I hate grading. I’m new enough to teaching that I tend to forget that whatever I assign, I have to grade. Last night, part of my brain was engaged in grading bell work and projects, and part of it was engaged in thinking of ways to make grading more efficient or eliminate it altogether. 

As far as the bellwork goes, I’d like to do a self grade or a swap and grade as soon as they’re finished. That way all I’ll have to do is record the scores. It won’t take much class time if I train them to do it quickly. Also it has the educational benefit of getting the correct answers in students’ heads immediately after they’re wondering what the answer is instead of handing them back later when they’ve already become irrelevant. 

As far as the cell city project posters and explanation sheets are concerned…it’s gonna take a chunk of time. That’s how projects are. But I should have at least clipped the rubrics and the explanation sheets to the posters AS I received them after presentations instead of turning the whole thing into a jumbled heap that I had to spend an hour sorting through last night. Live and learn, right?

The freshman are looking at plant and animal cells under the microscopes today. Cool stuff!