April 25 Day 48: What Have I Done?

It’s Saturday. I spent the bulk of my day grading and I’m looking at a repeat performance tomorrow. In a time when I am trying to pare down to essential material, why do I keep asking so much of myself?

Yes, yes…for the students. Absolutely. Develop that growth mindset. But do they appreciate it? Do they even realize the labor I am undertaking on behalf of their education?

Maybe this was not the quarter to implement standards based grading. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Planning for the start of Spring Quarter in the time of emergency remote teaching, I wanted to decrease student stress and anxiety associated with testing. I chose to embrace the work done by a colleague to implement repeatable low stakes assessments on defined learning standards until mastery is achieved. In theory the idea is sound. However, the execution is more labor intensive than I anticipated–even heavily relying on my colleague’s outstanding work.

Now I’m committed and will follow it through to the end. I suppose the good news is that we are still “staying home and staying safe.” Its not like I have anything better to do than grade on the weekend. (Yes, I am being facetious.)