First Two Weeks of Tutoring
I'm two weeks into my first foray at teaching at university. And... I think my anxiety in engaging with crowds and public speaking is just... fading away. It’s become indolent to me.
Learning philosophy, presenting a few low-class papers and having to force myself to talk to other people has... maybe helped? Of course, I’ve never been diagnosed with any nervous disorder and I get the impression that I clearly don’t have something relentlessly pathological about my anxiety to speak publicly from talking to friends who do.
Regardless, this opportunity to teach has been a big thing for me so far. It’s not the classes, you can get really comfortable with a lesson plan and turn the students on each other rather than focusing on you. I just have a crippling fear that I’m going to mark their shit unfairly.
For example, last week we had the first round of 5 minute oral papers on an ethical issue of their choice. The first two papers found their articles from the news (they were good choices too) but really failed to draw in the concepts we've encountered in the course. The other two were really great they picked up so many quandaries but they failed to clearly identify a news article to describe and so their topics just... blew out. They were less structured... yet they pulled in a lot of content from the readings.
In terms of marking this stuff I haven’t been given much guidance. I mean my course coord. said ‘don’t fail anyone if they have a go, but expect a wonderful paper for a high distinction’. That’s great and all but all my papers are definitely above a pass. Additionally, how do I weigh up each sets failings? Do I penalise harshly for not gravitating around a specific article (as the criteria demands)? Or do I mark the other two worse because, although they were thorough and structured, they didn’t really form a very complex ethical judgement of their issue?
I looked back at my marking sheets and papers I delivered when I was a student doing the same classes. Admittedly, I got some excellent marks (though I look at these old papers quizzically and wonder why they’re good). But these don’t help me out with this issue of... slightly above average presentations each with their own criteria failings.
How do I solve this?
I guess it’s lucky I’ll be able to relate my torment to the course coord tomorrow and perhaps she can help me JUDGE THE SEVERITY OF THEIR CRIMES against the course description.
