Teaching Hub

Turnitin for Teacher Self-Assessment

by Jessica Kidd, Department of English

TurnitinI’ve become a big fan of grading within Turnitin, so much so that I sometimes forget its additional purpose as a plagiarism prevention tool. The grading is convenient since I don’t have to lug around piles of papers and fast because rubrics can be built into the grading tool. These features are also useful from an assessment standpoint.

Because I’ve been using Turnitin for a few semesters now, I have access to all these graded student papers from past classes. At a glance, I can see my grade distribution for a particular assignment, and I can look through the rubrics to quickly determine which skills my students mastered for that particular paper.

In essence, I have a gold mine of information for self-assessment. By skimming through old papers, I can see what skills students needed more instruction in and which skills they mastered during that unit. I can track the progress of individual students throughout the semester, and I can look at how the class as a whole improved.  An analysis of rubric scores can provide numeric data if I’m so inclined.