Communication Beyond Grading: Nuts and Bolts for a Successful Toolkit
Location
Logan, UT
Start Date
8-13-2025 11:00 AM
Description
Many students enter college feeling intimidated by the prospect of initiating conversations with their instructors and may only find the motivation to overcome that feeling when grades are directly involved. Anxieties about misunderstanding assignment parameters or studying incorrectly, and hence receiving a disappointing grade, seem omnipresent. This can too easily lend itself to situations in which instructors spend unsustainable amounts of time reassuring students about grading-related matters, and it leaves little room for the more substantive beyond-the-classroom conversations that are a critical factor in learning. While solutions to this problem are connected to wider pedagogies, they also require immediate, practical strategies that are easy to overlook.
This informational session aims to provide some essential “nuts and bolts” to the toolkit of meaningful beyond-the-classroom conversations. It will touch on assignment transparency; course design; and streamlining communication to minimize time spent on purely grading-related questions. In addition, it will address ways instructors can lean into their own strengths to cultivate an atmosphere that encourages students to ask questions for the sake of learning more.
Communication Beyond Grading: Nuts and Bolts for a Successful Toolkit
Logan, UT
Many students enter college feeling intimidated by the prospect of initiating conversations with their instructors and may only find the motivation to overcome that feeling when grades are directly involved. Anxieties about misunderstanding assignment parameters or studying incorrectly, and hence receiving a disappointing grade, seem omnipresent. This can too easily lend itself to situations in which instructors spend unsustainable amounts of time reassuring students about grading-related matters, and it leaves little room for the more substantive beyond-the-classroom conversations that are a critical factor in learning. While solutions to this problem are connected to wider pedagogies, they also require immediate, practical strategies that are easy to overlook.
This informational session aims to provide some essential “nuts and bolts” to the toolkit of meaningful beyond-the-classroom conversations. It will touch on assignment transparency; course design; and streamlining communication to minimize time spent on purely grading-related questions. In addition, it will address ways instructors can lean into their own strengths to cultivate an atmosphere that encourages students to ask questions for the sake of learning more.