2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Every one of us has felt the crushing weight of stress and anxiety from having a massive stack of papers or projects to give feedback on. We want to give those papers the time and focus they deserve, to write good, clear feedback, and also to get them done in as short a time as possible so that our students can use our feedback for their next assignments. When large projects were due, these stressors would destroy my life for weeks. I needed another way. So I did an experiment: I set up two weeks where I had students sign up for a required 30-minute office hours slot during which I would read their piece and give them in-person feedback. The effect was immediate: My stress levels went down, I learned more about what and how students were thinking about their projects, and the students seemed to get more comfortable and confident about their projects as well. In this paper, I will describe the courses for which I do this and how they are structured, how I handle scheduling, and the results that I have seen. I will discuss my grading philosophy and how that works in a high-stakes, achievement-motivated student body. Furthermore, I will discuss how this can reduce the likelihood of getting papers written by generative AI. I will also expand on the limitations of this method, including speed of reading, number of students, and depth of feedback allowed by the time constraints of the method. I hope this will be useful for other professors who find themselves overwhelmed by the stress of giving written feedback on dozens of papers or projects. For me, this method has been a revelation. And though I know nothing I describe in this paper is particularly revolutionary, and the courses I do it for are somewhat unique, I believe pieces of this method could be integrated across disciplines and dramatically reduce the stress and anxiety professors experience. I especially think such methods would be useful for newer professors who find themselves especially flattened by their grading workload. I know I used to be, too. But now, once I come home from the office, having spent the day chatting with students about their work, I sit down and play video games.