The injustice of it all
I had an instructor who said you could always question his grading. However, he said, if you had a question, he reserved the right to take the test or assignment and regrade the entire thing. If you had something wrong, he could dock your grade just as easily as he could add to it.
I had a student complain about a grade today. As proof that she should have gotten some points, she noted that her lab partner had marked the same thing but had gotten points.
My response was that she was correct in stating that I had graded inconsistently. (When I am grading labs at 1 a.m., this is, unfortunately, bound to happen.) However, I would not compound my error for giving her credit for a wrong answer.
Note: Perhaps I could view this differently and say that I was giving her credit for finding inconsistencies in my grading. If I did that, however, I'm sure the focus of the labs would be to find my errors rather than focus on learning things. I make too many errors for that policy.
I gave this student a choice. I said that we could leave things as they were, or the other person could lose the points which were inappropriately rewarded. I have noted that only people who are somewhat sadistic or really pissed off at someone would like to see others lose points...at least if the other person knows that their loss of points is due to the first person. All bets are off if points can be revoked anonymously.
She opted to leave the grade as it was, but I could tell that her concern about her incorrect answer was outweighed by my egregious error in grading.
I had a student complain about a grade today. As proof that she should have gotten some points, she noted that her lab partner had marked the same thing but had gotten points.
My response was that she was correct in stating that I had graded inconsistently. (When I am grading labs at 1 a.m., this is, unfortunately, bound to happen.) However, I would not compound my error for giving her credit for a wrong answer.
Note: Perhaps I could view this differently and say that I was giving her credit for finding inconsistencies in my grading. If I did that, however, I'm sure the focus of the labs would be to find my errors rather than focus on learning things. I make too many errors for that policy.
I gave this student a choice. I said that we could leave things as they were, or the other person could lose the points which were inappropriately rewarded. I have noted that only people who are somewhat sadistic or really pissed off at someone would like to see others lose points...at least if the other person knows that their loss of points is due to the first person. All bets are off if points can be revoked anonymously.
She opted to leave the grade as it was, but I could tell that her concern about her incorrect answer was outweighed by my egregious error in grading.