Grading = my life
I meant to stay up late each night this week to finish grading. Funny thing is, though, I kept falling asleep...
I think the reason I don't feel worse about not getting things back to them is that nobody's been asking for them back. I haven't the foggiest whether they even look at them for anything more than a grade, either.
I was supposed to hand a bundle back today, but alas; not going to happen. So I guess I'll have to grade up a storm this weekend and hand them back during Monday's final exam. Because yeah, classes end today and the final's on Monday. Holy. Crap.
This semester went by all too quickly and, not only that, but far too much in a fluster. I feel like I never got myself organized and I hate that I was always so back-logged with grading. I was deluged by 050 homework at the start of the semester and never caught up on labs for 115 because of it. While I'm not teaching 050 next semester, I *will* be teaching two sections of 115 -- which means 60 labs to grade each weekend. It's been taking me 3-4 hours minimum to grade 28 labs this semester. That means around 8 hours of grading a week on labs alone.
While I know I need to find ways to lessen my grading load, I also firmly believe that lab activities are so beneficial to learning this material, along with timely and helpful comments. If I had been able to keep schedule with returning labs this semester, I am positive my students would be faring better, and I'm frustrated and annoyed with myself that I dropped the ball on this class; they deserved better.
Still, I deserve some time to breathe (and...sleep...) and so I think labs will need to be tamed a little. I definitely need to either set them up so they have room to answer the questions on the paper or detail explicit guidelines for turning in write-ups so that I can, you know, not spend 20 minutes trying to read through somebody's chicken scratch and scribbled out equations and what-not.
Grading is on my mind because I got a rather critical and honest email from a student the other day about the way grades are calculated in one of my classes. In a nutshell, the student felt my methods were inconsistent and unfair. I completely appreciate the feedback and am glad this student felt comfortable enough being so openly honest, but it's had me kind of down in the dumps, so to speak. Ultimately, I still think my grading scheme accurately reflects what my students are capable of -- it's just a shock, I think, with such grade-inflation in high schools for students to conceive of a C being the average grade. For the most part, my classes have an average of C, which I interpret to mean I'm doing my job. I get disappointed in myself when there are too many A's -- it means I'm not challenging them enough. I get worried when there are too many D's & F's -- it means I'm being too hard on them and not teaching the material effectively.
Some things I do worry about include finding a way to encourage students to feel okay asking and answering questions in class. Some days when we do new material, the A students pick up on it quickly and wind up being the only ones to answer without giving everybody else a chance to think about the question and process what's going on. This makes all the other students feel stupid because "other people" get it so quickly, and they don't want to "hold them back." I've heard this from a number of students, and despite my telling them flat out -- you're in the class for you, not for the other students; if you need to ask questions, ask them -- you're not holding anybody back and, in fact, are probably helping other students who feel similarly -- it doesn't seem to help. Moreover, I'm uncomfortable telling the talkative students to hold back because they're also in the class for themselves and it wouldn't really be fair to them, either. It took me years to get over being repeatedly told in elementary school, "somebody that's not Anna answer" and I think it contributed largely to my fear of messing up in front of anybody else (for they'd only call on me if nobody else could answer and, heaven forbid, if Anna can't answer it, nobody can). It's taken me a long time to get over that feeling (and even now, it's the reason I can't play trivia games), and I really don't want to do that to anybody else. Is a puzzlement, I guess.
Anyway, didn't mean for this to get so long. I'm certainly not going to get much grading done today before I leave. I'm going to strive for at least one lab, but who knows. I've started labs 8 and 12, but based on the progress I've made so far in them, I don't think I can finish them in an hour. I did labs 10 and 14 yesterday. That still leaves 9, 11, and 13. I think maybe I'll try doing 13 this morning.
Not to mention extra credit and homework...
I think the reason I don't feel worse about not getting things back to them is that nobody's been asking for them back. I haven't the foggiest whether they even look at them for anything more than a grade, either.
I was supposed to hand a bundle back today, but alas; not going to happen. So I guess I'll have to grade up a storm this weekend and hand them back during Monday's final exam. Because yeah, classes end today and the final's on Monday. Holy. Crap.
This semester went by all too quickly and, not only that, but far too much in a fluster. I feel like I never got myself organized and I hate that I was always so back-logged with grading. I was deluged by 050 homework at the start of the semester and never caught up on labs for 115 because of it. While I'm not teaching 050 next semester, I *will* be teaching two sections of 115 -- which means 60 labs to grade each weekend. It's been taking me 3-4 hours minimum to grade 28 labs this semester. That means around 8 hours of grading a week on labs alone.
While I know I need to find ways to lessen my grading load, I also firmly believe that lab activities are so beneficial to learning this material, along with timely and helpful comments. If I had been able to keep schedule with returning labs this semester, I am positive my students would be faring better, and I'm frustrated and annoyed with myself that I dropped the ball on this class; they deserved better.
Still, I deserve some time to breathe (and...sleep...) and so I think labs will need to be tamed a little. I definitely need to either set them up so they have room to answer the questions on the paper or detail explicit guidelines for turning in write-ups so that I can, you know, not spend 20 minutes trying to read through somebody's chicken scratch and scribbled out equations and what-not.
Grading is on my mind because I got a rather critical and honest email from a student the other day about the way grades are calculated in one of my classes. In a nutshell, the student felt my methods were inconsistent and unfair. I completely appreciate the feedback and am glad this student felt comfortable enough being so openly honest, but it's had me kind of down in the dumps, so to speak. Ultimately, I still think my grading scheme accurately reflects what my students are capable of -- it's just a shock, I think, with such grade-inflation in high schools for students to conceive of a C being the average grade. For the most part, my classes have an average of C, which I interpret to mean I'm doing my job. I get disappointed in myself when there are too many A's -- it means I'm not challenging them enough. I get worried when there are too many D's & F's -- it means I'm being too hard on them and not teaching the material effectively.
Some things I do worry about include finding a way to encourage students to feel okay asking and answering questions in class. Some days when we do new material, the A students pick up on it quickly and wind up being the only ones to answer without giving everybody else a chance to think about the question and process what's going on. This makes all the other students feel stupid because "other people" get it so quickly, and they don't want to "hold them back." I've heard this from a number of students, and despite my telling them flat out -- you're in the class for you, not for the other students; if you need to ask questions, ask them -- you're not holding anybody back and, in fact, are probably helping other students who feel similarly -- it doesn't seem to help. Moreover, I'm uncomfortable telling the talkative students to hold back because they're also in the class for themselves and it wouldn't really be fair to them, either. It took me years to get over being repeatedly told in elementary school, "somebody that's not Anna answer" and I think it contributed largely to my fear of messing up in front of anybody else (for they'd only call on me if nobody else could answer and, heaven forbid, if Anna can't answer it, nobody can). It's taken me a long time to get over that feeling (and even now, it's the reason I can't play trivia games), and I really don't want to do that to anybody else. Is a puzzlement, I guess.
Anyway, didn't mean for this to get so long. I'm certainly not going to get much grading done today before I leave. I'm going to strive for at least one lab, but who knows. I've started labs 8 and 12, but based on the progress I've made so far in them, I don't think I can finish them in an hour. I did labs 10 and 14 yesterday. That still leaves 9, 11, and 13. I think maybe I'll try doing 13 this morning.
Not to mention extra credit and homework...