More than a year after a Dartmouth College professor embarrassed herself with a wisecrack on Facebook about cribbing her lecture notes from Wikipedia, plenty of people still haven’t bothered to button down their privacy settings.
The Web site youropenbook.org, whose creators are critics of the social-networking monolith’s “overly complex” privacy controls, allows Web voyeurs to search the status updates of Facebook users whose pages remain public.
As the academic year winds down, we decided to see what those people had to say about “college” and “grading.” Here’s what we found (identities redacted):
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27 Responses to ‘Grading Is Sucking Out My Soul’
dereklambert - June 18, 2010 at 3:44 pm
University of Phoenix. Whatever.
velvis - June 18, 2010 at 3:45 pm
I’m wondering why this is necessarily a bad thing. Perhaps seeing professors as people or seeing what being forced to grade papers until 3 am (which is what I did yesterday/today) is doing to the professors – isn’t the worst thing ever.But don’t people have the right to say to anyone that will listen or participate in the conversation – This part of my job sucks.Its not like they’re saying “My student _______ is a blithering idiot and I don’t know how they got into college.” As a society are we really so up tight that a. poeple can’t be tired and express it or b. joke about what they’re doing?
supertatie - June 18, 2010 at 3:47 pm
Good grief. What’s the big deal? None of this sounds even remotely serious to me. I joke with my students all the time, “You think YOU’VE got it bad? You only have to write it once, but I have to read it 85 times!”The best cure for students taking faculty grading fatigue too seriously is to assign an in-class peer review, and make them grade each other’s work. I have found few things that generate as much student sympathy for me as that does! :)
11272784 - June 18, 2010 at 3:51 pm
This is all part of the learning curve – and a reason that faculty members CANNOT be Luddites and think they don’t need to learn this stuff. Online literacy is expected and necessary for faculty, and that includes learning not to write things online if you don’t want others to read and repeat them.
drpopejoy - June 18, 2010 at 4:05 pm
I am glad that I work at a university now that uses only straight letter grades–no pluses or minuses. I cannot count how many more complaints I received from students with an A- than those with a B+ since there must be something about that minus that denotes a negative and something about that plus that is somehow not so bad. However, one event this term (three days ago) tops almost everything I have experienced in 23 years of teaching; a student who failed to turn in 75% of the required work product by the final day of class was upset that her grade would be an F. She started crying in the class and even later complained to the dean (these are adult students, not teenagers). The other students stood by and watched to see if I would cave and give her a break of some kind. I told her she would have to get an F and to take the course over and to get an early start on getting her work in on time on the go-round.I thought wise counsel from a sympathetic professor might help. The dean simply gave her the required speech about her right to file an official grade grievance, although he thought I would probably prevail. My belief though is that grades are taken far too seriously over the satisfaction of having learned something. Once when I was an undergraduate, I thanked my chemistry professor for teaching me so much and how much I enjoyed her class; she was incredulous since I had earned only a C. I had to tell her that I learned enough to get a C in the first place which was a whole lot more than I knew before I took her class and that I was very satisfied with my progress and would do better at the next level. I often tell students that I went through two masters and two doctorate programs and earned at least one C in each with a rare B- and today they still call me doctor! Students today will whine to the heavens if they do not get an A, so that even an A- gets them upset enough to call me and ask why they did not get an A as though the A- was a personal failure. The pressure on professors to mark an A by students is compounded by the pressure on professors to keep the students in a happy place in this era of students-as-customers marketing approach to education. This contributes to the national problem of grade inflation in U.S. higher education. As a student, I never needed to get an A, I just needed to pass to stay in the program and graduate, and was thankful when that happened; after that, all else is relative. I wonder if we would all be better off if we adopted the pass/fail option since the A-B-C grading scale seems to just be a benchmark of egos.Michael W. Popejoy, Ph.D., M.P.H.
annon1234 - June 18, 2010 at 4:12 pm
Give me a break!!! On a professional e-mail list I am on (about teaching the particular non-liberal arts subject no less) there is a thread at the end of EVERY semester where faculty are joking about the “throw them down the stairs” grading method, how they are procrastinating grading, how they hate this part of their job, whether you get drunk before or after you grade (and some of the people making those jokes don’t drink)…Venting about what you hate about your job is fine. Naming students by name, trashing your college, trashing other faculty, etc. is NOT fine. Joking around about how you are doing your job is fine. No one has any clue if anyone is actually going to grade drunk… These posts were all in the venting without trashing anyone or your institution category.Cripes grading SUCKS. It is mind numbing to spend 14 hours of grading the same thing over and over and over and over and over… I can’t stand more than 3 hours in a row before I have to pace, get a snack, complain, reorganize the papers from best to worst or worst to best on the theory that it might be less tortuous to grade them in a different order. I curse myself for giving assignments or exams that take time to grade and swear that next semester I won’t do this, the heck with the educational objectives. All tests will be scantron, all projects will be group yahda yahda yahda. And each semester I still give essay, time consuming to grade assignments/tests. I bitch at midterms too. I hate to grade. If there was one thing I could get rid of out of my job – grading would be it. Get a grip chronicle. If your writers were honest I bet they would bitch about portions of their job too. I bet some tweet about it or post on facebook about it.
