Topic: Bang Your Head on Your Desk - the thread of teaching despair!

[the_geneticist]

For the first time ever, in many many years of giving tests, I had a student who answered the multiple choice test on the Scantron by giving 2 answers to a lot of the question. The student is from a distant land, so maybe there is some cultural difference, but I have never had any other students from that person's country ever do that before.

I see it fairly often.  You just have to decide ahead of time how to grade it.
Both choices incorrect = incorrect (totally easy)
One choice correct + one incorrect = what?  I have colleagues that say it's incorrect because otherwise a student could just bubble in all choices and get 100% and/or incorrect for not following directions.  Others will say it's correct since they did find the correct answer.  Your choice.
Personally, I'd look at the Scantron to see if maybe they had tried to erase one choice and just didn't do a great job with the eraser.

[downer]

I don't have time to inspect all the answers. That's why I use a Scantron.

[the_geneticist]

I don't have time to inspect all the answers. That's why I use a Scantron.

I do too.  I set it up to pause for "multiple marks".

[Aster]

I think we all see something "that we've never seen before" at some point in our careers.

I had someone last year who marked an entire exam in pen.

Once I had someone who only completed 47 out of 50 questions because she "didn't know that there were extra questions on the back side".

Somebody in the ROTC fully illustrated the margins of a scantron with every single military tradition at our college.

I'm sure I've had people mark multiple answer responses on a scantron before, but it's been so long that I can't remember. I'll probably have it happen next week now.

[the_geneticist]

I've seen a LOT of weird things on scantrons:
the typical - no name or no student ID or no exam version (grrr!)
completed in pen (why?)
no last name, no student ID, but put on their cell number (should I text you?)
skipped questions (meh)
skipped entire pages (oops)
multiple answers selected (really?)
form is so mangled it won't scan (how?  did you chew on it?)
marked the WRONG test version (don't ask)
testing center uses the wrong exam form even though we gave them a huge stack of the correct ones (sigh)
cheated off a friend with the other test version, got upset about their low grade, and earned an F for academic dishonesty . . . (WTF)

[polly_mer]

The multiple answers to the scantron doesn't seem that weird to me since I can think of many online venues in which "select all that apply" is standard practice.

I also used to give "mark all that apply" questions in classes small enough that I was marking all the exams by hand any way for the problems and short answers.  In that case, I used a grading scheme of "each choice has to be in the correct state".  For example, if the question was worth 5 points, one for each letter, and the correct answers were A and C, then marking A, C, and D is 4 points (A, B, C, and E are in the right states, but D is not).

[Juvenal]

I've seen a LOT of weird things on scantrons:
the typical - no name or no student ID or no exam version (grrr!)
completed in pen (why?)
no last name, no student ID, but put on their cell number (should I text you?)
skipped questions (meh)
skipped entire pages (oops)
multiple answers selected (really?)
form is so mangled it won't scan (how?  did you chew on it?)
marked the WRONG test version (don't ask)
testing center uses the wrong exam form even though we gave them a huge stack of the correct ones (sigh)
cheated off a friend with the other test version, got upset about their low grade, and earned an F for academic dishonesty . . . (WTF)

Sigh.  I've done all I can to make things as fool-proof as possible (but that means less than 100% so, alas).  I pre-number the "Scantrons" in pencil in the appropriate field (we use something generic), and since I also put this number on the accompanying blue book AND since I quick-eyescan each "Scantron" when submitted for missing (occasional) answers and duplicates (never for some years), and since they have two places to put their name--"Scantron" and blue book, both co-numbered, I have not lost track in a long time.  Yes, yes, work for me, but work then saves gnashing later.

[KiUlv]

I allow one redo of an assignment in the quarter (grad school). They have to do it within a certain time frame after receiving initial feedback and the final grade for that assignment is the average of the two grades (so you can't completely phone it in on the first go-round and then end up with a really good score on the redo). One student who took me up on this had received a 50% on an assignment because she didn't do a big portion of it (the assignment had 3 sections, and she didn't do the smallest section and didn't do a stellar job on the others). She redid the assignment... and didn't do the missing part again. Really?

[the_geneticist]

Dear students,
There are seats open in this class.  Yes I know you don't want to take lab that late.  I don't want to offer labs that late either.  But I DO NOT have the ability to increase the class sizes in the lab rooms.  The fire marshal says 24 students total.  Period.  Your options are to register for an evening lab, take your chances on the waitlists for the earlier labs (VERY unlikely to get in), or take the class another term.  I cannot "just squeeze you in" or "find you a seat".  Stop asking.
Dr. Geneticist

[Aster]

Middle of the semester, and a totally apathetic student chooses to fill out his scantron in bright blue pen.

