In my current training position, I adminster two "certificate programs," which are a collection of classes that staff members take in order to develop a certain skill area. The ones I administer develop basic competency in Microsoft Office and more general entry-level competencies for administrative professionals (software and soft skills). The certificate program requires a final project which attempts to bring together and demonstrate the skills that were gained through the classes, while also providing an additional teaching opportunity, since unlike in the classroom, in the real world, a document is not finished until it is presentable. Recently, speaking with the person who previously administered one of my certificate programs, I confessed to her that I was rarely ever busy, and she expressed a great deal of surprise: she was always very busy with the certificate projects. This puzzled me at first. I don't get many projects at a time, and when I put my mind to it, I can get through the components and give feedback very quickly. After all--there's no grade to put on the paper. And then it occurred to me: I am used to this. Much more used to it than she was, since I taught writing, and had to give clear, focused feedback that stressed how to improve--even if the advice was never actually applied.
Thinking about grading, I remember it as the most odious task of teaching. And yet, here I am, skimming quickly through these documents created for the certificate program, giving feedback, receiving resubmissions. The one major difference is volume. There are times, like now, when I do get all three parts of the project at one time, or components from three or four different certificate program participants. But that's it. And really? It's not so bad. I look through them. I tell them what changes to make. I send them back. They get to them whenever they can. This would be the ideal model for online distance learning, though of course I would have to assign grades at some point. But then I wonder--if sitting back and giving feedback is relatively easy, what is it that made grading so odious?
The answer has to be the bulk of essays and the time pressure. I hate to feel pressured, and yet it is necessary for me to feel pressured or I will accomplish nothing but blog posts or Facebook status updates--sad though that is to write. So why not stagger deadlines or feedback sessions? (Feedback sessions were my way of justifying particularly long turnaround times for graded papers. Feedback on the previous paper and the grade would be given along with advice for the next paper during a session of office hours. There would be a sign-up sheet. Sometimes these would replace class for a couple of days.)
This stays with me. Why do we grade papers in bulk? It's the dominant method, but whom does it serve? Not the instructor, who has this mountain of intimidation to face. Even when I was interested in the topics, or looking forward to reading student responses to an assignment, anticipation of the grading marathon inevitably forced me to procrastination.
Does grading in bulk serve the students? This is a harder question, because the grading inevitably becomes sloppier, the comments less helpful, the grades more arbitrary the deeper I get into the stack. And yet, I think one reason that we would not give out papers until everyone's paper had been graded was to maintain the semblence (illusion?) of fairness. But their is always some bias. The more workshops I attend on "subtle bias," and the longer I work in an office around people who are supposed to be aware of their biases, the more I conclude what I already believed--that bias is inevitable. Most of it, however, is personal. There were students whose papers I graded harder, though I didn't mean to, because they were pushing my buttons in class, or because they thought they were smart, or because I knew (and I hated it when teachers did this to me) that they could do better. Maybe I wasn't guilty of each one of these. I certainly did what I could to avoid it, but sometimes perhaps only blind submissions would have prevented it.
Where I failed in grading was usually through the carelessness of exhanustion. The last papers came after the previous papers, and looked either a lot better... or else a lot worse by comparison. I was tired and weary of errors and repetition. My handwriting got sloppy. Inevitably, I had promised these grades by the next day and would catch hell or reproving glances if I did not deliver. My feedback got thin or harsh. And I probably didn't think as much about the grade, perhaps relying solely on my rubric to avoid the unclouded judgment that 2 A.M. (or 30 minutes before class) would not grant.
So given my insight, what would I do differently? Well, for starters, I would like to see papers come in at a trickle rather than in bulk. With a clear head and a clear idea of the objectives of the assignment and how to determine whether those objectives were met, I think the inconsistency of grading would take care of itself without having to "rank" papers and compare A to A and B to B and so on (which I never had time to do anyway, though that was the ideal).
But what about fairness and due dates? In the real world, different people have different deadlines. That's just the way of things. You can't complain of fairness forever, because at some point it breaks down. It could break down here, but there would be a lot of whining. So let's randomize it. Each student gets a number. Numbers 1-5 turn in their papers on the first day. Numbers 6-10 on the second day, and so on. Numbers change with each paper assignment throughout the semester.
