This is going to be a short post as it’s already late and tomorrow will be a long day as well.
This Part of the Education Cycle
Marking constitutes an inherent part of any teaching job, as much as exams are an inherent part of any students’ journey.
Exams are dreaded by students for the stress during the examination and the release (and consequences) of the resulting marks. Teachers also have to put a lot of efforts (aka time) into writing exam questions. Once the examination completed, the teachers will also spend a significant amount of time marking all these exam transcripts.
All in all, we all have to commit to exam and marking.
A Love Hate Relationship
I’m sure this is a feeling shared by many colleagues, but I’ve have a love-hate relationships with exams.
I like examining my students to measure (relatively quantitatively) how they have grown as skilled engineers. However, the volume of marking (easily 30min per transcripts and hundreds of them to mark) makes it a very daunting task…
To help me motivate myself to even start each mini marking sessions (it is unrealistic to mark everything at once), I usually keep picturing the curious and engaging students I have so much enjoying sharing knowledge and interacting during the course. Even if the transcripts are anonymous (which is an essential aspect of marking), my mind remains curious about how closer to a full engineer these students have become.
This means that I need to examine them. This means that I need to mark…
Closing Words
How do you tackle marking? Do you have any suggestions?
Thank you for reading. See you tomorrow.