{"id":760,"date":"2014-01-12T11:40:20","date_gmt":"2014-01-12T09:40:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/?p=760"},"modified":"2014-01-12T11:40:20","modified_gmt":"2014-01-12T09:40:20","slug":"how-marking-exams-feels-and-what-they-seem-to-indicate-the-divided-classroom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/2014\/01\/12\/how-marking-exams-feels-and-what-they-seem-to-indicate-the-divided-classroom\/","title":{"rendered":"HOW MARKING EXAMS FEELS AND WHAT THEY SEEM TO INDICATE: THE DIVIDED CLASSROOM <\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have mentioned exams now and then here but have not really got around writing specifically about them. After marking a batch of 63 during two very intense working days (that\u2019s 126 short essays on Stevenson\u2019s The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde<\/em> and Conrad\u2019s Heart of Darkness<\/em>) this seems a good moment to consider them.<\/p>\n

Once my niece, then aged 6, visited me at my university. She sat down on my office chair and I took the students\u2019 habitual place to role play with her: \u2018Professor,\u2019 I told her \u2018I\u2019m here to review my exam.\u2019 And she, absolutely deadpan in her role as college teacher, asked me \u2018What\u2019s an exam?\u2019 Oh, my! Waves of nostalgia flooded me for that childhood time when I didn\u2019t know what an exam was, either as student or teacher. <\/p>\n

Since then I\u2019ve taken many exams in my life (the most gruelling one for tenure) and have forced many students to take them. I have also learned in the meantime that exams were first introduced by the Chinese for the selection of their civil servants, hence my (avowedly xenophobic) impression that they constitute a form of Chinese torture. Both for students and teachers.<\/p>\n

As you may guess, I don\u2019t particularly like exams. I feel even embarrassed to look at my students when I see them, as I did a few days ago, struggling for two hours to answer my questions in acute psychological discomfort. I am not convinced that exams relate to real life, which is, I know, quite obstinate of me, as I\u2019m one of those civil servants for whom the Chinese invented them. <\/p>\n

So: why torture my students as I was tortured myself? Is it payback, the usual cruelty of the finally empowered against the disempowered? Well, no, since I have to mark the exams myself… Actually, I\u2019m sorry to say, the main reason to maintain exams is that the classroom still provides a more controlled environment as regards plagiarism \u2013although smartphones are fast putting an end even to that. There\u2019s also a generalised impression that people under pressure show their true colours, though it might well be that the only thing they prove is their capacity to withstand pressure.<\/p>\n

All teachers hate marking exams, what with their messy handwritten presentation, often impossible to decipher, and the trite repetition of half-digested ideas (mostly our own). Sorry but this is how it is. I\u2019ve tried all the possible strategies: rigorous alphabetical order and random order, 8-hour marathons and splitting marking along several days in equal batches, marking whole questions for all exams and marking complete individual exams, combining marking with other little tasks (which might even include housework). No matter \u2013it still hurts. I mean literally. What gives me the headaches are those sentences impossible to straighten out, particularly the ones carrying some meaning which the student has not managed to express well (or at all). Every teacher knows that exam language is contagious and you should never write academic work as you mark.<\/p>\n

As usual, the most recent batch has only confirmed my impression of students based on how they do in class: participation, yes, but even their body language. I know that in other countries they mark exams anonymously precisely to free marking from prejudices originating in class interaction. I\u2019m not sure about that. I\u2019m open to surprises and would be very happy to see that I\u2019m wrong about a particular student and that s\/he is much more interested that his\/her body language suggests in class. This seldom happens and most of the time these surprises involve students who are shy but, as I can see, paying attention (sitting up, listening, making notes). So, in a way, exams simply confirm what is easy to guess in class as regards students\u2019 interests and abilities. They are the proof that validates our teacher\u2019s intution, no more.<\/p>\n

Perhaps what has surprised me most this time is a peculiar symmetry: out of 63 students, 17 (26.9%) have scored more than 8 points, 19 less than 5 (30%). 27 (42.8%), of course, have marks between 5 and 8. I\u2019m not sure what the almost exact equivalence between the number of outstanding and underperforming students means but it must mean something. As usual, I find myself perplexed that the same teaching on my side results in wildly different responses and I wonder what classes would be like with only the top or the bottom 30%. I\u2019m sure that both must be frustrated: the top students because they could perform at a much higher level in a more advanced class, the bottom students because they find themselves at the end of the tether because of our demands.<\/p>\n

The theory indicates that when you mix students with different capacities the top ones force the less capable ones to do better. My impression is that this is not true: the exams indicate an increasing polarization and a diminishing middle-ground, now below 50%. Food for thought.<\/p>\n

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I have mentioned exams now and then here but have not really got around writing specifically about them. After marking a batch of 63 during two very intense working days (that\u2019s 126 short essays on Stevenson\u2019s The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Conrad\u2019s Heart of Darkness) this seems a good moment […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":98,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-teaching-tools-and-rules"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/760","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/98"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=760"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/760\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}