Tips for efficient and streamlined grading

Use a rubric or other marking criteria

Rubrics can make grading more efficient by clearly defining criteria and performance levels, rubrics offer benchmarks for evaluating specific skills and knowledge areas, facilitating objective and uniform assessments across students. They help reduce decision fatigue, support fairness, and allow you to grade more quickly and confidently. 

A well-designed rubric can reduce the need for lengthy individual comments by clearly indicating to students where their work falls within each performance level. Although rubrics can help provide detailed information to students about their performance, it is still recommended to provide feedback comments with a rubric.

For information on setting up rubrics in Moodle, refer to our page on Moodle. 

Grade one question or problem at a time

When an assignment includes multiple questions or tasks, grade all students’ responses to the first question before moving on to the next. This approach reduces cognitive load since the same content is being assessed repeatedly, allowing markers to develop a mental rubric and apply it more efficiently. 

It also helps ensure greater consistency and fairness in grading across the class. However, it’s still important to periodically review a range of responses and compare how points are being awarded. This helps calibrate marking and ensure that standards remain consistent throughout the process.

Tip: If you’re using a rubric, keep it visible as you work through each question to reinforce consistent application of the criteria. 

Focus feedback on knowledge and skills that connect to the learning outcomes of the assignment  

When providing feedback, concentrate on the knowledge and skills that align with the assignment’s learning outcomes or the relevant course outcomes. This helps ensure that your comments are relevant, targeted, and pedagogically meaningful. 

• Prioritize a few key areas that are central to the purpose of the task rather than trying to address every possible issue in a student’s work. For example, if the assignment is meant to assess the student’s ability to analyze data or construct a logical argument, your feedback should focus on how well they performed those tasks.

• Avoid spending a lot of time correcting grammar, spelling, or formatting (unless language is a central part of the assignment, for example in language or translation courses). Overemphasizing surface-level issues can overwhelm students and obscure the more important developmental feedback. 

Tip: If you notice recurring language or grammar issues that interfere with clarity, you can note the pattern once and encourage the student to work on it independently or seek support (e.g., through the Student Success Centre). 

Prioritizing key skills and knowledge saves time and keeps the focus on higher-order concerns.

Create a list of frequently used feedback comments

Keep track of common feedback you give and develop a Feedback comments bank. This saves time by allowing markers to simply copy and paste common comments into student work or Moodle rather than typing it out each time. It might also encourage markers to provide additional feedback. 

Keep in mind that ‘canned’ feedback comments should be adapted to individual students as appropriate. Please refer to the [link to feedback section] for tips on writing effective feedback comments.

For more instructions on how to set up frequently used comments, visit the Moodle documentation page. 

Provide audio feedback (Poodll)

One way of saving time in the grading process is to give audio feedback. Anecdotally, we’ve heard that instructors who give verbal feedback spend less time on feedback, yet they end up providing more feedback to students. 

Advantages: 

• It can be more efficient than written comments (Ice et al., 2007; Lunt & Curran, 2010; McCarthy, 2015)
• Students are more likely to retain and apply knowledge and apply it to future assignments (Ice et al., 2007)
• It can increase students’ sense of belonging and their engagement instructor because of the personalized feel (Killingback et al., 2019)

While there are a few ways of providing audio feedback to students, the easiest way is directly in Moodle using the Poodl feedback option. When viewing the student’s submission in Moodle, markers can access the Feedback Poodll recorder and record up to 10 minutes of audio.

Note: Poodll feedback must be enabled when configuring the assignment settings since it is not enabled by default. 

What is Poodll Assignment Feedback? (Video) 

If you are managing one or more TAs for marking, here a few tips that may help you coordinate with TAs and promote consistency in grading.

• Have an agenda when you meet with them at the beginning of term and make clear the following points:
  • Where to grade - if you are using rubrics in Moodle, there is a specific way to grade, and some TAs may not be as familiar with grading in the Assignment section of Moodle.
  • When to grade - consider providing a table at the beginning of term with all the assignment/exam dates and when they are expected to complete grading so they know well in advance and can plan their schedules accordingly 
  • How long to grade – advise TAs how long grading should take for each assignment. If TAs are paid by student, consider budgeting each assignment by minutes per student. 
  • Example: If the TAs are paid 1 hour per student for marking and you want them to grade three assignments/tests, instruct them to spend 20 minutes per paper.
  • How much to write - set your expectations about how much feedback you would like them to provide on assignments
  • Grading criteria - provide rubrics or grading criteria in advance – this will help with consistency 
• ‘Hide’ student grades in the Moodle gradebook until all the marking is done for individual assignments until you have had a chance to review. This will avoid chaos if you need to adjust any grades for consistency.
  • Consider providing sample ‘A’ , ‘B’ and ‘C’ range papers as samples before they start grading to give them a sense of expectations.
  • Consider asking TAs to flag any F or A+ papers to you before finalizing.
  • Consider providing a Frequently used comments bank to them to help streamline their process and ensure feedback is focused on what’s most important.

• Skim a sample of submissions before diving in. Reviewing a few assignments at the start helps you calibrate your expectations, identify common patterns or pitfalls, and clarify your approach to grading before committing to a full batch.
• Place the assignments in piles by grade range then periodically review the top and bottom to ensure they are consistent.
• Block time in your calendar in advance so you are not rushed.
• Chunk your time as appropriate and take breaks. You know yourself how much time you can spend on grading before you need a break.
• Consider asking students to indicate what they would like feedback on. This ensures that instructors focus their energy on what will be most useful to students.

Ice, P., Curtis, R., Phillips, P., & Wells, J. (2007). Using Asynchronous Audio Feedback to Enhance Teaching Presence and Students’ Sense of Community. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 11(2), 3-25. Available from: http://sloanconsortium.org/jaln/v11n2/using-asynchronous-audio-feedback-enhance-teaching-presence-and-students%E2%80%99-sense-community

Killingback C, Ahmed O and Williams J (2019) ‘It was all in your voice’ – tertiary student perceptions of alternative feedback modes (audio, video, podcast, and screencast): A qualitative literature review. Nurse Education Today 72: 32–39.

Lunt, T., & Curran, J. (2010). ‘Are you listening please?’ The advantages of electronic audio feedback compared to written feedback. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 35(7), 759.

McCarthy, J. (2015). Evaluating written, audio and video feedback in higher education summative assessment tasks. Issues in Educational Research (2), 153.