Admit it, sometimes you feel like this sometimes when you are grading an especially poor paper or exam. That red pen starts slashing just a little bit faster, and you press it against the paper just a tad harder. You know you covered this material in class and it's in the textbook! How could they not grasp even a tiny portion of it? Your frustration bubbles up a bit. Your grip on your pen tightens without your noticing. You normally don't look at the names on the tests whiles you're grading, but you can't help it. Oh yes. The student is that one that sits in the back playing with their phone. Sometimes they whisper something to the girl next to them and smirk. If it was the student who came to your office asking for help, the one who struggles to grasp the material despite their best efforts you'd feel bad. In this case though it feels, somehow, just a bit, as if it is just. "I am karma" you think, "I am justice. Your folly will cause you to meet your reward. Your GPA is about to take a hit. I ... AM ... DEATH!" You slash a big red "F" with a circle around it for emphasis on the blue-book cover. It is finished. Then you move on to the next test. Oh good, this student gets it. You sigh, settle into your chair a bit more, and your grip on your favorite red grading pen relaxes a bit. Your breathing slows a bit, as does your heart. "Almost done," you think, "I am almost done."
Why don't the students do well on your exams? You made them *so* hard, you didn't tell them what you were going to ask them so they studied the "wrong" material, you made them think, blah blah blah.
ReplyDeleteWhile I was teaching, I heard all those excuses and I got hauled into the department head's office because of them.
I like the Raston robot, from the Doctor Who episode, "The Five Doctors."
ReplyDeleteI like having GIFs with posts and wish we could do it with comments too.
DeleteMe: I'm done.
ReplyDeleteColleague: You finished your grading?
Me: No, the grading finished me.
I made the mistake of color-coding my grade spreadsheet. Failures automatically show in red. I should have made them show in the color of death.
ReplyDeleteMe too! Wait, isn't red the color of death?
DeleteI don't know what color it is, but red does not adequately describe the color of my heart sometimes. I assume death is a similar color.
DeleteOddly, since I think of myself as pretty tough, I identify far more with the last paragraph than the earlier one. I do get very, very frustrated when they don't follow directions/show awareness of information I'm sure I provided, but I also somehow feel guilty, or at least responsible (why, I don't know; it's not as if I can open up the tops of their heads and pour stuff in).
ReplyDeleteBut/and I'm always relieved when at least a few of them get it, which makes me think that I'm not crazy (or at least that my directions are not completely incomprehensible). Of course, most teachers will (correctly) tell you that there's a certain percentage of the class that will learn no matter what you do or don't do (as well as, arguably, a percentage that won't, but that's more controversial), so maybe I shouldn't extrapolate too far from a few students who seem to get what I'm trying to do.
I create a histogram that shows the distribution of A's, B's, C's, D's and F's for each exam. The D's and F's complain less. I once had students complaining to my boss that I was not "teaching the material and the exams were too hard." I started showing the histogram to demonstrate that yes, I do cover the material, and that most students get a C or better. Those D's and F's look so very lonely on the histogram.
ReplyDeleteI stopped showing histograms because in my classes, the majority get Ds and Fs on the first exam, and they seem to think that means that I'm "Unfaaaaaiiirrr!" (It's a science class, usually the first one they've had in college after lots of humanities classes where, frankly, their opinions seem to have counted more than their knowledge of facts.)
ReplyDeleteAs the Destroyer of GPAs, I get perverse pleasure from praising the (few) fantastic exams and assignments. I lay it on thick:
"Some of you really worked hard, and it shows!"
"Great job especially on Question Umpteen, where you pulled together details from three different chapters to construct your cladogram."
"There were three grades close to 100%, and one person even got the bonus question right, earning 104%. Keep doing what you're doing."
"People with As and Bs, bet you're glad you came in for help at office hours, right? If you didn't get an A or B, come in and see me for help! That's what office hours are for."
It's good to see them squirm.
How I wish I had the guts to play the sound bite on my phone with Gandalf shouting at the Balrog: "You shall not pass! YOU SHALL NOT PASS!"
I do not show histograms to students -- not for individual tests, not for the final grades. I use them for my own quality control, and to show to higher-ups if need be. I see the significant numbers scoring in the A levels and I know that the tests and the course were eminently do-able, and that claims otherwise are without basis.
ReplyDelete