Day 179: Grading: The Professor’s Nightmare
I once had a colleague who said, “I teach for free. I get paid to grade.”
I feel her pain today.
People say, “It must be really boring, grading the same thing over and over.”
Actually, I find it far from boring — it’s stressful. Here’s why.
From teaching: seeking to inspire …
As teachers, we spend weeks reviewing materials, preparing syllabi and exercises, thinking of new ways to make the material we love come to life for our students.
Then we spend fourteen weeks in classes, putting forth our best presentation, trying to prepare for every question, meeting with students, encouraging their interest and, especially, every attempt to approach the subject with a growth mindset.
Then we write the exam. It’s supposed to be comprehensive and thorough. Challenging but fair. Sufficiently detailed to distinguish those who grasped the material well from those who didn’t, but sufficiently accessible that no one sits scratching their head.
Finally, we sit down to grade.
… To Grading: ranking and distributing
Personally, I always spend the first few hours like a kid watching a scary movie - hands over my eyes (I can’t watch) peeking through between the fingers (I have to watch).
Having spent all that time and effort over the last few months to teach the material well, to inspire interest, to encourage every student no matter where they may be starting from, the last thing I want is to see anyone whiff on the exam.
I WANT EVERYONE TO HIT IT OUT OF THE PARK.
Inevitably, performance varies.
Instead of the cheerleader, now I have to be the umpire. (I realize I’m now mixing football/basketball with baseball metaphors, but stay with me here.)
I have to call balls and strikes. And there’s no tracking system for this. I try to correct for human predilection in multiple ways, but ultimately, only a human can grade these things, and I’m a human.
How do I credit an answer that’s highly insightful and doctrinally informed, but slightly off the mark for the question?
And how does that compare with an answer that touches the right boxes for the question but does so in a perfunctory manner? Which of those answers should get the higher score?
And what if I expected a question would clearly prompt an answer about one subject, while a large number of students all provided an answer about a different subject? Did those students understand poorly, or did I write a bad question? How clearly bad should the question be before I throw it out — to the detriment of all the students who got it right?
These calls can be agonizing.
Meaningful Feedback
Of course, feedback is good. Sometimes painful, but important for growth.
But for law students and law professors alike, I would like to shift to a different system — more qualitative than quantitative, and less comparative. That’s the subject of another post, so I’ll save that (maybe for later this week, as I continue the agony of grading).