I’ve had several conversations with colleagues and friends recently about grading (who hasn’t?) — but particularly about grading with a timer. (It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of using a timer for all kinds of things. In fact, I was recently hailed as the queen of the quick and the timed, truly the first time I’ve been crowned anything.)
Using a timer when I’m grading helps me to stay focused, to be fair, and to avoid procrastination. Here’s how.
Sprint Timing
When I’m having trouble making myself sit down to a set of essays, I’ll use the timer to help me get started. I’ll set it for just 15 minutes. When the timer rings, I have a choice: to take a 5-minute break before another 15-minute block, or to stack a second 15-minute block. If I do two 15-minute blocks in sequence, then I take a 10-minute timed break before sitting back down.
This approach works well when the grading is fairly simple. I use this for grading exams, short response papers, and other assignments that don’t require extensive commenting.
The breaks have to be real breaks: not checking email to see the latest departmental reminders, but looking at videos of cute animals, or reading blogs, or, even better, something that requires me to move away from the computer. A real break should help you feel refreshed, not burdened. (That’s why email isn’t usually a break.)
Block Timing
Block timing is like doing sprints, only with longer time segments. You probably already know how long you can sit and grade without losing your attention, your good humor, or your eyesight. Don’t push it quite as far as that. If you typically sit for an hour at a time, set your timer for 45 minutes. Then be sure to get up, move around a little, maybe get a snack, and do something fun for a timed break of 20 minutes.
The benefit of using a timer, even for longer blocks, is that it reminds you to stop before you feel completely burned out. Especially for grading, which can feel like a series of intense conversations, regular breaks are really important.
Task Timing
When I’m grading longer papers (anything over five pages), one of my biggest challenges is not spending too long on one paper at the expense of the others. Sure, there are occasionally very, very good papers or very, very weak ones that do require some extra time. But in order to progress steadily through the stack and be fair to all my students, I define a target amount of time I will spend on each paper. It will vary, depending on the kind of course and assignment; after I’ve graded the first two or three, I’ll adjust my target if I need to.
The point of using the timer is to let it worry about the time, so that I can focus on the grading. So I use the timer to remind me partway through my task time. For instance, if my target time is 30 minutes per paper, then I set my timer for 25 minutes. When it buzzes, I reset for five and know I want to quickly wrap up my remarks. Even if I go slightly over five more minutes, the timer helps me keep on track so I can move on to the next paper. This keeps my commenting more even throughout the set of papers, and helps me be fair to all of my students.
Spread Out the Grading
One of the hardest things for me is just to start grading. Once I’m in the flow of it, I actually don’t mind the experience, since I’m curious to see what my students have learned. Using a timer regularly throughout the grading process helps me to spread out the grading, since I can plan my time more clearly and get started earlier. In my (all too-extensive) experience, a set of essays doesn’t grade itself, no matter how long I wait. Using a timer helps me get started, and stick to a plan of distributing my grading over several days, so as to avoid staying up late to finish by the semester deadline.
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