At last.....

..I'm down to having just one more thing to grade in 2008. The last couple of weeks have been quite the mindf*ck, culminating with nine oral exams plus project student presentations yesterday. During my mandatory pedagogic course, we had several lively debates on different forms of evaluation, and if and when they were applicable. I even wrote a term paper on oral versus written exams where I concluded (among other things) with oral exams being the better evaluation form for small classes of higher-level (in particular Ph.D.) students who were used to public speaking and oral communication of results.

While I still stand by that assessment, the major flaw is the lack of definition of how many students "small classes" are comprised of. 'Cause lemme' tell you; nine oral exams in a day are too damn many.