is divided into 4 sections, each has 25 students and a different instructor.
Because the instructors are different, a student's grade may strongly depend on who teaches his section. Lazy students">students could ask other students">students before registering who is the easiest grader or who makes easy or straightforward exams, etc. This is unfair to the rest of the students">students.
Has anybody else faced the same problem? And how did you overcome it?
What criteria one should impose to guarantee that a student's grade will only weakly depend on who is teaching him?.
We are thinking about giving all sections the same midterms and finals. But, obviously this is not enough