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6 Things You Should Know About Grading in Microsoft Word

1. What is it?

Microsoft® Word is, of course, the ubiquitous word processing program found on most computers at OSU and on the majority of computers that students use. It is commonly employed to compose and edit written pieces of course work. There are several tools in Word that can be used to provide feedback directly on student writing. One important tool, Track Changes, allows instructors to make comments, corrections, and changes to anything a student creates in Word. The changes can be viewed in various ways including inline and in the margin depending on the settings that the user chooses. There are other tools in Word that can also enrich the process of providing feedback and make the process easier for instructors.

2. Who's doing it?

People in business and industry have been using the Track Changes feature in Word for many years to collaborate on documents. Instructors are moving from grading and providing feedback to students on hard copies with paper and ink to electronic feedback. Students are creating their written assignments in Word and receiving their feedback from instructors electronically.

Electronic or digital grading is significant for several reasons:

  • It satisfies the "green initiative": there is no need to waste paper to print an assignment that is created in Word. The student can create and submit the work, and the instructor can grade it and return it to the student electronically.
  • Faster turn-around time: assignments are graded more quickly and feedback is returned in a timelier manner, which is essential to effective teaching and learning.
  • Good communication: The issue of illegible instructor handwriting is completely eliminated.
  • Improves efficiency and workflow: It takes less time to grade and provide feedback electronically.
  • Submission and return of graded work is time stamped: no more arguing over exactly when the paper was submitted or returned to the student.
  • Electronic archive of graded papers: the instructor can keep a digital copy of the graded paper for future reference.

3. How does it work?

Open the document, select the Review tab, and click the button to turn on Track Changes. Track Changes can be turned on and off multiple times within one document, and options can be selected for tracking changes in the way the instructor prefers.  

Balloons can be inserted at appropriate times in the right-margin that provide additional forms of feedback depending on the instructor's preference. Views of the document with or without the mark-up can be selected by the instructor and the student. If multiple users edit one document, the changes and comments will display in a differentiated way.

4. What are the downsides?

  • Some instructors miss the feel of the paper and pen in their hands.
  • Students need to view the feedback in Microsoft® Word. Other programs won't display the
    feedback correctly.
  • Students need to understand that they must have "Final showing markup" selected in Word
     to view the feedback.

5. Where is it going?

Class sizes are growing, and classroom space seems to be shrinking. Moving course work to the digital realm is growing in popularity, and hand-to-hand exchange of hard copies of course work is becoming impractical because of pressures of time, space, distance, and the green initiative. As pressure on instructors increases to do more work in less time and with fewer resources, they are looking for efficiencies like the ones that the Word tools can offer to the grading process. Moving to electronic grading is a significant way that instructors can meet administrative expectations and increase student satisfaction with the learning experience.

6. What are the implications for teaching?

Effective feedback is essential to teaching and learning. Excellent feedback refers to grading criteria, includes recognition of strengths and identification of weaknesses, and suggests sources for more information and further development of knowledge. The grading process is intended to strengthen a student's skills and encourage engagement in the learning process, and graded work that is returned to the student long after the work was submitted and with scant comments that have vague meaning do not facilitate the learning process. Barriers to good feedback are typically the amount of time and trouble it takes to provide rich and timely feedback on graded work, especially for large classes, and general communication problems (illegible handwriting, shortened phrases, etc.).

Using the tools available in Word to streamline the grading process make that process faster and more efficient as well as provide a means to create richer feedback that is useful to the process of learning. Common feedback comments can be carefully written one time to include wording that is encouraging and instructive to the student, and these comments can be saved and applied quickly to many papers during the grading process. Track Changes and other Word tools will increase instructor efficiency and improve student engagement and satisfaction.