I bundled up all my statistics course directories and gave them to Funny New Colleague, so that he could spend his time doing better things than new course preps. These directories contained my grade spreadsheets.
Funny, apparently having nothing better to do with his time, perused my spreadsheets and discovered that I gave Brittany Bubblehead 39 extra credit points on her first exam. Rather than getting an 86% in the course, she "earned" 104%.
This happened last spring, and she hasn't yet dropped by to call this error to my attention.
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- Angry Professor
- I am a tenured faculty member at a large state university. My teaching efforts primarily consist of delivering statistics lectures to social science majors. These experiences have colored my perspective somewhat.
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8 comments:
1. The ethical solution: change the grade whether or not BB requests it; after all, she earned it.
2. The "teach 'em responsibility" solution: do it only if she requests it; after all, it's her responsiblity to keep track of her grade.
3. The "tenure rocks" solution: take Funny behind the building and beat the stuffing out of him to teach him to second guess your grades!! :-)
Mariane,
I'd call that one the "collective punishment solution"... as in Full Metal Jacket where the whole barrack gets punished when the big guy can't keep up with the physical training. :-)
So do y'all think I should change the grade downward? I usually figure that if the mistake is in favor of the student then the grade should stand, but three letter grades is rather larger than I have ever goofed before.
My mistake, I thought the error was in her favor (you gave her 89, rather than 104). No wonder she didn't complain. My policy is the same as your, if it benefits the student, then, it stays.
My policy is this: If the mistake is in their favor, I don't change it. If the mistake works against them, I change it.
I would also consider who will be looking at the grade - is she going to be going on to another educational institution for another degree? How will that 104% look to others? Like your class was a bird class? Like she's overly intelligent in the area?
I would change it - a mistake is a mistake, no matter who benefits from it!
Oh man, all my worst fears are realized. My admission to graduate school might actually have been a clerical error after all!
My policy is usually like yours, in that I don't change grade mistakes that benefit the student, only those that reduce their grades. However, this is such an extreme mistake that it might be better to take some action; in this case I would contact the student and point out the error, apologize, and explain that while she did not earn it I am only going to reduce her grade to an A- (rather than the B she earned). She is still in the A-range (though not the A+++ range), but the alteration in her grade is not so egregious.
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