Creating Communities of Practice in the top #50

Creating Communities of Practice in Online Classes> in top #50 in Assessment & top #75 in Distance and Online Learning  

Grading Craziness

If you're new to online teaching and need to streamline grading to spend less time and yet maximize feedback on students' work, check out Grading Made Fast and Easy. Price has been reduced through June.

Professional Furniture Refinishing for the Amateur #3

Professional Furniture Refinishing for the Amateur #3 in Furniture AND in Care and Restoration

ALL BOOKS $1 OFF THROUGH JUNE

All books are reduced $1.00 through June beginning Monday May 19. Get your summer reading now!

Free Excerpt Online Teaching for Adjunct Faculty: How to Manage Workload, Students, and Multiple Schools

Free Excerpt Online Teaching for Adjunct Faculty: How to ManageWorkload, Students, and Multiple Schools 

With the recent trend in schools' cutting classes for adjunct faculty, adjuncts are resorting to teaching fewer classes at each of more schools. Gone are the days when we could teach at just one or two schools and have enough classes to make a decent income. Some adjuncts are teaching for fifteen or more schools while continuing to apply to new schools so there are enough classes in reserve when classes are inexplicably cut from their course load. Scheduling can be a nightmare and mistakes can mean losing classes. Managing workload, large classes, and multiple school schedules is vital to preserving an adequate course load and maintaining financial security. There really is no choice for most adjuncts and teaching ten or more online classes requires new strategies to manage workload so that each class takes no more than 2-4 hours a week. This guide provides online faculty with strategies and tips to streamline workload and manage large classes, with a chapter addressing the unique challenges in managing classes and schedules at multiple schools.

The consequences of recent trends in schools' cutting classes for adjunct faculty is that most adjunct faculty must now teach one to three classes at each of several schools to maintain the salary they have been accustomed to in previous years. Gone are the days when we could teach at just one or two schools and have enough classes to make a decent salary. I remember teaching at only two schools for quite a few years and making between $50K and $65K per year, with a maximum of 8-10 classes, many of which were multiple sections of the same class, and all of which I had taught for several years. Those days are over now for adjunct faculty.

Some adjunct faculty are currently teaching for 10 or more schools and are applying constantly for new job openings, hoping to get just one more class or, if they're lucky, two more classes. Often this seems like "feast or famine" where we have too few classes or, in some cases, it all hits the fan and we end up teaching for 10 or more schools with a total of 15 or more classes. We cannot really decline teaching offers because there is no guarantee that the next term we will be offered any classes from any given school. Adjuncts have to keep classes in reserve at all their schools to make up the difference when some of the schools inexplicably cut classes for one or more terms.

Adjunct teaching has never been secure, but it is far more insecure now than in previous years. What happens is that adjunct faculty are trying to find ways to balance many different classes and many different school schedules, which can end up being very confusing. I know faculty who have lost jobs because they forgot something important in one of their classes. "Important" in one case was giving a mid-term exam; in another case, an instructor forgot to grade final research papers. Some faculty have told me they have forgotten to "show up" at synchronous class lectures or faculty conference calls.

You may be shaking your head and thinking, "How in the world could someone forget something like that? You must be teaching too many classes." See, here's the thing though: it is not a case of teaching too many classes; it is a case of teaching for too many schools. We have all taught 10 or more classes at the same time, but teaching that many classes at 10 or more schools is a relatively new phenomenon. I know a few adjunct faculty who are teaching one class at each of three local colleges on campus and, at the same time, juggling one class at each of as many as fourteen online schools. And they are making only about 50-60K per year in salary. There really is no choice for most adjuncts and, obviously, some new strategies come into play to manage all those different class and school schedules.

 

Excerpt from Grading Made Fast and Easy

This is an excerpt from Grading Made Fast and Easy: How to Streamline and Personalize Extensive Feedback

Do be sure to check out the reviews on Amazon

“Grading Jail” refers to the long and frustrating hours spent grading papers. Grading takes more time than any other part of teaching. Teaching is the easy, fun, and rewarding element of education. Administrative chores are distasteful but usually not too time-consuming. Grading, however, is not only time-consuming, but also frustrating and stressful.

Grading discussions, essays, and other written work takes a lot of time without an effective system. Using the tools and strategies outlined in this short ebook, I’ve worked out a system that allows me to grade approximately fifty essays in about 5-6 hours and the same number of research papers in about 10-12 hours. This includes comprehensive feedback and personalized comments on every paper. Students always mention on course evaluations how much they appreciate my thorough suggestions, corrections, and comments on all their work. They like getting their assignments back so fast so they can use that feedback to better prepare for the next assignments.

Students want substantive feedback on their work and they want it fast. My usual practice is to return work within 24 hours of due dates. If I happen to have more than two classes with the same research paper due dates, then it might take me 48 hours. I like getting all the grading finished by the end of the first and second day of the week because that leaves me more time to interact with students in the discussions and individually via email or online text chat.

Writing comments on students' work takes time and reflection. It is so much easier to use the "bouta" method (bouta A, bouta B, and so forth). More faculty than you might imagine use this method of grading and do not bother to include comments on students’ work to explain grades. In one graduate course, the professor put a B on a twenty page case study with the following comment: “The content is good but you need to learn to use APA correctly.” That was it – nothing more.

Giving meaningful feedback to students about their work is a huge part of teaching and learning.  I am very nitpicky about writing and APA so I write a lot of comments throughout the paper about writing or using and citing sources properly. I also write questions here and there about content because students need to think more creatively and critically. They can figure out what works best without being told what to do. I always write a paragraph summarizing my reflections about the work.

"Canned" comments give instructors more time to personally interact with each student every week. Using copy/pasted comments on papers, as well as in discussions and answers to questions, means that there is more free time to provide individualized feedback to each individual.

Outstanding students need affirmation; failing students need encouragement and assistance; and average students need a little bit of both. Students, by and large, produce a certain "sameness" in their work class after class after class, from the outstanding work to the average work to the below passing work. After teaching a class for many semesters, instructors end up writing the same comments over and over on all levels of work. So it is smart to reuse those comments and then we have that much more time to engage in real and meaningful interaction with students who are at all levels of accomplishment.

Some schools prohibit instructors from using copy/pasted comments (good job, keep up the good work, etc.) and they are right to do so. However, there are other comments that are quite valuable and beneficial to both the students and the instructors. Yet it takes so long to write these on each paper, that many instructors don't even bother. I would rather provide students with "canned" and meaningful feedback than to not provide any comments at all. 

Schools that prohibit "copy/pasted comments" on students' work simply do not understand the process of evaluation, marking, and grading. The concept is not rocket science: If I write original comments on every assignment in every class, I would not have time for the personalized and "real" communication that I like to provide individual students in my classes.