I used to be required to flunk 10% of the class (about 5 students) by the school ‘authorities’. It was never hard to find ‘candidates’. I warned all the students on the first day. I also told them clearly - I would never reverse a grade for a failed student (so I always double double checked before hitting submit). Reversing grades was considered an academic ‘crime’ at our school! Bad marks on our performance supposedly.
Attendance, failing to do assignments, low scores on the tests… were the most often reasons. It mostly happened to be a combination of at least two of these issues. The English major students in 2nd Year onwards understood how to play the game by then, but I still flunked some.
In fairness, the class was required; and many didn’t care that much! It was just awkward if they failed. But other colleagues told me that it was often the difference between staying or getting kicked out of school. So they had ‘requests for reversals’… no idea if they gave them or not. I was fortunate to not be put in that position.
I messed up once with a student’s grades and had to change them. It was serious to the point I thought I might get fired.
The annoying thing is I make the final grades available to the students a week before I formally submit them. Why couldn’t the lad have queried it? Kids, eh.
I knew the fuss the school made. So I worked hard to avoid messing up grades that flunked students. I always flunked by a large margin (at least 5%) with at least several ‘issues’. Things that couldn’t be ‘fudged’ or ‘interpreted’ differently - numbers mattered.
Your student was probably failing TOO many courses, and decided your class was the easiest one to appeal.
Its always a big fuss, reports in triplicate, multiple meetings. Mutterings about not renewing contracts.
I try and look impressed but it is in fact corrupt Tchiwanese crap, since the effect is very definitely to encourage the concealment of errors, and as a result students must sometimes get failed who shouldn’t.
This is fucked up. If you provide records that show an incorrect grade was mistakenly reported, they really ask you to conceal it, threaten your job and sometimes fail people who really passed?
Not exactly, but its very clear that they expect you to keep quiet about mistakes. The authorities and Taiwanese colleges are baffled if you report an error yourself, since they only take action when forced by a student appeal.
I tried to get a (non-failing) grade changed a while ago due to my error in forgetting the girl had joined the course late due to visa problems, and it was quite clear they were going to sit on it until it timed out, so I had to persuade the girl to lodge a formal appeal against me, which she didn’t want to do. Tangled web.
Taiwanese teachers don’t always have records. In some cases they just make it up. I was poacher-turned-gamekeeper on a committee assigning a grade to some students who had successfully appealed (I don’t know on what grounds) and there was no documentation of the original grade process at all.
I have a full audit trail on a spreadsheet, which means I find errors, a very BAD thing from the POV of Taiwanese academic culture.
I may be doing that this for a class this term. It’ll be a first. It’s got two curves, one peaking at 90%, and another peaking at 40%. If they don’t come to class and don’t submit any assignments, I can’t help them.
The course shouldn’t exist. Literature to a group that’s one third really high level, 2/3 super low and shouldn’t be anywhere near that kind of material yet, but that’s what happens when birth rates and therefore admission standards collapse yet the list of courses does not. Heck I don’t think most of them should be in an English-taught lecture course.
A small chunk of that low level group has come to class and submitted assignments I barely understand. They’ll pass.
Another small group dropped out after failing the midterms. That test was a first: a dozen or more students “finished” their test in five minutes by writing down the question numbers and no answers, and then slept the remaining 55 minutes they have to stay in the room. Meanwhile another dozen are filling pages with essays when I only asked for paragraphs.
“You know you reached 95%, and that’s my max, two pages ago, right?! Why are you still going? And how the hell are you citing all these different critics when I haven’t even talked about them in class? How do you KNOW this?!”
I see why one would do that. Its tempting to reward effort without outcome, but I can’t really justify it, so I don’t do it.
Mostly though the fails earn their failure by bad attitude and zero effort, so I don’t have a problem failing them apart from possibly getting fired.