22228715 - June 18, 2010 at 4:25 pm
I’m not so worried about grumbling about grading.But as someone who works with the carnage resulting from student alcohol culture (and who cringes when reading faculty posts that criticize student drinking and university tolerance for it) I think it is probably not good role modeling to suggest that a good strategy for enduring hard academic work is to drink large quantities of alcohol to cope. Even if you’re joking. Students do not always ‘get it’, and e-comments are notorious for being poor vehicles for sarcasm, irony, and just plain kidding.BTW, it’s probably also poor form to joke about grading begetting suicidal gestures, violence, cheating…
11299051 - June 18, 2010 at 4:35 pm
True, my job has it’s bmw (bitch, whine, and moan) moments, but they are my bmw’s and I wouldn’t share them with anyone except the person or persons who might be able to do something about it or them, respectively. I decidedly wouldn’t commit them to a wide readership of unknowns possessing the ability to bring them up at the most inconvenient moment. It may be old fashioned, but my students and colleagues always wonder how I can keep so positive an attitude. It’s what “management” watches. I know, I’ve been “management” for a very long time, and I read Facebook, and all the rest on every employee I have or even had. Love to drive my BMW but I wouldn’t hire one.
ksledge - June 18, 2010 at 5:07 pm
yeah, I agree that these aren’t so bad. Esp the Univ of Phoenix one…don’t even know why that one was included. Most professors admit to their students that they don’t like grading and that the process can be arbitrary. It’s not a huge deal. I’m the odd person who doesn’t hate grading so much, though, so I don’t think that these would be likely to be my facebook statuses.
jack_cade - June 18, 2010 at 5:35 pm
Some people fundamentally do not understand the forum that is Facebook. It is a social media site, thus informal, like a coffeehouse or a faculty lounge, or your living room. Sure, one should watch what one says, and I have my filter set so that students would never find my account or my grips.But, even for people who do say such things, reactions seem overblown.Simply because it is written, does not make it equatable to other forms of written communication.Facebook-type writing is much more closely related to speech than writing.Walking right by Derrida here, Facebook should then be understood as speech: the messages are quickly written, short, and largely represent a moments mood or an attempt at humor. Facebook posts are almost never genuine policy decisions or otherwise serious forms of self-expression. Anyone who uses Facebook should understand this, most who do not, do not seem to.
iteachpsych - June 18, 2010 at 7:37 pm
Supertatie, a colleague of mine did peer review in her spring writing class and said she will always do it from now on. Not only did they appreciate how much work it takes to grade, but many seemed to improve their own writing and editing skills as a result.I too find nothing alarming in the Facebook posts in the article, though privacy settings that don’t allow students to read these posts would be prudent. If one wants to have a Facebook presence for one’s students, why not set up a separate Facebook account solely for that purpose?
justsaynotofacebook - June 18, 2010 at 8:00 pm
Yes, grading is a grueling ordeal. As someone who primarily teaches online, it is doubly grueling with the uploading, downloading and peculiar limitations imposed by correcting papers electronically. In an online class however, it is the only opportunity I have to gage what students have received and understood from my posted lecture material, and my only opportunity to clarify and answer questions. So I take the task seriously, even as I grind through 60+ unevenly written essays, some which require remedial grammatical corrections. It would never occur to me to admit to students either live or online that grading sucks my soul (even though it does, sometimes). It would never occur to me to drink and grade. I don’t feel sorry for any instructor who catches flak for whining about grading on Facebook. Whine to your friends, spouse, whatever, but don’t put on on Facebook, particulary if you are making it sound like you do your job under the influence, whether you’re joking or not. That’s just stupid behavior and we should be above it. Students are more aware than ever about how much tuition costs and they are hoping their education is worth it. Facebook posts like those above cheapen our profession and can give students the impression they are wasting their time and money doing their assignents. I already feel like I’m fighting and uphill battle providing too many students with the quality feedback they deserve. My experience is that they are not as likely to complain if they understand exactly why they got the grade they got. Provding that kind of feedback takes time and should be taken seriously.Thank you, Chronicle, or bringing this issue to light.
