10 Ways Gradescope Helps Improve Teaching and Learning

People often think grading work is primarily about instructors giving students feedback. While this is a critical part of grading, we think grading should actually provide actionable feedback to both students and instructors. Read on to learn how it can guide instruction, refine assessment, and improve outcomes. Here are 10 ways Gradescope helps turn grading into learning:

Gradescope was founded with the belief that there has to be a better way to evaluate student work. By combining deep instructor expertise with the latest machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI), Gradescope leverages modern technology to dramatically reduce the pain and time associated with traditional grading.

"Gradescope has revolutionized how instructors grade homework and exams. I don't use that word a lot, but once you've used this tool, there's no going back." Armando Fox, EECS, UC Berkeley

By creating a digital record of student work, Gradescope restructures the traditional grading workflow. Gone are the logistical nightmares associated with transporting and returning stacks of paper, marathon grading parties, and lost in-class time; gained are efficiencies that enable high-quality assessment from anywhere at any time.

"Gradescope gives me the flexibility to grade and return papers from anywhere, making it much easier for me to keep up with my teaching responsibilities while traveling." Andrew Gillette, Math, University of Arizona

Gradescope helps mitigate opportunities for unconscious bias in two key areas:

• By helping graders focus exclusively on the content of an individual answer rather than the students’ overall submission or identity.
• By helping teams of graders to build, maintain, and apply one aligned grading standard for all students

The result is a fairer learning experience for students and greater consistency across graders.

“Gradescope has made my grading not only easier but better. My rubrics are more consistent and fair, my students get more helpful feedback, and I actually enjoy grading exams!” Katrina LeCurts, CS, MIT

Built in advance or created on the fly, Gradescope’s Dynamic Rubrics can be constructed collaboratively and adjusted at any time, automatically applying changes to previously graded work and creating a reliable real-time standard for all students. Keyboard shortcuts can help speed up the workflow, helping cut grading time even further.

"Retroactive rubric application is by far the best part. Not having to handle a huge stack of paper exams and do any summation was nice. Ergonomically it's a lot easier to grade on a laptop than leaned over a table." Ian Dunn, CS, Cal Poly SLO

In addition to quick and consistent feedback, Dynamic Rubrics ensure students receive detailed insight into how points were awarded or deducted. With a richer understanding of evaluation criteria and guidelines around concept mastery, instructors can direct students to the best resources for their individual needs.

“Gradescope allows me to give a short quiz every day in my section of 60 students, and grade them all on my 30-minute train ride home. The students get immediate, custom feedback that helps them understand how they’re doing in the class, and helps me monitor how things are going as well.” Jesse Tov, CS, Northwestern University

Answer groups and AI-Assisted Grading deliver a more methodical approach to reviewing student work. Gradescope helps instructors digitize student submissions and identify patterns, subsequently arranging them in assessable groups. This process helps eliminate redundancies, saves time, and produces higher quality and consistent feedback at scale.

“I love being able to give group feedback. When you're pressed for time, it's hard to put a lot of positive feedback on problems, but when you can group them, it gives you the time to do that. I think my feedback was more detailed in general (and easier to read) using Gradescope than grading by hand.” Julie McGurk, Biology, UPenn

Once assessment is complete, graders can immediately publish and notify students with a single click, either directly via Gradescope, emailed, or exported to their institutions’ LMS. Students can then review the feedback and quickly manage confusion or disagreement by initiating a Regrade Request. With the Gradescope workflow, feedback can be timely, detailed, and developmental.

“Gradescope has transformed the way students in my classes approach reviewing their exam results. The availability of a convenient and robust regrade request process incentivizes carefully reviewing missed problems and facilitates communication about instructor expectations.” Samuel S Watson, Math, Brown University

The breadth of compatible assignment types is wide-ranging - from paper-based exams, quizzes, and homework, to online assignments, programming assignments, and multiple-choice. Gradescope can accommodate assessment preferences, existing assignments without adjustment, and a variety of disciplines, from humanities to the sciences.

“With Gradescope, I was able to get rid of Scantron sheets for nearly all the grading, and really grade their answers and give them the credit they deserve.” Susanne Hambrusch, CS, Purdue

Gradescope produces meaningful and detailed student performance data to help identify knowledge gaps. Per-question and per-rubric item analytics deliver insight into which concepts were mastered and which were misunderstood. Graders can also measure course-level progress and align to key learning objectives with assignment statistics.

“The best thing is having the scoring details online. This lets us share more with the students. And later, we can analyze how well the questions worked, when we are not in the middle of the grading rush.” Cliff Shaffer, CS, Virginia Tech

The Gradescope data can also inform improvements to assessment and course content. With targeted visibility into students’ areas of strength and weakness, instructors can address potential roadblocks in real-time and scaffold new concepts appropriately. Gradescope also surfaces insights that can guide long-term curricular improvements and refined lessons that ensure critical learning objectives are truly understood.

"The statistics really help me understand what I can teach differently next time to help my students learn better. I also love being able to adjust a score/rubric item and have it update all the others with that same item marked." Katie Johnson, Math, Florida Gulf Coast University