And while we're randomizing, keep your name off of your paper! I'll record your name and number separately, and in the meantime, I will grade your paper blind. I won't know whether you're a male writing a feminist paper, a light-skinned person writing about minority issues, a female writing a reactionary paper, and so on; I also won't know whether you're the one who sits up front with the sandals and the ingrown toenail or the smart-aleck who amuses me until you overstep the boundaries. I won't know if you're the one who never says anything or the one who talks incessantly (to your fellow athletes) or texts while I'm talking. And that will be for the better. Unless you talk to me during office hourse about you're paper. Then, I will know you--and that will be to your advantage. So really, it will be like an online class, or like the certificate projects. I will grade gradually, as the papers come in, and I will know nothing about you, or will have forgotten everything I know. So much for bias.
Now, about grading and returning papers--basically, workflow. What would this look like? Ideally, the grading would begin as the papers are submitted. If 5 are submitted on Monday, those 5 should be read and comments written by Wednesday's class--or even by Tuesday. If the grading stops, the papers pile up and the system doesn't work. Since this system is based on an online process, it is well-suited to online feedback, though it could work with paper as well. But stacks of papers bother me more than quantities of email, so I would eschew paper and opt for electronic communication.
And yes, classes go on, and someone still has to teach them. But in between the classes are the office hours, when perhaps someone will grade me with their presence--but perhaps not. And I will grade. Because after all, when you're working 40-hours a week, you're pretty much expected to be productive while the clock is ticking. There would certainly be additional opportunities for flexibility in an academic job as compared to an office job--grading/office hours in the library, for example. The loss would be working in place. The gain would be time to research or write, or do the more pleasurable parts of the job, like reading or prepping, or even *gasp* time to spend with friends and family outside of the grading-teaching time frame (whatever it might be). This is how I would do it.
If it sounds rather like I would be tricking myself into doing work, that's probably accurate. But might there be good pedagogical reasons for this approach?
Let's take grades. So far, I have not mentioned them. Grades could be assessed at the reading and commenting stage. But why? So that I would not have to read another round of the same papers? That is a compelling reason. But it is not making use of the pedagogical potential of the writing assignment. As I mentioned, the certificate projects are additional teaching and learning opportunities. Because, while some people are able to make the leap and apply the concepts and use the tools that they have acquired--or even remember the information--most, in my experience, are not. Why? Because they are lost in their own minds, in their own obligations and job duties. They sit through the classes. They might pick up a thing or two. But if, when they return to their desks, they do not use what they learned, they forget. And so with students. Particularly nontraditional students.
So let's make the first round a learning opportunity. You submit. I read. I comment. I make suggestions. Corrections. I am your boss. This is what I want. You comply, or you will not receive a good evaluation. That is the bottom line. But of course, you are expressing yourself, at least in part, so the liberal educator in me (liberal in the classical sense) will allow for that individual expression insofar as it represents a coherent part of the essay. And then, you will show what you have learned. And I will grade according to what I have seen and according to your final project. I will assess your learning along with your paper. You will move forward. We will move forward together. Ideally, you will receive your paper and your grade at a conference appointment, where we can discuss what else it might take for you to improve. Outline goals. Performance objectives. Blending the workplace with the classroom. Did you know that many human resources degrees are housed in education departments?
I've been working in a department under human resources for too long. It may be that my ideas about teaching are becoming sanitized. Certainly, I only have the leisure to think about this because I am *not* grading 75-150 papers at a time. Undoubtedly. But of the things that are wrong with teaching, I think the utter dread and resentment of grading is a big one. Papers represent an opportunity to teach, and an opportunity to see into the minds of our students. Everyone could stand to take them more seriously. I also know that this model is better for those who are teaching 2-3 classes rather than 5-6. But--isn't that true of every thorough, student-centered method? Not the ones that are designed to take the pressure off the instructor under the guise of a decentered classroom. You know the ones I mean. And yet, I really am thinking about how I would like to do things. I would make the workweek a little bit more like the 8-5 crowd, in order to get what I need to do done more efficiently.
Because you know what? Right now, I would give just about anything to be sitting in an office grading 5 or 10 papers, preparing students for future successes and considering how their minds and their methods are developing in response to what I have set before them. If I could fit that into my 8-5 day, and reflect at home on how I can improve the next day, or the next week, or the next semester... I would gladly be tied to an office 40 hours a week in service of my real vocation.
