A tutor's guide to teaching and learning at UQ - TEDI - University of ...

Section 5: Marking and Giving Feedback 47SECTION 5Marking and Giving FeedbackMost tutors will be required to undertake some kind of marking of students work,whether it be of formal assessment tasks, or in-class/take-home activities or exercises.Whichever the case, it is important to prepare yourself appropriately for the task andtake it seriously.Students are often very anxious about assessment andtheir performance, particularly when it concerns majorpieces of assessment or important courses required fortheir program of study (for example, sometimes a coursehas to be completed and passed in order to progress ontothe next course or year level). Your ‘performance’ as amarker is therefore just as crucial as their performanceas a student. From the student’s perspective, every markcounts!Before we talk about marking students work, here is an overview of some of the keyprinciples and policies regarding assessment at the University of Queensland.UQ Principles for assessmentThe specific assessment approach adopted at the University of Queensland andendorsed by the Teaching and Learning Committee of the Academic Board is called‘criterion referenced assessment’, whereby marks for all pieces of assessment aredecided by reference to previously specified yardsticks ("criteria") and, where a grade isassigned, it will be assigned on the basis of the standard the student has achieved oneach of the criteria for the course. This method is in contrast to norm-referencedassessment (as involved when ‘grading to the curve’) which looks at how well thestudent has done in comparison with the ‘norms’ established by the other students in thegroup.Assessment requirements at UQ must be transparent and be provided, in writing, tostudents in the first week of class each semester as part of the course profile except inthose cases where student input into assessment requirements is standard procedure.With respect to assessment, the course profile must include:♦♦clear, accurate and detailed assessment requirements, and objectives and goals ofthe course;how assessment methods link to objectives and goals;