Midterm Grades: Timely Feedback Improves Student Success
Submitting midterm grades supports better student learning, persistence, and well-being, as long as it is representative of the student's work thus far. No matter what your discipline is, timely and transparent feedback helps students to make meaningful course corrections. Submitting midterm grades also provides valuable insight to advisors, support staff, and the university as a whole, ensuring that students receive timely encouragement or intervention when needed.
Midterm grades do more than identify students who may need additional support—they also highlight where learning is taking place and where our teaching is helping students succeed. They offer insight into both student progress and instructional effectiveness, allowing us to recognize patterns, adjust strategies, and ensure that all learners are supported in meeting course outcomes. Read on for three practical and research-based reasons why they matter—for our students and for us as educators. By submitting midterm grades, you:
- Empower students to take ownership of their learning.
- Support Longwood’s institutional inclusion and retention efforts.
- Promote transparency in your course.
- Help students own their education: provide a chance to self-regulate and reflect.
Good feedback practice is not only about providing accessible information to students about their performance, but it is also about helping them to take action to close the gap between current and desired performance. (Nicol and Macfarlane‐Dick)
Open a conversation with students by using your midterm grades to give students a formalized moment of reflection: they need to ask themselves if their effort and study habits are sufficient to succeed. You can use the grades as a chance to allow students to develop self-regulated learning strategies like goal setting, strategic planning, and self-monitoring (Zimmerman, 2002), or to invite them to get assistance from tutors, academic coaches, or you.
Even in courses where students receive grades regularly, the act of consolidating and reporting midterm grades can prompt both instructor and student to interpret that performance within a wider context. For example, not all of our students understand that small quiz grades or homework might be outweighed by a heavier test or project grade. Likewise, not all professors have an accurate Canvas grade at the midterm because of pending assignments or grades that are recorded elsewhere. A student might not realize that the Canvas grade they rely on in one class isn't informing them correctly in another class. - Enable Longwood to support students and promote persistence and retention.
Tinto's Completing College reiterates that assessment of student performance can alert the faculty and staff to student difficulties and in turn trigger the provision of academic support as needed. A critical feature of the effectiveness of such assessment is that it provides an early alert of student difficulties, the earlier the better (pp. 54-66).
Timely midterm grading is essential for early alert systems. Academic advisors and student success coaches depend on these grades to identify and support students at risk of failure or withdrawal. By submitting a grade, your colleagues can get a better idea of which students are struggling, to "push” resources their way.
Midterms can indicate final grades, even if only by providing insight into study habits and learning behaviors. Providing resources or suggestions at the midterm can change that outcome (see here for four examples of instructor options for guiding students to use midterms as a prompt to change or continue study habits). It makes sense to give students that opportunity by assigning a midterm grade. - Midterm Grades Are Key to Inclusive, Transparent Pedagogy
Transparent instructional practices—including clearly articulated midterm feedback—positively affect underserved student populations’ academic confidence and performance. (Winkelmes et al., 2016, 31)
Midterm grades are an important tool for fostering inclusive pedagogy because they promote transparency and consistency in assessment—two practices shown to narrow achievement gaps. Midterm grades help demystify the “hidden curriculum” of higher education—the unspoken rules and norms that experienced students often take for granted. In doing so, they provide all students, especially those who are first-generation or new to college culture, with clear feedback and a fair opportunity to succeed.
Midterm Grade Submission Deadline: Wednesday, October 22nd, by noon
To Submit: go to the Longwood Home page, then Lancer Dashboard, myLongwood, Faculty Resources Card, Faculty Grade Entry
References
Hidalgo Suarez, Carlos Giovanny et al. “Predicting the final grade using a machine learning regression model: insights from fifty percent of total course grades in CS1 courses.” PeerJ. Computer science vol. 9 e1689. 11 Dec. 2023, doi:10.7717/peerj-cs.1689
Kuh, G. D., Kinzie, J., Schuh, J. H., & Whitt, E. J. (2011). Student Success in College: Creating Conditions That Matter. Wiley. https://ebook.yourcloudlibrary.com/library/oclc/detail/afyws89.
Nicol, D., & Macfarlane‐Dick, D. (2006). Formative assessment and self‐regulated learning: A model and seven principles of good feedback practice. Studies in Higher Education, 31(2), 199–218. https://research.ebsco.com/c/g24zsl/viewer/pdf/zj44ay7ipz?route=details
Tinto, V. (2012). Completing college: Rethinking institutional action. University of Chicago Press.
Winkelmes, M. A., Bernacki, M., Butler, J., Zochowski, M., Golanics, J., & Weavil, K. (2016). A teaching intervention that increases underserved college students’ success. Peer Review, 18(1/2), 31–36. https://research.ebsco.com/c/g24zsl/viewer/pdf/sjstvfwtk5
Zimmerman, B. J. (2002). Becoming a self-regulated learner: An overview. Theory into Practice, 41(2), 64–70. https://research.ebsco.com/c/g24zsl/viewer/pdf/tuflrjx33z?route=details