Instructors who won't give an "A"

I admit, the subject line of this post is a bit facetious I just need to vent right now. It's soo frustrating!

Some instructors grade on a curve. As long as you put in a lot of effort and do better than the vast majority of students, you're almost guaranteed an A! Other instructors knock you down a full grade for a minor mistake on a paper, and two grades if you make a more obvious one!

I think that's unfair, especially if according to the grading scheme, 90%-100% equals an "A." Shouldn't there be some wriggle room...?

I don't need A's on all papers, but I would like to average at least a solid "B" on the assignments so I'll have a buffer zone by the time the final exam comes around. This seems to get increasingly difficult with a course I'm currently taking. A "C" would do major damage to my GPA.

Part of me wants to call the instructor and ask what I could do to get better results. But part of me thinks that would be useless and might even hurt me. I don't want to drop the course... I've never dropped a course!

Any advice???

 

If it's true (and not merely irrational perception) that asking the instructor what it would take to get better results would hurt you, then said instructor nees to have a formal complaint filed against him/her.

If GPA is your primary concern, and if asking the instructor what you can do doesn't result in a successful and do-able means of accomplishing it; and if you really believe that the grading is unfair or in some other way so unusual or non-standard that you'd be virtually certain of doing better under almost any other instructor teaching that same course, then withdrawal from the course, and signing-up again under a different instructor, may be your only option. There's no shame in it when its for a reason like that. What you want to avoid is doing so so late that it's not a mere "W" but, instead, a "WF."

 

A lot of teachers, myself included, really do believe in the "normal distribution" of a bell curve. It's amazing how often raw scores nicely form a bell. Grading on a curve almost always helps FORM a bell, so I assume what you mean is that even at a 90% raw score, you are still on the bad, downward-sloping curve, so that your 90% is only equal to a B. Most instructors will simply change the units of measure to make sure this doesn't happen (i.e., your place on the bell curve doesn't change, but your 90% score becomes an 85% score). This can turn into Olympic figure skating scoring in no time, but the medals are more important than the numbers!

You are actually in the fortunate position of being able to save your papers so that you can show how you earned a B with raw scores in the 90's. Competitive grading is not unjust; the people doing better than "the vast majority of the other students" are precisely the people who should get higher grades than others. I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to take care of those "minor mistakes;" if it's clear why you were graded down, I think you have your answer and need to fix what you see as "minor" and the prof sees as "one grade lower" mistakes.

 

Grading

I've done just a bit of teaching at the community college level and I found that most instructors HATE grading. I certainly did.

Instructors often think that grades are an unfair, irrational, inaccurate, subjective and altogether worthless device.

Worse, in general, NO ONE will tell an instructor HOW to grade. "Oh, no!", they exclaim in horror. "We would NEVER interfere in your judgment in so important a matter!" Like hell. Administration hates grades, too.

But they are damned hard to get rid of. The academy needs SOME sort of measure of academic achievement that can be communicated to other institutions and instructors.

That's MY venting.

 

My middle daughter went into her senior year at San Francisco State with a 4.0 average. She had a required course from a professor who proudly proclaimed that he had never given an A in 20 years. She naively believed she could change this. Worked her heart out. Got a note from him that she did the best work he'd ever seen, and therefore he was actually going to give her his first B+. But State doesn't record plusses, so she got a B, and graduated with a 3.98 GPA and significant lack of respect for a system that allows such a thing to happen.

 

I had an Economics Professor my sophomore year that used to say “The A is for the author, the B is for me, and if your lucky you will get a C”. I took his class and got an A. So much for his theory.

 

Re: Grading

Oh, man. . . . what you said.

I'd rather take Nonparametric Statistics all over again than grade papers.

I procrastinate till the very last minute because it is too loathsome to undertake without the imminent threat of termination.

Guess what's squatting like a toad on my desk right now.

 

Grades are, in many cases, proportional mainly to a student's ability and willingness to cheat. I saw this phenomenon illustrated routinely as an instructor . . .

 

I am an associate professor in a small graduate school. My experience after several years is that many students do not write well and they struggle with APA style. I thas been such a challenge that I now offer sample term papers during the semester and spend at least 2 classes in every class I teach covering academic writing. This semester I had at least 4 students who did not follow any of the instructions, did not use the model they were given, did not use APA style and then demanded an A. A's were not awarded. All of my students thought they had A papers this smester. Actually only about %30% earned A's. I have had semesters where more than 50% earned an A on their paper.

I have also tried to make the grading process for papers less biased. Students submit their papers without their names on them. They put their school ID on the paper and I grade them without knowing who submitted the paper. Its not a perfect system, but I think it helps remove any bias I might possess and it helps me assure I am measuring against a specific standard (as much as is humanly possible anyway, smile).

 

I'm quirky. I hated when I got the highest mark in anything, much rather preferred getting the second or third or fourth highest -- by far. I never did anything to blow a high mark -- worked my hardest to get the marks I did.

