God and Nature 2026 #1
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Judgement
By Mike Clifford
As the Easter break approaches, I reflect on an unusual semester. I’ve been seconded to the University of Nottingham’s sparkly new Educator Academy, which has meant much less lecturing for me. My teaching has been covered by a colleague, who, I’m delighted to say, has included many of the stories that I tell in the classroom in his lectures. Meanwhile, I’ve been running workshops for staff on how to assess group work, and I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about educational pedagogies around assessment.
Many years ago, I did some short pieces to camera with Brady Haran, a filmmaker employed by the University. Brady is especially remembered for his Periodic Videos with Sir Martyn Poliakoff on chemical elements found in the periodic table. The short interviews that Brady did of me didn’t go viral. Looking back on them, perhaps that’s no bad thing, but I find it interesting to look back occasionally. One of the pieces to camera was filmed at my house and features me reading a bedtime story to my two children before settling down to mark a large pile of exam scripts. Click here to watch the four and a half minute video.
In the video, I describe assessment as “the pinnacle of… teaching.” As well as being a test of knowledge and understanding, reading students’ answers to exam questions can be a good indication of whether you’ve taught the class well, or whether they’ve failed to grasp the concepts that you thought you’d covered clearly in lectures. I remember at one exam board a lecturer was asked to explain why all the students taking his class had achieved first-class marks. His response: “Excellent teaching!”
Back in those days, my approach to marking was rather naive, with a tick on an essay indicating a point well made with the eventual mark being the sum of all the ticks. At least I didn’t go for staircase marking, which, so I’m led to believe, is to drop a pile of exam scripts down a flight of stairs and award marks depending on where the scripts come to rest.
Nowadays, rather than relying on “academic judgement,” we’re expected to have comprehensive, robust mark schemes, with rubrics, scoring guides, or assessment grids being a la mode. For the uninitiated, an assessment grid is a table with categories/evaluative criteria and level indicators for various levels of achievement or marks. These analytic rubrics evaluate various components separately. So, for an essay, there could be a mark for the introduction, a mark for developing an argument, a mark for the literature cited, and a mark for style and formatting. The overall mark is a weighted sum of the marks for each category.
The assessment grid approach can work well for marking pieces of work where there is a clear distinction between the individual elements, but I’m less convinced that it’s the best approach where there is overlap and interdependence. For instance, when marking a dissertation, it seems inappropriate to award a high mark for quality of presentation when there has been little work accomplished. I’ve developed a variation which involves multiplying the scores for the individual criteria together to come up with an overall mark, which is a little bit complicated. I prefer to use holistic rubrics which award an overall mark for a piece of work, based on a clear description of what is expected to gain marks at a particular level.
Clearly, the Bible has a lot to say about assessment or judgement, but I don’t recommend awarding every student a mark of zero based on a literal interpretation of Romans 3:23: “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (NIV). Boy, was Paul a tough marker! But maybe there’s something for scholars to take away from Jesus’ words in Matthew 23:23-24 (as paraphrased in The Message):
You’re hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You keep meticulous account books, tithing on every nickel and dime you get, but on the meat of God’s Law, things like fairness and compassion and commitment—the absolute basics! —you carelessly take it or leave it. Careful bookkeeping is commendable, but the basics are required. Do you have any idea how silly you look, writing a life story that’s wrong from start to finish, nitpicking over commas and semicolons?
I’ll take that as an endorsement of holistic assessment!
Mike Clifford is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Nottingham. His research interests are in combustion, biomass briquetting, cookstove design, and other appropriate technologies. He has published over 80 refereed conference and journal publications and has contributed chapters to books on composites processing and on appropriate and sustainable technologies.
By Mike Clifford
As the Easter break approaches, I reflect on an unusual semester. I’ve been seconded to the University of Nottingham’s sparkly new Educator Academy, which has meant much less lecturing for me. My teaching has been covered by a colleague, who, I’m delighted to say, has included many of the stories that I tell in the classroom in his lectures. Meanwhile, I’ve been running workshops for staff on how to assess group work, and I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about educational pedagogies around assessment.
Many years ago, I did some short pieces to camera with Brady Haran, a filmmaker employed by the University. Brady is especially remembered for his Periodic Videos with Sir Martyn Poliakoff on chemical elements found in the periodic table. The short interviews that Brady did of me didn’t go viral. Looking back on them, perhaps that’s no bad thing, but I find it interesting to look back occasionally. One of the pieces to camera was filmed at my house and features me reading a bedtime story to my two children before settling down to mark a large pile of exam scripts. Click here to watch the four and a half minute video.
In the video, I describe assessment as “the pinnacle of… teaching.” As well as being a test of knowledge and understanding, reading students’ answers to exam questions can be a good indication of whether you’ve taught the class well, or whether they’ve failed to grasp the concepts that you thought you’d covered clearly in lectures. I remember at one exam board a lecturer was asked to explain why all the students taking his class had achieved first-class marks. His response: “Excellent teaching!”
Back in those days, my approach to marking was rather naive, with a tick on an essay indicating a point well made with the eventual mark being the sum of all the ticks. At least I didn’t go for staircase marking, which, so I’m led to believe, is to drop a pile of exam scripts down a flight of stairs and award marks depending on where the scripts come to rest.
Nowadays, rather than relying on “academic judgement,” we’re expected to have comprehensive, robust mark schemes, with rubrics, scoring guides, or assessment grids being a la mode. For the uninitiated, an assessment grid is a table with categories/evaluative criteria and level indicators for various levels of achievement or marks. These analytic rubrics evaluate various components separately. So, for an essay, there could be a mark for the introduction, a mark for developing an argument, a mark for the literature cited, and a mark for style and formatting. The overall mark is a weighted sum of the marks for each category.
The assessment grid approach can work well for marking pieces of work where there is a clear distinction between the individual elements, but I’m less convinced that it’s the best approach where there is overlap and interdependence. For instance, when marking a dissertation, it seems inappropriate to award a high mark for quality of presentation when there has been little work accomplished. I’ve developed a variation which involves multiplying the scores for the individual criteria together to come up with an overall mark, which is a little bit complicated. I prefer to use holistic rubrics which award an overall mark for a piece of work, based on a clear description of what is expected to gain marks at a particular level.
Clearly, the Bible has a lot to say about assessment or judgement, but I don’t recommend awarding every student a mark of zero based on a literal interpretation of Romans 3:23: “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (NIV). Boy, was Paul a tough marker! But maybe there’s something for scholars to take away from Jesus’ words in Matthew 23:23-24 (as paraphrased in The Message):
You’re hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You keep meticulous account books, tithing on every nickel and dime you get, but on the meat of God’s Law, things like fairness and compassion and commitment—the absolute basics! —you carelessly take it or leave it. Careful bookkeeping is commendable, but the basics are required. Do you have any idea how silly you look, writing a life story that’s wrong from start to finish, nitpicking over commas and semicolons?
I’ll take that as an endorsement of holistic assessment!
Mike Clifford is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Nottingham. His research interests are in combustion, biomass briquetting, cookstove design, and other appropriate technologies. He has published over 80 refereed conference and journal publications and has contributed chapters to books on composites processing and on appropriate and sustainable technologies.