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My biology course this semester is doing this bizarre thing called, "Calibrated Peer Review," or "CPR." (And if THAT isn't a confusing acronym, I don't know what is.) The website describes it thusly:
Calibrated Peer Review (CPR)™ is a Web-based program that enables frequent writing assignments even in large classes with limited instructional resources. In fact, CPR can reduce the time an instructor now spends reading and assessing student writing.
What this means is that, above and beyond the regular classroom work, we're all expected to write three extra writing assignments (around 500-600 words each) and submit them online, "calibrate" ourselves by marking three instructor-written essays of varying levels of technical skill, and then mark and comment on three pieces written by our classmates. If you aren't within a certain amount of allowed deviation when you mark the calibrations, you have to do it again until your calibrations are on par; following that, the marks you assign your fellow students are weighted according to how well you matched the instructor's marking on the calibrations.
I call this system, "a waste of my fucking time - YOU'RE the instructor, YOU mark it," but whatever. I'm not exactly going to sacrifice these grades, either.
I just finished my calibrations and got the results back. I was vaguely surprised to see that my grading and answers to the "guiding marking questions" were in some places off the instructor's by as much as 50%, so I asked to see the full comparative breakdown.
Aaand...( apparently, you wouldn't want ME for an English teacher )
Calibrated Peer Review (CPR)™ is a Web-based program that enables frequent writing assignments even in large classes with limited instructional resources. In fact, CPR can reduce the time an instructor now spends reading and assessing student writing.
What this means is that, above and beyond the regular classroom work, we're all expected to write three extra writing assignments (around 500-600 words each) and submit them online, "calibrate" ourselves by marking three instructor-written essays of varying levels of technical skill, and then mark and comment on three pieces written by our classmates. If you aren't within a certain amount of allowed deviation when you mark the calibrations, you have to do it again until your calibrations are on par; following that, the marks you assign your fellow students are weighted according to how well you matched the instructor's marking on the calibrations.
I call this system, "a waste of my fucking time - YOU'RE the instructor, YOU mark it," but whatever. I'm not exactly going to sacrifice these grades, either.
I just finished my calibrations and got the results back. I was vaguely surprised to see that my grading and answers to the "guiding marking questions" were in some places off the instructor's by as much as 50%, so I asked to see the full comparative breakdown.
Aaand...( apparently, you wouldn't want ME for an English teacher )