22116123 - June 18, 2010 at 11:20 pm
One of my graduate professors felt that grading was an unethical imposition by the University on the relationship between professor and student. However, since the students wanted a grade for external reasons, he gave one. Because grades serve only external audiences (as opposed to feedback and mentoring, which serve the student), we must all be sure that our grades meet a reasonable standard of accuracy (if not precision).Nevertheless, I just recently gave the following feedback to one of my graduate students: “Why should I want to take time to read stuff I already know that isn’t the product of your own thinking?? I already know it!! Give me something new!”Maybe I should have had a bit of the grape before I graded this paper??
intered - June 19, 2010 at 10:26 am
The ability to make valid and wide-ranging distinctions among levels of performance is an essential and central component of teaching. Don’t make an illogical claim that you can teach well if you can’t evaluate your students’ learning with precision, reliability, and validity. To do less is unethical. I am appalled at the unsophisticated, unintelligent, and childish perspectives conveyed in some of the language above. I hope you are not teaching anything important. Many of the issues raised are presented as if they were matters of opinion or guesswork. In fact, they have been resolved 40 years ago in measurement science and pedagogy. There are proven effective ways to deal with the challenges common to grading practices, beginning with the intellectually responsible task of creating and making explicit a personal philosophy of student evaluation, securing the education and expert guidance necessary to grade well in accordance with that philosophy, and communicating one’s philosophy and grading rules to students on the first day of class.
janyregina - June 20, 2010 at 9:46 am
“resolved 40 years ago” I suppose it is done then. How can I evaluate my studetent’s learning except with a test that measures a particular moment in time. A snapshot surely doesn’t tell one the course of a life, only a moment in time.
bob517 - June 20, 2010 at 11:02 am
I have never loved grading papers, but recently I started using a technology that has made the process a lot easier and faster than it used to be, while actually raising the quality of the feedback I give my students. It’s an add-in to Word that automates the process with a lot of pre-written and customizable comments that you can add to an electronic document with one click. So you don’t have to keep writing the same comments/corrections over and over again. Saves me A LOT of time and mental energy. It’s called Annotate for Word PRO. You can check it out at 11trees.com.
intered - June 20, 2010 at 1:55 pm
@janyregina,Your Question”How can I evaluate my student’s learning except with a test that measures a particular moment in time? A snapshot surely doesn’t tell one the course of a life, only a moment in time.”My ResponseIt is true that any test, any assessment, any phone call to a former student to inquire how they are doing, any check of one’s pulse or the temperature outside, and for that matter any measurement is, largely by definition, a snapshot in the continuum of time. Yet, this fact does not vitiate the usefulness of any of these measures. To the contrary, if we wish to see how metrics progress over time (a fever, the ability to do math problems, the ability to express oneself clearly, etc.), we take repeated measures and chart the change in those measures over time. Change of the right kind, we call progress. Only upon death can we, as you suggested, assess “the course of a life.”It is admirable that you are concerned to know how a student is doing months and years later and, presumably, what portion of those outcomes might be attributed to your work. I feel the same way myself. I can’t help it. However, these concerns are largely personal. Professionally, they exceed our duty and, many would say, they exceed any implied contract with the student, especially the half of the nation’s students who are adults. However much the accounting professor may wish his students to be successful accountants, his implied contract is to teach them how to read financial reports critically. It would be irresponsible if the professor were to let his personal concerns for the success of the student get in the way of his professional duty to teach them specific things that can be assessed as they are taught. He must take those “snapshots” during his small window into this person’s life. He must do this in order to gauge his effects accurately and wherefrom determine how much teaching work he has left to do. It is the only material way he can contribute to his desire that the students be successful many year later. I am simplifying a little, of course, but essentially, this is the only opportunity afforded us as teachers. Another way that you can effectively address your concern to have long term impact is to become an expert in constructing and employing deeply authentic assessments. Unlike MC, essay, or other typically “academic” tests where knowledge is assessed in unrealistic isolated contexts, authentic assessments show strong correlations with generalization and long term application and expansion upon knowledge taught. They also increase student interest and motivation, an important factor.Last, there is what might be a logical flaw hidden away in what I think you are saying. If you don’t make an effort to validly assess students’ learning, how can you know you are having any impact, near or long term? The validity of whatever process you employ to determine you are effective can be improved upon by making it a scrutable process that you are always improving. Is this not our profession?- Robert W Tucker
la_profesora - June 20, 2010 at 4:06 pm
drpopejoy, I can go you one better on the student who didn’t turn in most of their work and then cried when they flunked. I had a student one term who got 3 F’s and a C on the regular exams and then an 18 (out of 100) on the final, then emailed me when grades were posted asking if I “could explain why she got an F.” The kicker—it was a *statistics* class! I.e., we studied mean, median, and mode in the very first unit! :-o
intered - June 20, 2010 at 7:08 pm
We all have apocryphal and outlier stories to tell, some of the most unbelievable are not even exaggerations. All that said, as rational people who are supposed to lead by example, science and statistics instructors especially, what purpose does this serve? Racism . . . sexism . . . studentism. And so it goes.
