At my school, fall semester classes end on December 10, with exams to follow the next Monday. And that can only mean one thing: I am so far behind on grading that I’m a little nervous about looking my students in the eyes.
At such moments, I’m reminded of advice that a colleague gave me ten or eleven years ago, back when I was teaching for the first time:
If you’re late getting papers back, announce to the class that you’re done grading, but that you can’t return the papers yet because you’ve found some instances of plagiarism. Say that if the student(s) responsible come forward, something can perhaps be worked out, but if you return the papers first, then they will Suffer. Your. Wrath.
That way [said my colleague], you kill two birds with one stone: The class won’t ask you for the papers again, because they’ll be too worried, plus some people will out themselves as plagiarists, and you might not have caught them.
I’ve never taken this advice–choosing instead simply to just tell the story to my students–but from a certain point of view it’s a model of Machiavellian ingenuity.
Then, of course, there’s the ever-popular model from Friends:
And while Ross’s strategy is probably a little unprofessional, it’s also the case that, come crunch time, many people seek out shortcuts to get through the pile of self-created work that accumulates. For me, the main thing is cutting down on interlineal/marginal comments. When things are truly late, it’s just a rubric score and a terminal comment. (More on rubrics this evening!)
I know that ProfHacker readers are too organized, efficient, and–why not?–stylish to ever be truly behind with grading. But if you’ve got tricks–or even just rituals–please spill in comments!
Image by flickr user accent on eclectic / CC licensed
Comments
1. Todd Finley - November 30, 2009 at 03:23 pm
I've been adding conferences to my agenda, so students get some face time with me, even if response to their papers are late. At least I can cut to issues that are important to students. Time to conference with students is a luxury of our profession that I am going to indulge in. My wife bought me a conference table that I've nicknamed "The Table of Awe." It's the place where I do my best work. The real work is in the talk, not the margin notes.
By the way, Profhacker's review of Jiffle.com saved me lots of time scheduling student conferences.
tbf
2. George H. Williams - November 30, 2009 at 05:30 pm
+1 to Todd's comments about conferences and face time.
Again and again, I find that students in 1-on-1 (or 3-on-1) conferences will understand fully something I've explained a dozen times in class and a half dozen times in comments on their writing.
3. Mary Hoffman - November 30, 2009 at 08:06 pm
I keep trying to remind myself that students can't process and apply all of the comments I write on their papers, so I should focus on two or three things that I can explain fully and that will make real difference. Easier said than done when the green or pink pen is in the hand though. I vote for conferences as well.
4. Jason B. Jones - November 30, 2009 at 10:00 pm
+1? He has a "Table of Awe" . . . that's at least +2 or 3.
Conferences are a good idea, but I'll need to block out time for that way out at the start of the semester.
5. Melissa Terras - December 01, 2009 at 05:20 am
I know of a professor who hands out, at the start of term, a huge grade sheet which has over a hundred different comments on it. When the students get their grades back, all the comment sheet says is K1, B6, F10, L4. etc etc. The students then have to look up what those comments mean on the rubric. I'm not sure I entirely approve...
6. Jason B. Jones - December 01, 2009 at 07:17 am
A friend last night was telling me that he does something similar (although I don't think the rubric is "huge"--he's not trying to overwhelm them), and defended it on environmental grounds: it's wasteful to mindlessly reprint copy after copy of the rubric.
7. Knitting Clio - December 01, 2009 at 12:34 pm
Well, I try not to get in this situation in the first place by following strategies similar to those in Natalie's last post. I also ask students to submit their papers electronically through Moodle and I make comments electronically too so I can just paste in the comments rather than writing them over and over again. I just read a Facebook post from someone in Chemistry who uses rubber stamps with common comments on them.
8. Nels - December 01, 2009 at 01:23 pm
I have major projects for the semester due about two weeks before the end of the semester so that I can grade them at a leisurely pace. I'll be done with major grading for the semester on Thursday if I stick to my schedule. I still have two weeks of classes, but I have them working on group presentations or smaller projects that I can grade quickly. I hate grading in a rush, and this has helped me feel like I have a handle on grading so I don't stress about it.
9. Aileen Fyfe - December 03, 2009 at 10:20 am
For one of my modules this semester, I replaced the long end-of-term essay with six fortnightly journal entries. I thought it would be a better way of encouraging my students to engage with the whole of the course, rather than just one bit; and it would spread their workload over the term, rather than having them be in essay-panic mode at the end. BUT, it also spread my workload. I thought this might be a good thing - except I've now realised that it moved my workload from the end of term (when I'm not teaching, and therefore have some spare time) to term-time (when I have very little spare time). And thus, I constantly found myself barely managing to comment and grade the last batch of journal entries (for 60 students) before the next ones arrived - and right now, I'm late. Which partially defeats the point of creating an exercise which gives the students continuous feedback and encouragement...
10. Todd Finley - December 03, 2009 at 03:30 pm
I tried a similar approach with macro/insertions (see TextExpander if you have a Mac). The research on writing response seems to be pretty definitive that students do not read those types of coded comments. Nor do they read comments that seem like they were written by a robot ("Good work!").
I like the rotation model because each group of students is reading for and reacting to something different. The shifting positionality affords them greater traction, offers greater variety, and guarantees a dialogue without comments from myself."Having students turn in writing memos attached to the assignment where the student reflects on their performance can save the instructor telling the student what they already know.
Also, having students synthesize response is useful to make sure students understand feedback. The problem is that this creates even more work for the instructor.
Inserted below is one of the few ideas that makes sense to me as a time-saver and as being pedagogically justifiable; I don't know where I found it, but here it is:
"The problem with 40 students is that there is no way to read (much less comment upon) every post if every student is posting every week. I am toying then with a rotation model (inspired by Randy Bass), in which students are divided into five groups of eight students, cycling through these five roles:
I'm going to give this a try next semester.
I've really been enjoying this particular discussion.
Thank you...and hang in there everyone!
tbf
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