I wanted to share some notes with you about assignment grading and how to think about your assignment scores in this design workshop.
The most important point to keep in mind is that in a design workshop, there’s always room to improve your work. No one’s work is perfect — and this applies to my own work too — there are always things that I could do to make it even better.
Our approach in scoring the assignments is to always try to give pointers about the areas where you can continue to improve your submissions. So, for each assignment, your submissions are scored in four areas:
- completeness — Did you complete all the pieces asked for in the design brief?
- modeling accuracy — Was the model created using the best practices presented in the module? Were the elements placed accurately and join properly?
- design accuracy — Did the proposed design follow the design rules for required clearances, have the target square footage, and deliver on the desired features described in the brief?
- presentation quality — Was the design presented well in the Revit model sheets and views shared in your ACC upload and your posting on Notion?
In addition to the numeric scores, we also try to share comments and suggestions via your posting on Notion.
Do not try to map your assignment score directly to a letter grade. For example, if you get a score of 12 out of 15 (80% of the points), this does not mean that you’re getting a “B” in the course.
We sum up all the numeric scores across all the assignments in the quarter and use the distribution to determine your course grade.
So, for example:
- If you receive a score of 12 (where the highest score for class was 13), I’d say you’re doing very well! There’s a little room for some targeted improvements, but overall, that places you near the top of the class.
- If you receive a score of 9 (out of 15 possible points), do not assume that this is 60% and therefore maps to a “D”. This score indicates that there are several things that you’ll want to look at more carefully for the next assignment, and I’d recommend checking in with the teaching team to get some specific tips about what can be improved.
Don’t get discouraged because any individual assignment does not receive the maximum points - that’s normal and expected! In fact, achieving the maximum points on any assignment would be a truly remarkable feat — there’s always room to make your submissions even better.
So, how can you improve your scores? The best strategy that I’d highly recommend is to meet with the teaching team at office hours and module kickoff sessions for some specific tips and guidance. They can provide very focused tips based on your actual submissions. And as many of you know from your other activities, a little personalized coaching and mentoring can be extremely helpful for refining and improving your performance.