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So What's My Story?

After 3 years of being a poor social worker (the work I loved, the pay I didn't), I decided it was time to go back to school and get my Master's! After weighing my options (school far away from home, or school in a different country that is only an 8-hour drive from home) I decided to try my luck in British Columbia, Canada.

For a year I lived in
Surrey, BC while attending Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, BC. However, as the final component of my work toward my Masters degree in Criminology I have moved back to the states to complete an internship at an Independent Living Program for youth leaving the foster care system.

Here is the story of my adventures as a graduate student in a "foreign" country as well as my current work back in the states.

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Monday, January 5, 2009

An "A" By Any Other Name...

As I mentioned in my previous post, grad students at SFU are pretty much guaranteed a job as a teaching assistant... which brings in enough income to completely pay tuition fees. Of course, I jumped right in!

Prior to fall term I was offered a position as a Tutor Marker (teaching assistant for an online, distance ed course) for Crim 312: Criminological Perspectives on Social Problems. This course is pretty much right up my alley. The focus is on mala prohibita crimes rather than malum in se (actions that are not evil within themselves, but rather deemed wrong by society) such as pornography, prostitution, drug use, and euthanasia.

Marking an online course is fantastic. I work around my own schedule, don't have to be any where at any specific time, and don't need to sit through undergrad lectures. I grade 3 papers a term (for a class of about 60 students), and 4 online discussions. Reading 60 papers 3 times a term can be a little frustrating, but over all it's a pretty good gig.

My mom asked me what I did for my job, and this is what I told her... Imagine that you walk into a classroom on the first day of school and the teacher gives you all the assignment prompts and textbooks for the term and then walks away and never comes back. This is pretty much me. My supervising professor has put together the reading list and the assignments for the term, but after that the course is mine. I answer all questions, grant extensions on assignments and determine what grades each student deserves (both for assignments as well as for final grades).

I enjoyed the course and the flexibility so much last term that I applied for, and was granted the same course again for this term... and the same course is offered during the summer as well... so here's hoping!

My only complaint so far is that I don't feel was very prepared. I work well independently and sometimes really appreciate being let loose to do what I will. However, I had no experience with grading papers, or even the Canadian grading system (which is different than the U.S.), so I think i would have liked a little assistance with that early on.

In the U.S. the standard grade scale is 90-100 A, 80-89 B, 70-79 C, etc. However, in Canada the scale is generally 85-100 A, 70-84 B, 55-69 C, etc. You can see how this might have gotten me in trouble. As I was unaware of this change in scale, for my first two assignments were graded with the U.S. scale in mind. When my students threw a fit I spoke with my supervisor, who told me that I could use whatever grading scale that I wanted and that he was more concerned with the distribution of the final grades being on 20-60-20 curve. I explained all this to my students. And found, at the end of the term, that the US grade scale as I was using worked out to the curve my supervisor wanted, therefore those were the grades the students received. Unfortunately, for WEEKS afterwards I was getting e-mails from students complaining about their final grades. Fortunately for me, my supervisor backed me up and its time to start fresh... I made everything VERY clear to my new students at the BEGINNING of this term! lol

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