Baccalaureate papers marked: 350 (!)
Undergraduate essays marked: 28
Random dreams about marking: one too many!
Perhaps you are wondering why I am marking Baccalaureate papers when I am a lecturer at a university. Well, I started the job three summers ago as a way to make extra money, and while I am still doing it for that reason, I have fallen in love with the job and don’t want to give it up. It is a very intense three weeks in which you have to mark 350 papers, so you do end up living and breathing the job. But it gives you a great opportunity to work out teaching strategies because you see a wide range of abilities and soon get to learn how students can be coached into passing exams, even without the highest intellectual capacity.
I am not condoning the learning just to pass exams approach, in fact I hate that, it discourages creativity and adventurous thinking. But it is also important in this day and age that students know how to jump through hoops, and it’s tragic when you have to give students a zero simply because they hadn’t been taught the strategies behind answering a particular question. If you are a lecturer at a university trying to cobble together a full time career, consider doing this. It is really rewarding, if a little intense. In the U.K. A level exam boards are also often looking for new examiners.
This week I have also found out a little more about what I shall be doing in my new job. It gave me a chance to think about teaching preparation and how it is important to spend a lot of time on this every year, not just when you are designing a course. It is so easy to think ‘oh I taught that last year, I don’t have to do any preparation this year: yippee!’, but that’s not really the right attitude! As I progress through my teaching career I am going to try to make sure I take on board student feedback and improve my modules all the time, develop my own teaching practice and be the best lecturer ever. Who said the idealistic young academic was dead? (Actually I just don’t want my students to say horrid things about me on Facebook!)
Are you a teacher/lecturer and have any marking strategies you would like to share? How do you feel about training students to pass exams only? If you have to teach the same course year after year how do you stop it from getting ‘stale’?
Are there any golden rules or tips you can give me about coaching students?
I am glad to hear student feedback is valued but how much can you really tailor a module to what they want – I mean don’t you have some things that they have to be taught that is not moveable?!
Hi James,
When you say ‘coaching’ as opposed to ‘teaching’ I guess you mean coaching them to get them through exams? I would say going over past papers is vital because you can see the structure of the thing and work out strategies.
Most really low marks come because students have answered too many or too few questions. As a teacher drum into them what they need to do.
Also tell them to spend an appropriate amount of time on each question: if a q is only worth 2 marks then two sides of A4 are probably not required there!
And make sure you keep offering reassurance: we make our students take so many exams that some can simply get overwhelmed.
Hope this helps. What’s your experience of teaching by the way?
Catherine
Hi Donovan,
A cynic might say that feedback is only solicited to make students feel included and feel good! But actually it is important. As you say, we’re not going to re-write a whole course based on student feedback, mostly because feedback is usually contradictory (one student wants one thing, another wants the opposite!).
Needing more books in the library on a certain subject is one we can and do act on. Requests for smaller group teaching are also useful because we can petition for more staff or more timetable slots if applicable.
If students are consistently requesting more time spent on a different area then we do take that on board too, it may be tangental to the course, but if we know the students will love it, that will make it a pleasure to teach that session!
Also students sometimes have great ideas about things such as films to use as teaching aids: all good input and helps you develop as a teacher as well!
Catherine
Hey! I came across your blog posting after searching for teach and your post on jobs.ac.uk makes an interesting read. Thanks for sharing. I will search online more next Thursday when I have the day off.