Buddy, all that does is waste 5 minutes of my time, and turn your F into a slightly bigger F.

[AmLitHist]

The complaining students have been coming out of the woodwork this past week or so. 

Trust me, kiddies, I would NOT have said "this paper contains extensive de facto plagiarism" if (1) it didn't, (2) I hadn't pointed out the same damned problems on your previous paper with a stern warning that "repeating such mistakes will warrant a zero for plagiarism on future work," (3) the academic integrity/plagiarism weren't printed in the syllabus in boldface, italics, and underlined, and (4) we hadn't spent the past 7 weeks beating plagiarism avoidance and MLA documentation skills into the ground.

I have it down to something of a science by now; I can just copy and paste the email text, with a few minor personalizations, to respond to students. And my chair has my back, and that of other colleagues seeing the same kind of grief.

Then again, it's not as bad as the student who came in with Mom and Dad (both lawyers, as they repeatedly told me--is that supposed to scare me?) in tow a few weeks ago.  Student gave consent to waive FERPA, and Mom lost her shit on me for pointing out extremely egregious plagiarism (again, after extensive avoidance training in this 8-week section).  Dad tried to calm Mom down, but then Mom started shrieking, yelling, and calling me a wide variety of particularly vulgar names. When I'd had enough and said, "This conversation is over until someone can speak to me with respect," Mom took a swing at me--thank whatever that Dad stopped her, because I came very close to backhanding her. (It was clear in the course of the conversation that Daughter hadn't disclosed the paper or my extensive comments on it, or any of the other relevant lessons/documentation, to Mom and Dad before they all showed up looking for my head on a platter).  I was really calm until I realized how close I'd been to decking the mom.

And they say nothing exciting ever happens around here.  Sigh.  I could do with some dullness and boredom right about now.

[mamselle]

In their minds you're that mean ol' second-grade teacher who sicced the bully on them in the playground 39 years ago.....

They're just now getting their own back...

M.

[the_geneticist]

The complaining students have been coming out of the woodwork this past week or so. 

Trust me, kiddies, I would NOT have said "this paper contains extensive de facto plagiarism" if (1) it didn't, (2) I hadn't pointed out the same damned problems on your previous paper with a stern warning that "repeating such mistakes will warrant a zero for plagiarism on future work," (3) the academic integrity/plagiarism weren't printed in the syllabus in boldface, italics, and underlined, and (4) we hadn't spent the past 7 weeks beating plagiarism avoidance and MLA documentation skills into the ground.

I have it down to something of a science by now; I can just copy and paste the email text, with a few minor personalizations, to respond to students. And my chair has my back, and that of other colleagues seeing the same kind of grief.

Then again, it's not as bad as the student who came in with Mom and Dad (both lawyers, as they repeatedly told me--is that supposed to scare me?) in tow a few weeks ago.  Student gave consent to waive FERPA, and Mom lost her shit on me for pointing out extremely egregious plagiarism (again, after extensive avoidance training in this 8-week section).  Dad tried to calm Mom down, but then Mom started shrieking, yelling, and calling me a wide variety of particularly vulgar names. When I'd had enough and said, "This conversation is over until someone can speak to me with respect," Mom took a swing at me--thank whatever that Dad stopped her, because I came very close to backhanding her. (It was clear in the course of the conversation that Daughter hadn't disclosed the paper or my extensive comments on it, or any of the other relevant lessons/documentation, to Mom and Dad before they all showed up looking for my head on a platter).  I was really calm until I realized how close I'd been to decking the mom.

And they say nothing exciting ever happens around here.  Sigh.  I could do with some dullness and boredom right about now.

Wow!  That is actually scary.  Did you call security?

[zuzu_]

The complaining students have been coming out of the woodwork this past week or so. 

Trust me, kiddies, I would NOT have said "this paper contains extensive de facto plagiarism" if (1) it didn't, (2) I hadn't pointed out the same damned problems on your previous paper with a stern warning that "repeating such mistakes will warrant a zero for plagiarism on future work," (3) the academic integrity/plagiarism weren't printed in the syllabus in boldface, italics, and underlined, and (4) we hadn't spent the past 7 weeks beating plagiarism avoidance and MLA documentation skills into the ground.

I have it down to something of a science by now; I can just copy and paste the email text, with a few minor personalizations, to respond to students. And my chair has my back, and that of other colleagues seeing the same kind of grief.

