Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Shocked

We have this rule that faculty are supposed to notify first year students this week about where they stand grade-wise for their courses.  So, a while back now, I learned to do mail merge from an excel grade sheet to a word document, and now I do that for each of my courses, and give all of my students that information.

I handed those notes out today.  And in my senior seminar, where basically I gave them the math because things are a bit confusing, I also asked them if they found such notifications helpful or no.

Some of them said they pretty much knew where they were anyway, but it didn't hurt.

Some of them said the information is really helpful, especially in courses where they haven't received any graded work back.

And that stunned me.  Shocked me!  How could you not have given students any graded work back by the 9th week of a 15 week semester?

And some said they'd never been given this sort of information ever before.

Am I the only one following the stupid rules?  (Because they should have received the information as first year students, anyway.)
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Seriously, though.  Who isn't giving students graded stuff back?  Why?  I mean, if our goal is for students to learn stuff, shouldn't we give them help knowing if they're demonstrating that learning well enough?  That's what a grade is.  It says, here's how well you've demonstrated your learning. 

And the feedback.  Yes, it's painfully difficult sometimes to give students feedback that's constructive and useful.  But how the heck do we expect them to learn to do better if we don't?

(My students did say that it's not usually English profs who don't give feedback on essays and such, but folks in other departments.  And they said they may not get essays and such back, but usually get exam information back for those courses at least.  But still!!!!)
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In my first year writing course, I gave students the information, and almost all of them said they'd hadn't received this sort of info before (last term, for example) and hadn't received any of it from this term.
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I hate that I'm apparently a rule-follower and more.  But damn, students do need to get work returned that's graded and has at least some feedback!

Do you folks have these sorts of rules?  Do people follow them?

(The advising office would prefer that we click radio-buttons on their grade form, but I think it's more likely to be helpful to students to see how I determine the grade, and the number at this point is likely to under-report their likely grade at this point because I give them leeway on which of 10 journal type assignments they want to turn in out of 15+ options.  Some of them have turned in all ten at this point, but someone who's turned in 6 looks like they're doing miserably when they aren't necessarily, but I don't want to spend 10 minutes on each student doing the math to figure out how they're doing on what they've turned in and whether they can turn in all ten still or if they've missed too many already.)

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Have I mentioned lately how good my violin teacher is?  Speaking of feedback, she's encouraging, but also looks at what I'm doing and helps me correct potential problems.  Last week, my thumb was being a problem.  Now I'm trying to be more aware of it, but, let's just say that it's hard to keep track of what my thumb is doing and what my bow is doing and what my fingers are doing and all at the same time!  I have a lesson tomorrow.  Wish me a bent and relaxed thumb!

12 comments:

  1. It used to be at HU that there were no grades given in composition classes until the final grade. There was feedback on drafts and the ever multiplying portfolios; however, there were no grades, so students had no clear idea what they were going to get until the end. (Going to get... earned... whatever...) Anyway, that system changed somewhat right around the time I started at HU. I would NEVER do that to students. I think it creates too much anxiety.

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  2. I'd be shocked too. Even if the main grades are for a midterm and final exam, surely by this point the midterms should be graded!

    Here's a horrible true story but I'm going to have to be vague on the details: I am familiar with a faculty member who left an institution involuntarily some years ago. Those tasked with cleaning out the office found stacks and stacks of student papers that had clearly never been touched, but none of the students had complained because they all got A's.

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  3. I am very accustomed to students saying they have never received, or learned, or done, whatever, when I know they have because they've done it with me. So I've become suspicious of such claims.

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    1. That's a good point, Dame Eleanor. I should take what they say with a dose of salts.

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  4. I had my meeting with my Chair over my annual evaluation packet today, and one of the things she mentioned was how good I was at getting papers and other work back to the students in good time -- which surprised me just a little, since I sometimes take up to two weeks to get exams and papers back.

    But yes, apparently some instructors take much longer to get them back, or never get the back at all. Yikes.

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  5. I have heard this from students occasionally, including students who say that they never received any graded work back in a class, even the final paper. Like Dame Eleanor, though, I don't always know whether this is accurate. The charitable version is that their memories are faulty (hey, mine is!).

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    1. Or they don't recognize the vocabulary ("timely feedback" may not mean the same thing to them as "marginal comments on papers"), or, if you're using a system like Blackboard, they may not know how to look at comments, or just don't bother, or don't think of seeing comments online as getting work "back."

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    2. Yes, good point! I'm not sure what they make of feedback on the course management system. Some said they could see grades on the system. But some were pretty specific about not getting graded essays back at all.

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  6. Also, am I the only person who wants to hear how to merge Excel grades with Word to produce notes to send to students?

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    1. Your wish is my command! Check back later!

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  7. I can't remember what percentage of their total grade that students are supposed to have back before the drop/add date and the final date to drop a course with a W instead of an F, but since I do all of my grading on our LMS, students have all of their marks available at any given time.

    My biggest challenge is showing some of them how to SEE their grades and their feedback online. Most of them know one or the other way - some read the feedback on each individual assignment that includes the percentage mark while others are familiar with the Grades tab that shows all of the numbers including the percentage to date but none of the assignment details.

    Your letter sounds like an elegant way to ensure full communication of the iinformation!

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  8. Anonymous5:36 PM

    We must submit midterm grades for all students to the Registrar. (Cue faculty grumbling about not treating students like adults responsible for keeping track of their stuff... but we are a tuition-dependent institution, so kids flunking out is a problem.) Many of my tenured colleagues just submit a B for everyone, in every course. Those of us who are untenured, are not yet thoroughly jaded, and/or have different views about pedagogy similar to yours (I'm in categories 1 & 3) lose the first 3.5 days of every one-week Spring Break getting midterm grades calculated.

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