Timeline for answer to In a yes/no question, a student gives the right answer and an unnecessary but wrong explanation. How to grade? by Buffy
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
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11 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 29, 2019 at 15:29 | comment | added | Tim | 'Your job is to educate'. The whole point. The point of testing is to ascertain what knowledge has been understood and retained. That answer certainly made it clear that the student wasn't educated in that particular part of the curriculum. Giving a point for something that the student obviously didn't understand will make him think everything is o.k. But to the teacher it's a clear sign that more needs to be done. Or should be! It's a poor question anyway! | |
| Jan 28, 2019 at 12:42 | comment | added | UKMonkey | @Kimball I think here the grading scheme is perfectly clear. It's a yes no question. That fact that OP set the wrong question, and tried to test the students knowledge rather than understanding is a very different issue. That is the lesson I think OP needs to learn from this. | |
| Jan 26, 2019 at 8:17 | comment | added | Dan Fox | @mickeyf: My employer, a public university, pays me to grade as much as it pays me to educate. Certification is an objective as much as is learning. I don't completely like that it is so, but it is so (though in engineering, medicine, law, etc. certification is necessary). | |
| Jan 25, 2019 at 16:22 | comment | added | paul23 | @Kimball that encourages students to write as little as possible. To make answer only, and not provide any explanation. Which in turn leads to a mindset where no "feedback" is given to what they do. That leads to people who don't comment code, don't explain the mathematics and try to keep as most information to themselves as possible: also while in a work environment. | |
| Jan 24, 2019 at 22:18 | comment | added | Captain Giraffe | @MartinArgerami In a good world, the examination is also a teaching moment. | |
| Jan 23, 2019 at 16:50 | comment | added | Martin Argerami | I disagree with the conclusion. "Your job is to educate, not to grade"; giving a bad grade for writing nonsense is also a form of education. | |
| Jan 23, 2019 at 15:50 | comment | added | Zibbobz | @Kimball Actually I completely agree with you - when the question specifically asks for an explanation as part of the grade, that explanation should be part of what they get graded on - but the key words there are when the question specifically asks - and in this case, the question did not specify that an explanation would be graded. In this specific case, it would be unfair to grade the student on this answer - and in the future, the professor should make explaining the answer part of the question explicitly, complete with its own allocation of points for an adequate explanation. | |
| Jan 23, 2019 at 14:37 | comment | added | Kimball | @Zibbobz - the fact that they do anyway should not count against them - I disagree in general. The issue, as SolarMike points out, is not having a clear grading scheme in advance. I often give problems where no justification is required, but state that they will be graded on what they write. This includes taking off points for writing down bad justification (serious conceptual misunderstanding, not minor calculation error) for the right answer. (Much more often, this rule means they get partial credit for the wrong answer.) | |
| Jan 23, 2019 at 13:41 | comment | added | Zibbobz | This is a very good question - I hadn't even considered that the question itself doesn't specify the student needs to provide an explanation - the fact that they do anyway should not count against them, but leaving a mark that this is wrong (and why!) is absolutely the correct way to do this. | |
| Jan 23, 2019 at 12:37 | comment | added | MickeyfAgain_BeforeExitOfSO | "your job is to educate, not to grade" Rarely said. Thank you. | |
| Jan 23, 2019 at 1:18 | history | answered | Buffy | CC BY-SA 4.0 |