For me the best strategy is to forget about counting papers and instead pay attention to the clock. I'll sit down and grade papers for a predetermined amount of time (around an hour is a good amount). Then, as long as I'm locked into grading for that time period, I am highly motivated to get as much as possible done. So I stay focused and work efficiently. Sometimes I will "cheat" at the end and go over time if I have momentum going. But, see, isn't it wonderful to feel like grading more papers is something you WANT to do?
Also, I usually have papers/exams already sorted alphabetically, so I am finicky about keeping them in order. However, sometimes I'll go through and grade every 5th or 6th one, and then go back and grade all the papers from first to last. So as I'm grading, every so often I come across a paper that is already graded, and that is a nice little reward. Also, the "pre-grading" breaks the stack into sets of 4-5 ungraded papers, which then becomes a motivator because sometimes you're ready to quit but then you notice that if you grade just 1-2 more, you've completed a whole set. I've made a rule that I inflict upon myself: if I even start to read a paper/exam I have to finish it NOW. I figure once I've put some time and effort into reading a paper/exam, I'll be wasting that time if I set the paper aside and restart it later. Oh, and if I am grading papers via an online dropbox, I always sort them so that I grade them in order form first-submitted to last-submitted. I figure it's only fair that the students who turned in their work earliest get feedback the soonest. Once in a while I'll jump ahead in the order--say I've graded papers 1-5, and then I skip to paper 9. Well then, I just HAVE to grade papers 6-8 promptly to get things back in order. Yes, I do A LOT of grading. -Lenore Frigo lfr...@shastacollege.edu -----Original Message----- From: Jim Clark [mailto:j.cl...@uwinnipeg.ca] Sent: Sunday, February 24, 2013 10:03 AM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: [tips] best way to reinforce marking? Hi One of the (subjective) changes with age is the increasing challenge of maintaining persistent marking behavior. It seems to me that I use to be able to mark for longer periods of time when younger. As a result, one explores ways to keep on task ... sub-piles, breaks, posting to tips, ... My current favourite is "fanning" the test booklets out and seeing concretely how the remainder diminishes with each marked question. Any other strategies that people have found effective? Take care Jim James M. Clark Professor & Chair of Psychology j.cl...@uwinnipeg.ca Room 4L41A 204-786-9757 204-774-4134 Fax Dept of Psychology, U of Winnipeg 515 Portage Ave, Winnipeg, MB R3B 0R4 CANADA --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@jab.org. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=23960 or send a blank email to leave-23960-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
