Assessments for my web design course are finally finished, after a two hour phone meeting with the external examiner. We had 27 students complete the course, and the assessment was budgeted at 90 minutes per student per examiner, which is pretty close to what we actually used, I think. That means that between us we spent 81 hours on grading. That’s more than two weeks full time. Just imagine if we could have spent that time in a way that would have actually had some learning effect for the students! I’m so glad that the system is changing…
3 thoughts on “81 hours”
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torill
May you always be this enthusiastic about the assessment forms the reform brings us. And may your enthusiasm be justified. I think I’ll add that to my daily prayers.
Jill
*grin*
kari
As an American uninitiated in the arcana of European assessment rites, I found your recent entries on student evaluation fascinating. I can’t help but wonder if the Norwegian system, with all its rigour, promotes greater effort on the part of its students than the American system does on its own. Stateside we are afforded a lot of latitude in designing our curricula and developing evaluation criteria, but too often at the cost of rigour. There is a real problem with grade inflation (too many students receiving the highest marks for mediocre work in the absence of real grading standards), and students, for their part, perceiving this laxity on the part of their instructors, often respond to assignments in a lackadaisical spirit. I do hope Norway finds a way to sidestep the shortcomings of the American system in its reform effort. (Which is not to say there aren’t real virtues to our system–there are! I’m constantly inspired by the creativity of my colleagues–just a fair share of pitfalls as well).