Xref: utzoo comp.edu:1069 rec.humor:11082
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!ukma!uflorida!codas!usfvax2!jc3b21!larry
From: larry@jc3b21.UUCP (Lawrence F. Strickland)
Newsgroups: comp.edu,rec.humor
Subject: Re: cruelty to undergrads
Message-ID: <359@jc3b21.UUCP>
Date: 2 Apr 88 20:38:33 GMT
References: <8470@eleazar.Dartmouth.EDU>
Organization: St. Petersburg Jr. College, FL
Lines: 48

From article <8470@eleazar.Dartmouth.EDU>, by roberta@eleazar.Dartmouth.EDU (Roberta Millstein):
> In article <8803140104.AA08638@hoskin.csri.toronto.edu> clarke@csri.toronto.edu (Jim Clarke) writes:
> 
>>I always say this myself.  Can you explain why I should be blind to all
>>parts of the test except the ones the student asks me to look at?
> 
> You shouldn't be.  I guess my point was, though, that many professors say this
> with sort of a threatening tone of voice, as in, don't dare to question my
> grading or I may penalize you for it.  This may lead some students who have
> ... 
>>Actually, though I've often found reasons to lower a test grade rather than
>>raise it as asked, I don't think I've ever actually lowered the recorded
>>grade;

I've been waiting to see if anyone brought up a problem that I seemed to have
constantly.  Since noone has, let me broach the problem of two students
comparing their papers and finding that a particular answer has been
recorded as correct on one paper and wrong on another (usually, this is
just a small part of a problem since I'm kinda liberal when it comes to
partial credit, particularly in my math classes, less so in programming
classes :-)

Student A (whose paper is marked correct) accompanies Student B to my
office.  Student B presents the problem in, usually, a nice manner.  Upon
examining the problem, I find that it has been marked WRONG correctly.
Student B then, usually a bit more beligerantly(sp?), points out that it
was marked CORRECT on Student A's paper.  Following the concept embodied in
the above articles, I should then re-mark Student A's paper LOWER!
Needless to say this evokes some rather harsh criticism.

BTW:  Before my name gets added to the 'Cruel to Undergraduates' List,
might I not that I NEVER actually reduced the grade of any such student.

To solve this problem, I've adopted the attitude that I will NEVER lower
any student's grade, only increase it if I feel that there was a problem.
When I first tried this, I expected to have my door beaten down.  It didn't
happen!  As a matter of fact, I get less questions about grades now than I
used to!  The only requirement that I've added is that students do not
attempt to catch me between my classes, but come during (very liberal)
office hours.

Anyway, how do other people solve the above problem?

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