248 words on Uni
I tutored my class in complex analysis again today. It's not exactly interesting at this stage and my job is mainly discussing the past homework with the students. I actually made five of them present an exercise at the blackboard which was quite good, seeing that they are quite inert. Perhaps I can establish this kind of regime by being a bit tougher than needs be to them in the beginning.
Afterwards many people came to ask me for the odd extra mark in their marked word. Gosh, I didn't really expect this. It felt a bit like on a bazaar. In England, my students would only dare to ask for a bit extra, if I had made a blatant mistake.
I'm a bit unsure what to do. I wouldn't mind giving the marks generously, if it were only for the marks' sake. Unfortunately, it seems that as soon as the marks received are reasonably good, nobody will actually look at their mistakes and perhaps benefit from it - thus rendering the whole effort of marking and returning the work useless. Thus, it seems like a good strategy to deduct a lot of marks wherever possible, so they're upset and go through their work again – if only to find out whether or not I missed something.
On the other hand, that would be quite unpopular and nobody really wants people to fail a course unless they really can't do it. Will need to find a good balance there.