Grading is hard
I just handed in my final grades for my first teaching gig. Handing out the As were easy; they all went to B+ students with perfect attendance who participated in class discussions and came through with some really nice work in their final portfolios. Handing out the Fs were easy; they all went to students who quit showing up halfway through the quarter or, as in the case of one student, just didn't hand stuff in. (ME: We have two weeks left till finals and I don't have any work from you. STUDENT: Really? That's weird, because I've been taking lots of pictures.)The hard part was the middle of the pack. I created this elaborate 12-point system with points alloted for things like composition, technique, expression, participation, presentation, etc. and weighted so that the work they did at the end of the quarter - when they had learned a thing or two, supposedly - was worth more than assignments handed in at the beginning, and I found myself agonizing over a point here or a point there out of a possible 144, because I wanted to get it right.
What do you do, for example, with a student who's not the best photographer, but thinks s/he is, and so ignores much of the constructive criticism you direct his/her way, but also makes a huge effort and resubmits assignments, but doesn't correct the problems you pointed out in his/her original submissions. You want to encourage this person, but do you really want to encourage this person? Where is the grade for that? I think it's around 6.5 - but do you round up or round down?! And what about the kid who has a great eye for composition, but shows up late for class, doodles during discussions, slacks off on the early assignments, but puts in a valient effort on the final project?
Wait a second - I think I just described myself as a student.
Anyway, in the end I learned something about myself: I am an easy grader. I'm not sure what that says about me as a teacher, or if it even matters. What I do know is that if my students had thought about their photography as much as i thought about their grades, they'd all get As.
posted by judybat at 5:07 PM
4 Comments:
At my college, there was a math professor who was famous for only giving three grades: A, C, and flunk. If you had what it takes to be a professional mathematician, you got an A. If you didn't belong in a college math class, you failed. Everybody else got a C. (I got straight C's from him.)
JB, your post made me realize the genius of his system. When I was a student, I assumed that the grades preceded the categorization, but now I realize it was probably the other way around.
that's interesting, because you'd think in a math class you wouldn't have to categorize students - just grade them on whether or not they solved the problems correctly. That seems pretty black and white to me. Photography is a little more subjective, but I hoped I graded the students on their work, and didn't just categorize them.
Grades were based only on the midterm and the final, and (this is the genius part) final exams were not returned to students. So I bet the jerk was exploiting the labor-saving properties of subjectivity!
I bet he can't get away with that anymore, now that it's so common for students to want to litigate their grades.
I used to teach journalism at NCSU, and I once had a student who could not understand why I flunked her because she never interviewed a single person for her stories (and instead lifted quotes from other publications without citing them, hence deleting my four lectures on plagiarism from her memory).
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