I left B&M university because I scored so highly in my classes.

The way I looked at it then (and there's still a reside of this left in me) is fairly simple: I was paying to learn something. If I scored so highly, in such large classes, with so much competition -- I deserved to learn something. Scoring most highly on anything indicated to me that there was no way for me to know if I had.

That said, my son Shahraam just returned home a few minutes ago and informed me he scored the highest mark on his grade 9 social studies test. Of course I'm proud. And I am happy that my kids didn't inherit some of my bizarre quirks and that odd attitude about marks.

 

I think most instructors respond most favorably to students' wanting to confer about improving their work.

I assume you're a DL student, so meeting during office hours, which would be best, is not an option. If I were the instructor, I'd welcome an email more than a phone call, because then both student and instructor can look at the papers together, and spend some time thinking about how to respond.

But so few students who are struggling take the step of asking the instructor "Why?" that your inquiry will probably be well received, if it's well framed.

I'd suggest not even mentioning the word "grade" in your discussion, or "better results" if by that you mean a higher grade. Instead ask how you can improve your work, what aspects do you need to concentrate on more, strengths you can develop, approaches or techniques that work well, etc.

It also helps to have substantive questions about the course content itself.

You want to show a desire to be a better student, not to negotiate a higher grade. In particular, you don't want to talk about what kind of grades you need or what is going to happen to your GPA. That would probably be counterproductive.

 

Thanks for your replies, guys! I feel much better now. I am very aware of the difficulties of the grading process. My mother used to be a teacher. She dreaded those parent-teacher conferences about failing students!

I guess the moral of the story is... be careful when you take a class with an instructor whose only (self-published) book went largely unnoticed, except for an extremely acerbic critique in a New Age-y magazine

Maybe I'll drop the class after all and look for a comparable course at our local community college. Sadly, in the end, no one will care about the difficulty of the classes I took, but my GPA is important.

I did learn some stuff in the "school of hard knocks," so the money was not completely wasted!

 

Hey Bill,

I noticed your post right after I submitted my own message. Good point about not bringing up the GPA in the conversation with the instructor!

If this wasn't a distance course, I would sit down with the instructor and go over the stuff. But I feel that discussing details over the phone or by e-mail would be very difficult. Also, I can't argue that his points of criticism are necessarily "wrong." Most are a valid opinion (if somewhat subjective). I just feel that I'm being graded on the level of a grad student or professional author, not an undergrad student in a 2000-level course. Some instructors feel the need to be very strict and that's just the way they are, I guess.

Jo

 

The one time I contested how a teacher marked me.... FWIW.... (ah nostalgia)....

Way back in high school I was getting an A in Consumer Education. The teacher fell ill and was replaced for the remainder of the year by another teacher. No matter how hard I worked at it, I could not get an A with the new teacher. No matter how hard. She simply used a completely different mechanism for handing out grades.

Finally, near final mark time, I apporoached the new teacher, and made the argument (sassy was I) that if I was truly a B student as demonstrated under her watch, that I wanted my former teacher's grade (from the first half of the glass) reduced to a B from an A, such that my final mark would be a B (rather than an A overall), since my work effort and content had not changed for the worse.

She was, of course, baffled that I would suggest such a thing. The final mark overall was an A regardless -- only the term mark would have been a B, after all was said and done.

The way I reasoned it was this: either I was an A student (as per the first teacher) who was now under a different set of expectations, or the first teacher had given me too high a mark and I was a B student. I wanted my mark to reflect the truth and not be some arbitrary reflection on differing marking strategies.

The final result of all of this was that I was permitted to do an "extra work assignment" to bring my second half mark (just barely) to an A.

In retrospect -- she ought to have given me an F for such utter and complete sass.

 

I've been teaching full time online for four years, undergrad and grad. The first two weeks I teach them how to write and use APA or MLA (depends on the course). Then I give them resources to help them continue with what they've learned about academic writing.

I provide detailed rubrics for every assignment, written and discussion. The rubrics include writing, documentation of sources, content, etc. There is no question what is required for an A, B, C and so on. In my classes everyone starts with a B, which means the student is meeting expectations for the course. Those who fall below expectations earn lower grades.

The highest grades (A) are reserved for that work which exceeds expectations and really wakes me up from my eyes-glazed over, same-old same-old grading boredom. There's a definite "wow" factor associated with A work. It's only fair that students who go above and beyond earn higher grades than those who simply meet expectations. And with the rubrics for each assignment, it's just not possible to NOT know what to do to get an A. Those who don't earn A's simply choose not to exceed the minimum expectations for the course.

Grading is easy. I highlight areas on the rubric that pertain to the work and average the categories for a final grade. The only comments I need to make are those that I enjoy writing in papers (questions to provoke further thought on whatever it was the student wrote).

I've never had a question about grades. All a student has to do is look at the rubric. I take it back. I did have a student question a B grade on a final paper. My response was simply "Explain to me how you met the requirements for the A?" I never heard back from the student because, of course, he could not justify an A grade based on the expectations for the assignment that were detailed in the rubric.

