tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3671815.post110365951127679021..comments2024-02-07T03:12:59.031-05:00Comments on Blogenspiel: Past DoneAnother Damned Medievalisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05231085915472400163noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3671815.post-1106125268407170192005-01-19T04:01:00.000-05:002005-01-19T04:01:00.000-05:00Grading rubrics and harsh-but-fair grading are goo...Grading rubrics and harsh-but-fair grading are good. We definitely need to get away from the 'you tried, you must get a B' grading that is so pervasive. But whenever anyone talks about the structure of an essay, I suggest reading this:<br /><br />http://www.paulgraham.com/essay.htmlAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3671815.post-1103740240233078812004-12-22T13:30:00.000-05:002004-12-22T13:30:00.000-05:00Hi NK -- that is what I meant. I'm on a FT contra...Hi NK -- that is what I meant. I'm on a FT contract this year (9 month), and have my pay set up to give me a balloon at the beginning of the summer, which is how many people I know do it. Other places do have the option of payment over 12 months. What I meant was that a T-T or tenured job allows one the freedom of using that money to fund summers "off" to work on scholarly things and prep. As you know doubt know, contingent faculty often work in offices and restaurants during the summer, and have a very hard time doing any of the things that would help to get them T-T jobs.<br /><br />Sharon -- Some tenured faculty belong to unions. I teach in a union shop, and I think it's pretty typical of Community Colleges (2-year, non-baccalaureate-granting) here. It can be a bit weird, too. I actually have a tenure committee, because the contract says that anyone on FT contract for more than a year has to have one, because tenure review comes up after 8 full-time quarters. We all know that I'm in a replacement position and that my contract will not be extended another year (at least, not full-time), becuase there's no justification for the position. But, the union contract says they have to act as though I were on T-T, just in case. Some 4-year institutions and even a few Research unis are unionized, but my impression is that this is mostly in state institutions and not for any of the big name places.Another Damned Medievalisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05231085915472400163noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3671815.post-1103710424446631632004-12-22T05:13:00.000-05:002004-12-22T05:13:00.000-05:00I'm sort of shocked to learn this, you know. Yes, ...I'm sort of shocked to learn this, you know. Yes, there are 9-month contracts here, temporary posts filling in for people who've bagged research leave funding for a year; people may also be paid a fixed fee to teach a single course, or (this is usually PhD students!) hourly to take specific classes. And I have seen people designated as 'tutors' who are paid less than 'lecturers'(probably paid about 3/4 of a lecturer's salary, in fact... never done the sums). But all of these represent a small minority of teaching staff in history departments I know of. Even probationary new lecturers (I think nearly everyone these days has to start out with a probationary 3 years and do the dreaded/loathed teaching certificates) get the same salary and benefits as permanent staff. (OK, because they're starting out they're on the bottom pay scales so not quite comparable, but you know what I mean.)<br /><br />And at the end of the horrors of t-t, from what I can see, a tenured professor in America has no more or less job security than a permanent lecturer in the UK. (BTW, is it true that tenured faculty can't belong to unions? I seem to have read this somewhere and couldn't quite believe it.)Sharonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05651973319804848661noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3671815.post-1103689666665330692004-12-21T23:27:00.000-05:002004-12-21T23:27:00.000-05:00This is pretty tangential to the rest of your post...This is pretty tangential to the rest of your post, but actually t-t jobs are 9 months appointments, too, so technically not paid through the summer. Although most places will arrange for you to take the 9 months pay over 12 months, so you can continue to have paychecks, but you're not actually being paid for those months. (You probably know that, but I wasn't sure if that was what you meant or not.)<br /><br />Anyway, congrats on being done! (with the grades, anyway.) The grade distribution is interesting - your comments about the possible effect of the rubric reminded me of how I've found that students do worse on exams when they get the questions ahead of time to study from. I think ironically the more info they get, the less effort they put in? But you're right too about the effect it has on grading - when they've review questions to study and the exam is going to come out of those questions, I figure I can expect something really good and detailed in a way I don't expect when the questions are completely new to them. Very interesting to see this play out in a different area.New Kid on the Hallwayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04982506415757771218noreply@blogger.com