We all have those times in the term where the marking starts stacking up, either because of badly timed assignments, imminent reports or extra tasks like the IB Internal Assessments or Extended Essays etc etc. I had let my marking get out of hand. The pressure was on last weekend. I had four full sets of marking and all were quite time consuming to mark. I’m at my most efficient and do my best marking just before a deadline. So, faced with a massive box of essays and assignments, I decided to go on a marking retreat to Philip Island where there is no internet, no oven/bathroom/garage/sock-drawer to be cleaned and no family or friends to distract me.
It was just me, the island and my box full of marking:
It was fantastic. I set a timer for each essay, no more than 7 minutes each. I took photos of my comments and later uploaded them to Evernote for reference. Once I got going, I churned out a whole set within about 3.5 hours. Procrastination and distraction still tempted me at every opportunity, but the timer kept me going.
I will definitely be going on another marking retreat next time the work starts piling up again. Sigh. Wouldn’t teaching be the most perfect job in the world if it wasn’t for the constant pressure of marking?
Finally, please read these very funny and recognisable posts; one about the 5 stages of grading, (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance) by @mittenstrings and the other about procrastigrading, by @philnel.
Thankfully it wasn’t all marking though. I’d like to share with you the photos of a lovely walk around Churchill Island: