Multiple choice or fill-in-the-blank questions are probably easy – Very black and white. Subjective grading of projects and papers just completely sucks.<\/p>\n
I have students who I know busted their hump and did a lot of research and probably learned quite a bit, but given what I have to look at – to grade – I can’t defensibly give them the grade I want<\/em> to give them. If anyone “above” me ever asked for a justification that compared to others who gave me more and got less, I would just babble my lips and offer a meager “I know<\/em> they know this and put a lot of time into it, even if it isn’t showing through”.<\/p>\n At the same time, I have students who are offering up content which is above their knowledge level, likely purloined wholesale, but either I spend hours of my time proving that to give them a justifiably horrendous grade – or I throw up my hands and grade it at face value.<\/p>\n Those are both aberrations, of course. The lions-share have produced ok-to-good-to-great content that reflects what was expected and shows that they’re learning… Nothing says “I’ve learned WTF a network is” like a well-placed purple cloud amidst a sea of happy laptops… I just wish I was lazier and willing to hand out 5 bajillion multiple-choice questions and let some computer do the grading so I<\/em> didn’t have to feel like shit for two weeks (and counting). To those who say I shouldn’t care: tough shit, I do. I’m not trying to be friends with my students, I don’t really care what they think of me, but I do<\/em> care about them. Putting a horrible grade in my spreadsheet next to someone who is trying hard just kills me. Kills me.<\/p>\n Grading sucks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Multiple choice or fill-in-the-blank questions are probably easy – Very black and white. Subjective grading of projects and papers just completely sucks. I have students who I know busted their hump and did a lot of research and probably learned … Continue reading