Then again, it's not as bad as the student who came in with Mom and Dad (both lawyers, as they repeatedly told me--is that supposed to scare me?) in tow a few weeks ago.  Student gave consent to waive FERPA, and Mom lost her shit on me for pointing out extremely egregious plagiarism (again, after extensive avoidance training in this 8-week section).  Dad tried to calm Mom down, but then Mom started shrieking, yelling, and calling me a wide variety of particularly vulgar names. When I'd had enough and said, "This conversation is over until someone can speak to me with respect," Mom took a swing at me--thank whatever that Dad stopped her, because I came very close to backhanding her. (It was clear in the course of the conversation that Daughter hadn't disclosed the paper or my extensive comments on it, or any of the other relevant lessons/documentation, to Mom and Dad before they all showed up looking for my head on a platter).  I was really calm until I realized how close I'd been to decking the mom.

And they say nothing exciting ever happens around here.  Sigh.  I could do with some dullness and boredom right about now.

Holy crap. I hope you did some kind of incident report. That mom needs to be banned from campus.

Although your student should still get an F for plagiarism, I feel bad for Stu. Can you imagine what it's like to be this person's child?

[Clark_Kent]

God, I'm so pissed right now!!!!!  Somebody either talk me through it or at least bash me in the head with a baseball bat!

(Full disclosure:  I posted this on reddit as well, thinking it would be therapeutic.  It's not working!!!!  I'll post here to see if I can get a richer data set.)

tl;dr - Class A grade grubber decides to take it up a notch and appeal his grade with no grounds. Appeals committee sides with student without even talking to me. I'm pissed as hell and worried that this is a black mark on my record. What happens now?

------

Mostly, I suppose this is just a vent, but perhaps also a request to talk me down as well as a request for some of your own experiences.

Last semester (which ended OVER THREE MONTHS AGO), I had a student in my class of 150 (which I have taught for 15 years now) who was a special kind of grade grubber. This person always had some reason why his grade should be higher, and it never had anything to do with the class. He signed up late, some stuff about his feelings, vague notions of fairness, etc...... I reconsidered EVERY one of his quizzes, exams, assignments, etc. I gave him a HUGE benefit of the doubt on everything because I'm a big softie (an attitude which I resolve to change today). I bent over backwards to give this student as much consideration as possible.

As it turns out, he did quite well in my class, finishing in the middle of the B range. His incessant grubbing brought that up from a borderline B-/B. Apparently that wasn't enough. He wanted an A, so he filed a grade appeal with the university ombudsman - three weeks past when the grade appeals are due. After two months of dealing with this and DAYS of work lost, the ombuds sided with the student and actually raised his grade EVEN MORE. The appeal committee was supposed to call me to get my side of the story, and they didn't. They just listened to the student, who probably gave the same incoherent ramblings he gave me. I never even had a chance to speak to the committee.

I got an email today stating the committe decided that the student's grade was "arbitrarily determined." (Damn right it was! He should have had a LOWER grade!) The student's grade was raised EVEN MORE. When I asked about the rationale for that decision, I got no reply. After all of this:

• I feel professionally insulted more than I've ever been in my life. Like you all, I AGONIZE over the grades I assign. These are not things I take lightly, but this guy wasn't even borderline.



• I'm livid. I can feel my blood pressure in my head, and I can taste blood in my mouth.


• I find myself really hoping this student asks me for a reference letter, so I can write one.


• I want to email the rest of the class to let them know that if they don't like their grade for whatever reason, they should appeal it. At least that would be fair.


• I might as well just turn in ALL of my grading to the appeals committee, because apparently they know more about my field than I do.


• I want to know who was on the grade appeals committee. I want their addresses.


• I have a reputation for being a nice teacher. Those days are now over. From now on, I'm going to be the biggest hard-ass SOB at the university.


• There's no booze left in the house.....


• I want the student to pay for the time he cost me. I want my lost time back!


• I don't want to work at this university anymore. (The last straw was about 200 straws ago.....)

Can I ask you all:

• 
  Is this a black mark on my record?


• Should I let this go?


• Should I talk to my chair?


• I really want to email my whole class and give them the same opportunity that this little weasel got. It sounds like it might be a bad idea, but that's the only fair and ethical thing I can think of. What's your opinion?


• Somebody talk me down, man! Talk me down!


• What is your experience with this sort of thing?

I'm done ranting, and I do NOT feel better.

Stay healthy everyone!