In short: I differentiate the moments where I’m in coach or mentor role versus the moments when I’m in jury or grader role. I also try to bring in more « try out » moments where learners can get a preview of how I see things from my grader role.

The problem: little interaction with my jury role

For me being a coach and being a member of a jury who grades someone are two completely different roles.

In the coach role I:

• Focus on the personal context, personal history

• Help the coachee find the answers to their questions by themselves

• Help the coachee discover and clarify their own thoughts

Where in a jury role or grader role I:

• I focus on being consistent across a cohort

• I verify the quality of the work

• I grade based on a list of criteria that has been given to me (even if I don’t like those criteria)

To me these are really two different modes, and for a long time I had a struggle balancing these two aspects in an elegant way. 

The big « problem » is that most of my interactions with Service Design learners within the Master Service Design of the HSLU, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts is invested in coachings. And only at the grading moments do students « discover » the grading side of my role.

That happens because I feel that for their personal growth the coaching moment should really be about their personal goals and their personal questions. Plus, the coaching time I have with students is something that is based on autonomy. If they feel they need it, they can book a slot. If they don’t need a coaching, they don’t book a slot. 

A solution: playing the end earlier

I’m now playing with a new idea that makes me feel better in playing the different roles. 

I’ve now created a few « grading preview » moments where I invite the students that I will grade to show me their final presentation months and weeks in advance. There, students present their work as if it was their final jury presentation. Obviously some of the parts they don’t have yet and they are allowed to « fake » them by showing what they think they will have in the end.

Grading preview written feedback

During this grading preview moment I assess their presentation as I would do for a final jury presentation. And I send them my notes and the preview grading so that they know where, based on the given criteria they need to make a lot of progress, and where they are on track. 

Coaching to explore students questions about the grading

Then, if the student wants it, in the coachings we can unlock how they can make progress in a specific grading criteria where for the moment they suck.