mrmars - June 21, 2010 at 9:11 am
For myself at least, what makes grading so onerous isn’t the sheer amount of time consumed, or the numbing redundancy, but rather the sense of mounting frustration that commonly occurs as the process progresses. With each paper that shows an obvious lack of attention to even the simplest requirements I set out (discussed in class and posted on the internet), or each essay exam answer that demonstrates lack of attention to the major points that I was trying to convey (or in some cases statements that show confusion over points that I specifically and emphatically indicated needed special attention because they’re always problematic – sometimes you can’t even teach to the test), my mood worsens. Who among us – or who in any area of endeavor – can remain up-beat in the face of repeated, obvious, demonstrations that their best efforts went for naught? Of course this gloomy description of the grading process is exaggerated, and applies more to some classes than others. There are shining stars in every class, kids who are enthusiastic, responsible learners who do much more than the bare minimum, and for whom the class will provide much benefit; but they often make up a small percentage of my classes. I’d estimate 10 to 15 percent on average. Having to repeatedly slog through the obvious evidence of lack of effort of the other 75 percent, and KNOWING it will be that way in advance, is what makes the grading process difficult (i.e. aggravating and depressing) for me. At least I can justify using the much maligned op-scan bubble sheets in my lower level intro. classes, as I teach content-driven science classes that my administrative friends keep cramming more and more kids into. My personal heros in all of this, those that I look up to with a mixture of admiration, awe, and horror, are those brave souls who repeatedly teach freshman English Composition and other writing-intensive courses! Bless you! May the Gods of academia grant you peace (someday anyway), and your health benefits include low co-pay on your anti-depression medications! May your friends buy you many beers and console you in other ways. You should all be nominated for sainthood.
mrmars - June 21, 2010 at 9:25 am
Oops! In post 20 above, second paragraph “. . . lack of effort of the other 75 percent . .” should read: the other 85 percent (probably a wishful thinking slip here more than a math error, 85% just seems way too high to admit to).
lisasilverman - June 21, 2010 at 10:26 am
I’m surprised that nobody mentions the fact that the students post similar things as they are preparing for the test or writing the papers. I’m sure many of them are posting about having beer and writing the papers or alluding to alcohol/loud music/parties/drunken friends helping them study. Or, (my favorite), posting about “just now [within hours of the deadline] sitting down” to an assignment you expected them to have been working on for the past few weeks. Let’s recognize that this kind of bitch/whine/moan happens on both ends. I also agree that this happens in any industry. I’ve worked in corporate training capacities and have spent endless hours watching people perform the same mundane tasks of sorting items on a conveyor belt and pack items items into boxes. There will always be boring, tedious work that makes you think of all of the other things you could be doing. This has proven to me that the proverbial grass really may not always be greener.
amiller - June 21, 2010 at 11:22 am
To all the whiners…did anyone explain to you in the hiring process that grading is part of the job? Aren’t you the person who establishes the assignment? Should society expect more from faculty than students when it comes to communications?
mrmars - June 21, 2010 at 2:28 pm
amiller,Effective communication, like learning, requires cooperation (someone’s got to be paying attention) which is the crux of the problem. I suspect that teaching would yield better results and grading would actually be easier, and a lot more enjoyable, if human psychology allowed the success of the enterprise (effective learning) to depend solely on the efforts of the teacher.
12109204 - June 21, 2010 at 2:29 pm
mrmars–From one instructor with years of Freshman Comp experience, and late nights of laboriously grading and leaving comments for scores of students who merely want to make it through their required comp course and probably don’t give a rip about the time I’ve spent grading, THANKS! for the recognition not often received from those outside the subject. Truly appreciated.
sahara - June 21, 2010 at 3:22 pm
Do you really think that off-hand comments such as these should be taken so seriously? Sounds just like kids, when they’re letting off steam, making jokes about drinking…yes, it was in poor taste and yes, they took a risk talking over facebook, but you cannot legislate good taste or judgment…
intered - June 21, 2010 at 4:10 pm
Again, grading is your responsibility; grading well (including validly) is your ethical duty; whining about the work and demeaning students (it’s a poor carpenter who blames his tools), is your prerogative but reflects badly on the profession.Separately, as someone who helped the professoriate learn how to grade effectively for 25 years, I can tell you that most of the complaints about those terrible [fill in the blank] students I see above are a direct outcome of the lack of professorial skills needed to establish and effectively manage the classroom. Over the years, I have seen more than a few of these folks complaining about their university’s management, suggesting that they could do better.