Getting your colleagues on board with comparative judgement

Your idea is there, you’re all excited: comparative judgement, you believe, is the way to make your educational innovation a success. But now it’s time to get your colleagues on board. You already know a lot about comparative judgement, but how to convince your colleagues? Six tips.

Share your goal (and your enthusiasm)

You probably started reading up on comparative judgement because you want to improve a situation in your subject. Making it clear what problem this way of working is going to solve, helps to get clear why it’s going to be worthwhile for your colleagues, too. Enthusiasm is contagious!

Start sharing your idea on time

If everything is already in place and your colleagues ‘suddenly’ have to do something else, you will probably encounter some resistance. Can colleagues help you innovate, or can you ask them to take on some of the tasks? This way you stimulate your colleagues’ sense of competence and autonomy. This works well for motivation. Maybe your colleagues don’t have that much time. Then start small. Can you present something to a colleague in advance, even if it’s only for 5 minutes over coffee?

The power of action

The easiest way to really understand the principle of comparative judgement, is to start doing it yourself. So set up a pilot assessment, preferably with the assignment you use in your subject so it becomes concrete right away. We can also help you with this. Choose about five examples from previous years of different levels and have your colleagues compare. You can all do the comparison together at the same time, but if time is short, you can send the assessment via email with an instruction and discuss it at a later time. Bet you have piqued interest after this?

The more practical, the better

Try to get as specific as possible in what will change and eliminate misconceptions as quickly as possible. Colleagues may fear additional workload. Is that really necessary? When it comes to comparative judgement: comparing takes no more time than reviewing with an assessment form. Or perhaps they are a little nervous about working with a new system? Setting up the pilot assessment is probably going to help with this already. We’ve collected some examples of applications of Comproved to help you.

Give your colleagues some background information

Probably some additional info was helpful for you to get a better grasp of comparative judgement, so it will help them too. For example, forward this page. If you know that reading work gets lost in the big pile, ask for 10 minutes to verbally share the information on the aforementioned page. Do you think it works easier in your situation to get everyone involved in one workshop? We can help you with that, too. Check out the possibilities!

It ís also exciting…

Realize: working with comparative judgement takes some getting used to. Both for teachers and students. Especially if you have always worked with an analytical rubric it feels a bit strange to look holistically at a text. If some comparisons allow you to make a choice within 10 seconds, you may sometimes feel like you are rushing something and not spending enough time on students’ work. Then realize that you will probably see that work again, but in a comparison where there is a work opposite that is much closer in terms of level. In such a case, you are comparing in much greater detail before making your choice and will spend more time. In the end, you will have spent more than enough time on each work.

Keep talking to each other about your experiences. See also students’ misconceptions.