Marking against the tide

The end of semester is always a busy marking time. A lot of deadlines fall in the tail end of term. So I got out of 2023 with a big pile of coursework marking. One module I was on had a really big cohort this year. The marking took forever! I wasn’t anywhere near done when I went to the Netherlands. So when I came back I had to go back to it. 

The students also had a deadline for my new AI-using assignment on the latest possible date. And one for the big final report of the September fieldwork. But literally all these students had an extension. So these came in in January. 

In January, as well, are the exams. More work coming in! I was still working on the coursework of the module with the large cohort, when the exam of that very module took place. It’s scary if the piles are coming in while you’re still working on the old ones! But luckily, the other modules I still had coursework marking in didn’t have big cohorts. So after the big pile of coursework marking, I managed to get that out of the way in two days. And crucially, before the next exam came in. I had two! 

So now I’m really relieved last year’s marking is done. And I need to be fast with the new piles! Lecturing will start immediately after the exams. And I expect big loads of academic integrity stuff to come in as well. With everybody frantically marking, that is inevitable. So in order to stay on top of things I need to keep the pace up! 

The smallest batch