Friday, January 17, 2014

Grades

I have finally finished grading final exams for main campus. Nobody failed it. That means that probably everybody passed the class. This will be the first time since I came to Ghana that I will have a class in which everybody passed. On the other hand I had a lot fewer As for this class as well. The grades were all bunched up in the C to B+ range. I am not sure if that means anything or not, probably not. I now just have 16 city campus scripts to grade. For some reason they usually go faster. I should be able to finish them all before I leave for the conference in Ho on Tuesday. Grading is my absolute least favorite part of being a lecturer. I like it even less than attending meetings. It would be nice if grading and lectures could be separated. I could give the readings and lectures and even design the tests and then somebody else could grade them. First, I wouldn't have to read dozens and dozens of repetitive essays by students. But, more importantly it would relieve me of any students complaining about grades. I haven't posted any for last semester yet, so I haven't gotten any complaints. However, if previous semesters are anything to go by then every single student that got less than an A, most especially those that got a B+ will complain that their grade is too low. Having somebody else do it would shift the onus on the student to earn the grade rather than their current perception that somehow I give out randomly generated grades and anything less than an A must be a mistake.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Aren't you permitted a teacher's aide to help you with grading?

J. Otto Pohl said...

No, for final exams lecturers and professors are required by the administration to do all their own grading.