Rubrics make grading easy because there is no subjectivity to even the most complicated research paper. It's all there listed in plain print for all students to see. And of course they have plenty of opportunities to ask questions about assignments and expectations prior to submitting for a grade.

 

MLA/APA

TeachTech, I am an aspiring online instructor and I have a few questions generated by your post:

1) What determines whether you use APA or MLA? My Business Law Prof had our class use APA but others have suggested MLA.
2) What type of class would you spend time teaching students about paper writing? Are these 100 level classes? Or do you do include it in the majority of your classes?
3) Do you include the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers as a textbook or include instructions in your syllabus?

Thank you in advance.

Ann

 

Good evening;

I'm new to this forum, so 'hello'. While I am early in the process of seeking the school for my MBA studies, I do recall my undergraduate work, and I don't think the professors are all THAT different.

Most professors will give some kind of indication early on, as to how they grade. PAY ATTENTION. I knew a Dr. Schock, Math professor at Baylor, who prided on a strict system; for every 'A' he gave, he promised to give 2 'B's, 8 'C's, and everyone else got D or F. Students discovered he wasn't joking - he always took 35 students each semester, and always at least 2/3 of the class failed to pass. A lot of students dropped him, but the funny thing is, those students who managed to pass his class (the Math majors, obviously, who sooner or later found he was the only professor teaching one of their required classes), always aced every other Math class they took; on purpose or not, it had a sort of rebound effect, and tough though he was was (and likely malicious too), Dr. Schock was a very effective teacher.

I didn't do well in all my classes, but the four times I went directly to the professor to see how I could improve my work (never say it's just to get a better grade), it always resulted in a good grade, partly because I did as the professor instructed, but also because the professor always appreciated a student who wanted to really learn the material.

(/soapbox)

 

I understand where you're coming from, teachtech. Most strict instructors probably think that way. In a grad student paper, I would expect a spark of inspiration instead of a tired old rehash for sure.

But in my case, we're talking about a 2000-level course in business writing. I have to write letters, internal memos and such, based on usual business situations. I hone and polish my assignments for hours, trying to make them as smooth, professional, and error-free as possible. However, the dry subject matter limits the potential "wow" factor most of the time.

I just don't understand why I get a "B" for a letter with no grammatical error, no typo, in correct format, containing pleasant and elegant reasoning. (I put a lot more time into these assignments than into my message board postings! .) The instructor might write a brief comment about a subsentence that he didn't quite like. No futher explanation or markings.

It's the prerogative of the instructor to reserve A's for flawless, superlative work worthy of Bill Gates' personal secretary. However, personally, I think this is neither motivating nor necessary nor fair.

If I had to hire someone and noticed that they received an "A" in business writing, I would expect them to express themselves well, not make typos, and follow standard business practices. Not more, not less.

Someone with a "B" would probably make an error every now and then.

Someone with a "C" would be an average student with punctuation errors and noticable deficits in diligence.

Oh well. I'm probably getting worked up over nothing A "C" is not the end of the world. But (inspired by degreeinfo) I don't rule out going for an MBA or applying to law school down the road, and it's annoying to think that a low-level business writing course could drag down my GPA considerably. (I bet everyone with many CLEP/Dantes credits can relate!)

 

To be honest, this is exactly why I think a good old-fashioned competitive bell curve is the best system. On the one hand the A's are reserved for the wows, on the other hand some students simply choose not to work hard enough to wow? This seems like 2 different systems, a subjective qualitative system of "wows" alongside a measured objective system where 100% of the class could get an A without "wowing" but simply by following the rubrics. If the only grades given in a class are A and B, and only 5% "wow" enough to get an A, then that A seems like an under-decorated A+++. But if everyone follows the rubrics and writes a paper of the assigned length with enough references and few enough mistakes, does that mean 100% of the class deserves a full A? The bland paper with few mistakes but little style or interest, as well as the journal-quality article? I think it's fine for some people to work hard and still get B's compared to their peers who might have worked less and simply produced more academic quality. Likewise, I think it's fine for people to get A's for less-than-dazzling but still superior work that is in the upper section of the class.

 

I have some reservations about grading on a bell curve.

I doubt that in a given class academic performance is normally distributed, even assuming a normal distribution among the general population (which also seems doubtful to me).

From my experience, highly selective classes have an entry threshold, so the population comes from the right side of the curve. Thus most of the students are "below average." (I.e. the median is above the mean). For example, in graduate classes, or upper division classes for majors, you would expect a preponderance of B's and a smaller number of A's, with the average something above a flat B.

In less-than-selective courses, the distribution seems to me bimodal, with a mix of well-prepared students and under-prepared students that can shake down in a variety of ways.

Also, even if the overall population performance were normally distributed, there's no reason to assume it will be so in a given sample (class).

I could be wrong about all that, but I am sure that strict adherence to a normal curve in all instances is not always fair.