In light of massively reduced funding, the university has reduced the number of classes being offered and piled more students into each class. I thought that “increased class loads” would mean that maybe instead of 20 students, I’d have twenty-five. I was shocked when I logged into my class role today and saw that I have forty-three.
Now, I know that forty-three students doesn’t sound like a lot for most university classes, but for writing-intensive classes like introductory English courses, it’s huge. And since the vast majority of the work for English teachers is grading papers and exams and holding student conference, doubling the class load is effectively doubling the work load, and they just don’t pay me enough for that, particularly considering that I spend fifteen bucks in gas each time I drive to the university at which I work.
I wonder if it’s time to quit, or if I should just re-vamp the amount (or type?) of work I assign to the students. I’m going to spend some time exploring pedagogical alternatives that reduce the amount of grading without reducing the quality of my students’ education. I wonder if the department could be talked into holding a short-notice panel on it.
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WOW. Yeah, doesn’t sounds like it’s worth it. Maybe you could see if you can keep your head above water this semester, and if the situation doesn’t improve, then it might be time to jump ship.
In the larger classes I took, my Professors did a lot more group work so that groups worked together in twos or threes and the Prof only had to grade one assignment per group. I also had a class in which we read literature and wrote Wikis in groups to post on such sites as Wikipedia. Also, instead of papers in one of my lit classes each student was assigned a topic related to literature we were reading and we had to research and give a powerpoint about the topic, including references. This cut way down on the amount of work she had to do away from the class but the students still had to do a lot of the same sort of work they would do for a paper. We had to have at least 5 references and only two could be websites. We also had to include how our topic pertained to the story we read (which meant you had to read the book even if you weren’t writing a paper on it).
Doesn’t seem fair that they are upping the number of students per class without increasing your pay or decreasing how much tuition the student pays.
Holy mackeral. 43 students in an English class is way too many. I hope you’re able to develop a better way to continue teaching without having to grade 43 papers x however many assignments ….
Oh, it just occurred to me: Some classes do online discussions to supplement the class and reading assignments, perhaps that could be a more integral part of your class?
Hey girl. You could do that thing like we did in 8th grade, where each person passes the paper they are turning in to the person on their left, then up one seat, and let them all grade each other’s papers. Actually, yes I am joking but, having them take the first stab at grading each other’s papers would help you to find all the grammatical and punctuation issues and also give each student a new perspective different than their own on the assigment. How they performed it as compared to a random person in their class. Would be a neat little experiment, and would save you a little time and effort. Having a critical eye is just as important as having a creative pen, and this would teach them to look further into things than just their own thoughts and also to see how conveying a message is hard, that what you write is different than how it is percieved by others. JMHO!
However, I also think that this many people in a class is too many. I don’t think you should quit, but that you and the other teachers / instructors to discuss this issue further and go to the administration not from the standpoint of “you dont pay me enough for this” but instead how each student isnt going to get the same attention, etc.
You’ve gotten some great feedback already on what could cut back on your workload…
My college professor was big on peer reviews for the first two drafts and group work as well. She had us coaching each other to a better paper and making revisions before she ever looked at it. Yes she looked at everyone’s papers in the end, but by the time she got it there was already learning that had occurred around the assignment.
It’s been a little while but I remember she was big into giving us the structure we would use to write the paper. When we broke into groups we would find/circle the key elements of the paper: First Paragraph had the “grab line” and the main ideas that would be talked about in the next 2 or 3 paragraphs. Topic sentences for each paragraph, whether the sentences that followed supported that paragraph…. Concluding Paragraph summarized all main points, etc..
As a student in a group of 5 you would read 4 other papers identifying these elements (if they were there) and give quick feedback. Then you took the 4 copies of your feedback and made corrections to your draft. Second draft could focus on spelling and grammar… You learn fast not to get too attached to your drafts and you know how to write papers for all the other classes.
Good Luck!