For this course they are mostly caused by the external reader component. I usually use one of the Penguin Reader series for open book tests which are extremely easy, but they achieve failure through not buying the book and not answering any questions other than randomly,
Imho a teacher should at least acknowledge additional knowledge shown by the students. One of my history teachers graded one of my exams about medieval Germany with an F because I cited additional sources that didn’t come up in class. No need to give a better grade or extra points for this but at least don’t punish a student for putting in extra effort.
That also doesn’t mean accepting a ten page essay if a you asked for a short half page answer.
Punishing for extra sources (assuming not plagiarism) is ridiculous. However. I have my own version of this which y’all will probably find harsh. (I’m not normally operating in the heights of academe where citations are required)
I give a choice of questions and tell them to answer only ONE (1) of the choices. I give one penalty point for every extra question answered.
In my defense it does seem to gradually whittle away the “Answer ALL the questions badly in very very cramped and tiny writing” brigade over the course of two semesters, though it never entirely eliminates it.
Well, I do - that’s why they get 95%. Good for them! And I certainly say so in feedback. But sometimes there’s an opportunity cost because they’ll not get to other questions and get low scores for those. Note I said “How are you citing”, not “Why are you citing” - if they show extra knowledge, that’s great. My reaction is more like “How on earth do you know this?! You sure as heck haven’t learned it here!” (And an unspoken guilt that they haven’t learned it here.)
The main issue with this course is the juxtaposition with a whole bunch of students that are very high level (i.e. what I’ve taught is ridiculously basic for them), and an even bigger bunch for whom the material is far too difficult. I’ve aimed at the middle and been unhappy doing so, because almost no one is actually in the middle.
What I’ll accept depends on the course. If it’s a composition course, and I ask for a paragraph, and they give me an essay, they’ll get a very low score because they’re not meeting the assignment goal - I want to see their paragraph ability. But if it’s a literature course, I’m mostly not testing composition ability; I’m seeing how much they can write, and how intelligently, about the material. Writing an essay when I asked for a paragraph isn’t a problem for me in that context.
Whoah. That is harsh. I emphasize that ONLY the first question they answer will be marked, and I just ignore the others. This does certainly lead to people answering #1 badly, and getting a low score, and not getting the points for the actually fairly good answer for #3.
I misunderstood you there. Personally an additional source or extra knowledge can make the difference between a B+ and an A- when I grade an exam if all other conditions are sufficiently met.
If I ask for an half page summary of the role of the prince electors and I get more than 4/5th of a page it’s an F, because I just wanted to see if they understood the content of the last module.
In a full exam I expect them to be able to use all tools (tought so far) required handling historic texts and what we discussed during the last six months.
And I agree with the difference in abilities amongst the local students. I thought high-schoolers that displayed an alarming yet astonishing lack of basic knowledge in even their own country’s history.
"Last-but-one I had to write a report, which was then mis-translated into Chinese, and then I had to answer questions on the Chinese version (which was not what happened, and which I couldn’t read), while attempting to minimise conflict.
It was tricky. I gave up on the conflict-minimisation after a while.
It had been a spreadsheet error which had lowered some students grades by about 10%. No pass/fail differences IIRC.
Cttee member : “It says here there were student complaints. How many students complained?”
Me: “No, I’m afraid that is also incorrect. No students complained.”
Cttee member: “Then how was the error detected”
Me: “I noticed it and reported it the day after the grade submission deadline”
Cttee member (slightly incredulous) “You reported it?”
Me: “Yes”
Cttee members look at each other nonplussed. There’s an embarrassed shuffling of papers. Eventually, one asks:-
“Ah…Is this because of your religion?”
Me: (Now its my turn to look nonplussed)
“Er…No. I don’t have any religion”
More baffled glances…then an especially Westernised prof, says, in a going-out-on-a-limb-here kinda way…
“Um…Is it perhaps a…well…honour code thing?”
I think for a moment: " You mean…telling the truth…um…yes, I suppose you could say that"