This semester has been....ugh.
Grading has really gotten the best of me. I generally grade in the evenings, and, by steadily plodding through, I have generally taken a week to get exams and assignments back.
But there is this one assignment that is piled in a precarious stack on the edge of my desk.
I've had this assignment on my desk for five weeks. Five. Weeks.
Partly this is because this particular assignment is extremely tedious to grade. (And I *have* returned graded work in the meantime.)
My students seem okay with this. I think in part this is because are fairly understanding of the sheer amount of grading I have brought upon myself.
I have also heard that some other faculty only return an assignment after 8 weeks or not at all.
Jeez. At least I'm not that bad. [Yet.]
I *have* to get this assignment back to my students this week, at least for my own peace of mind. What is the longest you have taken to get graded work back to students? What is an acceptable return range?
3 comments:
I've never had anything returned more than a week later, but I don't assign the sort of term paper assignment that takes longer to grade. If I did, I'd do what my English colleagues do, and tell them when to expect the graded work returned to them.
Part of this comes from learning how to schedule homework and exams so that I have time to grade them ASAP.
Depending on the size of the class, it can take me a week or a couple of weeks (term papers may take longer). I think as long as you tell them that it may be a while and, once you are nearly done, tell them when you'll bring it back, it's all good.
When I was teaching, I learned early on to make a point of not assigning anything I didn't want to grade. I tried to design the assignments and specify the format so that they would be easy to evaluate quickly - while still measuring what I needed to know about the students' progress. I think the longest one took me maybe 3 weeks?
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