David Kanter | Fighting for feedback

The first time I got a paper back from a professor here at Penn, I was a little confused.

Other than a few perfunctory, illegible comments found scribbled in the margins, insightful, constructive criticism was nowhere in sight. I thought (incorrectly, I suppose) that I would receive extensive feedback on each assignment. I soon learned that unmarked papers and vague comments were the norm.

Maybe this is inevitable given that a single course can have well over 100 students who are each turning in a 10- to 15-page paper, graded by TAs who themselves are full-time students. But a university education is supposed to be a two-way street, founded upon an instructor-student relationship.

Although this relationship is often distant, with the professor lecturing at the podium and the student being one of many in a large auditorium, the TA can bridge the gap. And despite the cynics who say that the only thing students care about are grades, some are actually interested in intellectual growth. Only constructive feedback can foster such growth.

So how can professors balance the needs of their students with the time constraints of their TAs?

Director of Undergraduate Leadership Programs Anne Greenhalgh - more popularly known as the "Management 100 czar" - may just have the answer.

Each semester, Greenhalgh has well over 100 students, yet she manages to make feedback the foundation of her course. This, of course, has a lot to do with the her own dedicated effort.

But Greenhalgh and her TAs have a nifty technological tool that other professors might want to consider using.

That tool is Waypoint Outcomes, a product of Subjective Metrics. Waypoint gives professors the opportunity to customize their own rubrics, allowing them to pinpoint the areas they want their students to focus on. For instance, Greenhalgh assigns a weighted grade distribution for evaluating papers and presentations based on her five focus areas, which include categories such as "Critical Thinking" and "Use of Evidence." If these customized rubrics sound the same as the vague rubrics used in writing seminars, think again.

As the professor or TA grades a paper or presentation, he or she can type individualized feedback under the more general rubric categories. So instead of a standardized response, each student is e-mailed a detailed critique.

Andrew McCann, founder and president of Subjective Metrics, explained that his program fills a void in the world of higher education. "The idea of a rubric is pretty much universally accepted, but there was no software-based way to use them."

The program also brings a level of precision to subjective evaluations. Each time the professor logs a student's score, a data point is created, allowing professors to see trends in their grading patterns.

"I could see quantitatively what I valued intuitively," Greenhalgh told me.

She noticed, for instance, that she generally graded "critical thinking" and "use of evidence" a bit harder than "awareness of audience" or "control of language." Consequently, she knew the areas that she needed to emphasize in class.

By most accounts, the program seems to be helping.

Before using Waypoint, Greenhalgh's TAs tended to have relatively low student rankings in the category that evaluated TA feedback on formal writing assignments. Since TAs began using Waypoint, students have rewarded them with higher rankings. Greenhalgh doesn't think this is a coincidence.

She also sees a larger purpose for Waypoint, more along the lines of what Subjective Metrics envisions. If related courses started to use the same or similar subjective evaluation criteria, students could use Waypoint data to determine the focus areas in which they are and aren't improving. "A student could track his progress from course to course," she says optimistically.

Yet like most things, Waypoint isn't a silver bullet. Greenhalgh is the first to admit this: "It's a great tool, but its success is in the hand of the user."

In other words, her students don't get insightful feedback simply because she uses a fancy computer program. They get it instead because of the dedication of their professor and TAs.

Still, Greenhalgh finds the tool "very helpful." And other professors certainly could use the help.

David Kanter is a College freshman from East Falmouth, Mass. His e-mail is kanter@dailypennsylvanian.com. David Versus Goliath appears on Wednesdays.

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