grading
jstemwedel | June 4, 2010Even though I got my grades filed last Friday (hours before the midnight deadline), this week I kept encountering colleagues for whom the grading drama Would. Not. End. As you might imagine, this led to some discussions about what one should do when the grade-filing deadline approaches and you are still waiting for students to cough up the work that needs grading.
I'd like to tell you that this is a rare occurrence. Sadly, it is not. Before we get into speculation about why students may be failing to deliver the deliverables, a quick poll on your preferred professorial response:
Final…
jstemwedel | May 14, 2010The Free-Ride offspring are pretty sure what I do for a living is grade papers. But seeing as how they're both students, I thought I'd ask what the view of things is like on the other side of the red pen.
Dr. Free-Ride: When you come in and find me working on the weekend, what am I usually working on?
Younger offspring: Grading?
Dr. Free-Ride: Yeah. I know that you do a lot of homework and assignments.
Younger offspring: Mmm-hmm.
Dr. Free-Ride: And your teacher grades them.
Younger offspring: No! We correct them together.
Dr. Free-Ride: You correct it all together?
Younger offspring: Yeah…
jstemwedel | May 12, 2010Yeah, still grading here. Yesterday I returned mass quantities of graded papers (with a free paperclip for every student!) and have another assignment to grade today ... just in time for two more assignments which come due tomorrow. And then, the final exam!
Ever the optimist, this morning in the shower I wondered how things would turn out if the Rapture were to happen while I'm in the midst of all this grading. It's the kind of hypothetical that demands a poll:
If the Rapture happens before grades are due:online survey
This hypothetical also gave me an earworm, which I shall now share…
jstemwedel | May 8, 2010... to the elder Free-Ride offspring's trumpet teacher.
While I am generally accepting of your choices as far as the pieces you are having my child learn how to play, I have a small bone to pick with you this evening.
You see, May is what we in the college education biz call "grading season". It is when the calendar tells us we are rapidly running out of time to get the assignments we've collected read, commented, scored, and returned to our students so they can use this feedback to prepare for their final exams.
Grading is not the most enjoyable part of my job. And when the stacks of…
rallain | May 4, 2010Really, I have many jobs. But in this case, I am talking about my two jobs inside my one job as learning facilitator. I like to call myself a learning facilitator rather than a teacher or a professor because I can't make people learn (that would be teacher). Professor would imply that I am professing the truth. Well, I don't know if anyone knows the truth in science - I am sure I don't. So, I am going to stick with learning facilitator (LF).
In my official role as a LF, my institution has actually assigned two jobs:
Help students learn (my words, not theirs)
Evaluate students'…
jstemwedel | April 12, 2010A reader sends the following query:
I've only recently begun teaching in a big state university, maybe tier C in the field I'm in. I'm in a quandary as to how to manage pressure to pass students who are under performing. The first semester, I had to lower the passing to a basically ridiculous level and the college still inquired why so many failed (10 %). Now, I'm again feeling pressure to pass students who do not deserve to pass. I'm getting very disillusioned by this type of practice. Grade inflation seems to be so common that I even have students who think that a 60 is a B. I'm…
jstemwedel | March 3, 2010The semester must be in full swing, because suddenly I have an abundance of papers to grade. So I'm using a brief pause (between grading one stack of papers and grading another stack of papers) to share a grading-aid I just figured out at the end of last semester.
Typically, by the time the stacks of papers come in, I have all kinds of other pieces of work-in-progress on my desk. I could put those away (and hope that I'll remember where I put them when I'm done with the grading), or try to keep the papers I'm grading restricted to part of the desk. This never works that well, and the…
sciencewoman | May 5, 2009Alice is right, I have been locked in grading jail. For my amusement, and for the sake of posting something, here's a look at how I've been doing my hard time:
Number of intro-level papers graded: 72
Number of intro-level papers to go: 0 (WooHoo!)
Number of multiple choice questions ready to go in Blackboard for the final exam: 60
Number of emails received from intro-level students in the last week: greater than 30
Number of those emails asking how to calculate their grade or when the final exam is: greater than 20
Number of upper-level papers submitted: 22
Number of upper-level papers…
rallain | January 27, 2009Should you grade on a curve or not? If you are student, the answer is clear: go by whatever the instructor does. Otherwise, you have a choice. I don't like to tell other instructors or faculty what to do because I respect their freedom. For my classes, there is no curve. Why? Well, the question really is: "why grade on a curve?" I don't know the exact reason for particular instructors, but I can come up with some possible reasons.
Curve for competition
This is a very common curving reason. The basic idea is that the class is a competition between the students. The strong survive.…