I recently posted an A as the final grade for one of my students. I’ve had other students earn top grades before, but this situation was a little different. First, let me say that the grade wasn’t the result of a bell curve grading system. In fact, I don’t use bell curves as I prefer to use grading rubrics. In general, a rubric is a way of explicitly stating the criteria for assignments. Rubrics not only lead to a grade, they are part of the grading process. They are more specific and detailed than a grade as they provide feedback showing the strengths and weaknesses in the students work. What I really like about rubrics is that they are criterion-centered, rather than norm-centered. They allow me to consider, "Did the student meet the criteria for the top level of the rubric?" rather than "How well did this student do compared to other students?" I find this is more compatible with cooperative and collaborative learning environments than competitive grading situations.
The student to which I referred earlier carefully leveraged the feedback I provided after each assignment and was able to continually improve their performance over time.
Timely, consistent, and specific feedback is the key to performance improvement. Do you provide timely, consistent, and specific feedback to your employee’s? A recent article in the WSJ stated that “nearly half of 20,000 employees surveyed at 100 large global companies … said they don’t receive enough feedback from their managers to help them improve their performance.” The article went on to state that “employees who lack guidance and opportunities to advance are more likely to quit and look for jobs elsewhere, even during shaky economic times …” It’s difficult to develop company ambassadors if your employee tenure mirrors the life span of a fruit fly. Now, you probably don’t have time for constant employee hand-holding, and that’s not what I’m suggesting. However; let me provide just a couple of ideas concerning the qualities of effective feedback.
• Be committed to providing feedback that is more than a ranking. Evaluative comments can range from noting mechanical errors to lengthy discussions and explanations of the performance review.
• Even when the feedback is not positive, it must always be constructive and respectful. As with all messages, it is the listener who dictates what is actually received.
• Prompt feedback can serve as a valuable motivator at all levels of performance. It also serves to help improve performance on subsequent assignments.
I’m sure many of you have additional ideas you would add to this list. Will a rubric guarantee an A performance? No, unfortunately within that same class I also posted a final grade of D- for another student. In my role as VP of Marketing I do leverage the rubric concept to build, coach and mentor my team. We experienced over 30% growth last year … so; I believe it’s a concept worth exploring.
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