'tis the season
Exam committee season, that is, not necessarily the jolly holly bit, which seems somewhat subdued this year, mercifully: the supermarket music selection has, for some reason, given me Walk Like An Egyptian two weekends running rather than syrupy Xmas carols, which is about a million times preferable and causes the traditional outbreaks of bopping in the aisles. No, 'tis the season of me and what my handy ruler informs me is a 7cm-thick pile of board schedules, which I have since Friday been spending merry 10-hour days checking. I have just finished annotating one and am taking a brief tea-and-bloggery break before assailing the next. With the usual acompaniment of cussing, whinging, exhortations to the heavens for patience in the face of unlikely student catastophes, and occasional wild cries of glee as random individuals manage, in the teeth of the COVID odds, to produce shining and admirable results.
It's been a very weird year for student marks. We expected a high level of fails and academic exclusions, given the extent to which students are not responding well to the remote format, and I think the exclusion rate is probably slightly up. Also, my non-finalist board schedule is about 200 students larger than usual, while the finalists are 200 smaller; all this COVID and larking about remotely is putting a serious crimp in our grad rate. But weirdly, the Dean's Merit List awards are popping up at about double the usual rate. Our faculty's courses all went continuous-assessment this year, since students weren't necessarily in CT for in-person exams; it's inflated the marks somewhat without the usual exam input. Conversely, students who crash, crash hard, and completely, clearly struggling with remote learning and, in many cases, illness and death and economic hardship and really difficult working conditions in their family environments. The marks are strangely polarised, either excellent or catastrophic, the middle stretches are extremely shrunken. Thus, apparently, is academic life under the thumb of the pandemic. In that the pandemic, like the bastard that it is, has its thumb on the scales.
I record for posterity the scene of annotatory endeavour:
From the left: packed of Côte d'Or pralines, with which I am motivating myself through this; board schedule, scribbled upon; curriculum note handout, produced by me in quantities in a desperate attempt to stop our complicated curriculum structures from eating advisors alive; glasses case, containing incredibly expensive new bifocals which appear to have the wrong prescription in that they do not allow me to actually focus on anything close, necessitating much swearing and me wearing the old ones because I can't afford the time to throw them back at the optician until at least Wednesday; cup of Earl Grey, one of endless succession which is powering this whole horrible process; practical essentials including pencils, erasers, handbooks, further curriculum notes, calculator; vase of St Joseph's lilies, which has the consolatory property of at least, if I have to sit here for hours on end, smelling nice. There's a cat in this picture, but she's under the table, on the chair next to me, snoring gently in her sleep.
I am making progress, there is an end in sight, but gods, I hate this time of year. And back to the salt mines I go. This entry has been crossposted from my Dreamwidth blog at https://freckles-and-doubt.dreamwidth.org/. The comment action is all over there, and supports OpenID.
It's been a very weird year for student marks. We expected a high level of fails and academic exclusions, given the extent to which students are not responding well to the remote format, and I think the exclusion rate is probably slightly up. Also, my non-finalist board schedule is about 200 students larger than usual, while the finalists are 200 smaller; all this COVID and larking about remotely is putting a serious crimp in our grad rate. But weirdly, the Dean's Merit List awards are popping up at about double the usual rate. Our faculty's courses all went continuous-assessment this year, since students weren't necessarily in CT for in-person exams; it's inflated the marks somewhat without the usual exam input. Conversely, students who crash, crash hard, and completely, clearly struggling with remote learning and, in many cases, illness and death and economic hardship and really difficult working conditions in their family environments. The marks are strangely polarised, either excellent or catastrophic, the middle stretches are extremely shrunken. Thus, apparently, is academic life under the thumb of the pandemic. In that the pandemic, like the bastard that it is, has its thumb on the scales.
I record for posterity the scene of annotatory endeavour:
From the left: packed of Côte d'Or pralines, with which I am motivating myself through this; board schedule, scribbled upon; curriculum note handout, produced by me in quantities in a desperate attempt to stop our complicated curriculum structures from eating advisors alive; glasses case, containing incredibly expensive new bifocals which appear to have the wrong prescription in that they do not allow me to actually focus on anything close, necessitating much swearing and me wearing the old ones because I can't afford the time to throw them back at the optician until at least Wednesday; cup of Earl Grey, one of endless succession which is powering this whole horrible process; practical essentials including pencils, erasers, handbooks, further curriculum notes, calculator; vase of St Joseph's lilies, which has the consolatory property of at least, if I have to sit here for hours on end, smelling nice. There's a cat in this picture, but she's under the table, on the chair next to me, snoring gently in her sleep.
I am making progress, there is an end in sight, but gods, I hate this time of year. And back to the salt mines I go. This entry has been crossposted from my Dreamwidth blog at https://freckles-and-doubt.dreamwidth.org/. The comment action is all over there, and supports OpenID.