Tuesday, May 09, 2006

A simpler way to a C-

I brought it on myself so I shouldn't complain: I collected 82 papers last week and I'm giving essay exams to 82 students this week, and I'll need to turn in final grades for 82 students by early next week. That adds up to 164 separate items to grade, and not only to grade but, in some cases, to search for uncited sources and uncover plagiarism. I'm roughly halfway through but already my eyes are giving out, not to mention the millions of brain cells committing suicide in despair after resisting my repeated attempts to decipher incoherent prose.

There must be a better way. I'm holding out for the time when we can implant electronic chips in students' brains and just run a sensor over them at the end of the semester to measure how much they've learned. We could set up an automatic system like those EZ-Pay scanners at highway tollbooths: hidden sensors will scan the chip every time the student comes through the classroom door, providing frequent detailed updates on how much students know. Of course the machinery would have to be calibrated pretty carefully because, let's face it, there are things my students know that I'd really rather not know they know, you know? But it would have to be preferable to forcing my eyes to focus on tiny illegible scribbles that try but don't quite manage to convey coherent thoughts. Kind of like this paragraph. Good thing nobody's grading my blog.

1 comment:

David Martin said...

I give your posting a solid A but I'm not so sure about your students. Thinking way back to my undergraduate years, I doubt a scanning device would have registered a great deal of current knowledge. But somehow certain things did manage to stick and I was able to draw upon them later in life. So do not despair; despite how things appear, you may be getting through to at least some of them.