Slow grading causes difficulties for students

Imagine a student who has just finished writing a huge report for one of his classes. He has spent hours upon hours on it for several days, often dreary-eyed and anxious as he works late into the night so that he can finish it by the deadline. 

And even after he turns it in, he will spend many days in anxiety, wondering how he did on the assignment and whether or not all that time he spent on it was worth it. Only two months later does he finally receive his closure.

Unfortunately, this situation happens at the school more than just occasionally. Though some teachers are reliable in their grading and do their best to give assignments and tests back as soon as possible, others drag the task on for weeks and even, in some cases, months.

It is true that some teachers may have around 120 students in several sections of the same class and therefore 120 written assignments to grade, and given 10 minutes of grading per student, this could total up to 1,200 minutes — roughly 20 hours of grading for a major assignment. But even this load can be spread out over time. A few hours of grading per day could quickly finish the task in around two weeks, while some teachers drag it on for several weeks or months. 

The issue is simply a matter of fairness and responsibility. If students manage to get their work done in a timely fashion, teachers should strive to do the same for their work — grading. And if other teachers are able to grade so quickly as to return test within a reasonable amount of time, why can’t others do the same?

Besides affecting students emotionally by causing them to worry about their grade, slow grading can also give students incorrect perceptions of how they are currently doing in the class. 

For example, if a teacher only entered a few assignments from the beginning of the semester and a test that a student did poorly on into the online gradebook, the student could think the entire semester that they were doing badly in the class, as all they could see was their poor grade on the test from a months ago. The student is obligated to know their potential grade in the class, especially if he or she is in fear of failing. 

Additionally, without constant feedback from teachers, students are not able to learn and address what their weaknesses are in the class. This prevents them from potentially improving their understanding the material. 

In terms of old homework and quizzes, not being given the chance to review them in time before a test could prevent a student from learning from their mistakes and likely result in a worse grade. For tests, the late reviewing of the exams prevents students from successfully identifying misunderstood concepts and pinpointing their specific errors, as they likely would have forgotten parts of the material by then. 

In addition to harming the performance of students, the delay of grading could result in a bad, self-sustained cycle in which ungraded tests pile up. Take a situation where, at the beginning of the semester, a teacher leaves a test ungraded before the students take the next test. After that, the teacher has two sets of tests to grade. As the semester progresses, all of these tests will add up, resulting in the teacher having to grade several tests at a time. 

Some teachers argue, though, that having to grade written tests, which evaluate more in-depth knowledge than multiple choice tests, contributes to their slow grading. While their intentions are correct, they do not serve as an excuse. If students are able to complete an essay in a few days, teachers should be able to grade 30 of them in a few weeks, as grading takes less time than composing.

Clearly, there are many consequences to the slow grading of assignments and exams, and if students can be held to deadlines, why can’t teachers?