Weekend Journal

Shattered.

I have been graded midterms for days now and I am a shell of my former self. 63 exams composed of 5 long answer questions and 1 essay. First, I flip over the covers of all the exams. Then, I grade all the long answer questions. And then I grade all the essays at once. The good exams are no problem. I can whip through those in no time flat. I am utterly destroyed by the ones filled with bad handwriting, spelling errors, their/they're/there mistakes, and obscure rambling meant to throw of the scent of the instructor from noticing that the student did no reading all semester. Fuckers.

Then I did two recommendations. I still need to review my notes and create new power point slides for tomorrow. I worked around 50 hours this week. I was paid for 20.

My neighbors think I'm totally high. They have union jobs and would never consider working one minute over contractual agreements. Sometimes I think that union contracts are responsible for the downfall of Western civilization. Sometimes I think I need to get one of those things.

If I continue with teaching, I have to figure out a new way to give exams. My method is the best way for determining who put in the most effort into the class, for forcing the students to make connections, and for forcing them to express themselves in a written format. But you don't have to deal with bad handwriting with scan-tron tests.

So, I spent the entire weekend working. I made various neat piles on the dining room table and parked myself there for three days. Steve took the kids to swim lessons and handled the meals. But the worst is over. Now that I'm through with midterm grading, I am on the downhill of the semester. 8 weeks to go.

Comments

[philosopherP]

I have 5 50 person philosophy sections -- and I wanted to give exams... here are a couple of alternatives.

1) Release the questions on Tuesday, collect the typed answers on Thursday. This will show you who has been keeping up -- as long as your questions are specific and detailed enough.

2) Give them the "write at home" option -- which I usually do by writing 6 or 7 essay questions and then selecting 2 or 3 to be due the day of the exam. They can either type them up to turn in, write them in class or a combination of the above. This lets you do the typed ones more quickly and reduces the amount of bad handwriting.

[meg]

My big classes got soooo much easier to deal with when I started having them turn in outlines rather than essays. I could focus on their ideas; they didn't get writer's block; and I still felt like I was helping to sharpen their writing skills.

[Wendy]

I don't know--I've gotten much faster at reading exams in my old age. Of course, I also only give a final (the rest are papers, and this is my lit class). Final exam means I don't have to write comments. Bwahaha! Much easier when you don't feel your comments have to justify the grade.

Think I can grade 25 1-page summaries in the next hour and a half? I'm gonna give it a try. :)

[Valerie]

No suggestions for how to get out of subjective type questions, but I agree with others -- at least figure out a way that students can turn in "typed" answers. If you require digital submissions (you probably have access to a course management system so you don't clog your email), you can also more easily check for plagiarism.

Bleh. Grading. One of the reasons I quit adjuncting and got a staff job.

[af]

I do about 50% multiple choice and 50% essay or short ID/short essay. If you write the multiple choice questions well - and this takes a serious investment of time - you can determine who did the reading. I am an easy grader on the written section; they get all the questions in advance and if they hit the main points they (mostly) get full credit. It is much faster to grade if you're not really worrying about the score, and usually the people who do well on one section do well on the other.

The truth is that I think it's more important to get them to write on tests than it is to evaluate them based on their writings on tests. (I am a much better, and harder, grader, on essays they turn in.)

[Doug spots comment spam]

Raivo Pommer has occasionally infested our blog as well. Enthusiastic marking of his posts as spam seems finally to have done the trick.

[timna]

I wish I was done. My charger stayed in New Jersey and the laptop continued on with me for the rest of the spring break trip. All 60 essays are downloaded and I could have graded them on any computer. But I'm used to the red-pen-on-the computer-screen on the notepad and so did nothing. not the greatest way to start the second half of the semester. sigh.

[Liz D.]

I'm working with the 2nd-5th grade set on handwriting remediation.

Brace yourselves, folks, the "bad handwriting" is here to stay.

Newly-minted teachers have zero training in how to teach this physical skill (handwriting). They are just directed to use whatever handwriting curriculum their district has adopted. Many of the curricula are not really effective.

I hear this rationalization all the time, "This is the digital age. Everything will be keyboarded, so the handwriting doesn't really matter."

Facepalm. Or headdesk, depending.

[Doug spots comment spam]

I'm thinking Alisha Pang is also here to lap up the linky love for commercial purposes.

[I'm seriously thinking about sending Russians after a certain Estonian e-mailer]

Will no one rid me of this troublesome pest?