The Question on Higher Grades

In a recent open comment, Anonymous made some pretty serious accusations (sorry, sorry, “questions”!) about grades and evaluations. I’d like to address those questions--not just in another comment, but in full postings. This post addresses the first of several claims/questions/concerns.

Claim: “...you also give relatively higher grades.”

So, relative to other instructors, I’m taking it? The University, specifically GFC, has approved grade distributions for different undergraduate courses. The fine print says this: “These distributions are provided for guidance in your grading. It is not necessary for the grades in a particular class to follow any of the distributions exactly.” (Unless an instructor is grading on the curve with the help of a spreadsheet, it’s impossible to get these exactly anyway. And I don’t grade on a curve.)

Instead, I focus on the expected medians for each course level:

1st year = B-
2nd year = B
3rd year = B
4th year = B+

If my classes don’t match these, well, I don’t know what happens. So far, nothing yet.

Anyway, here are the actual medians for the last 12 courses I’ve taught:

1st year: B, B
2nd year: B+, B+, B, B, B-, B+, B+
3rd year: B
4th year: A-, B

Any patterns? Am I consistently giving higher grades? It looks like the 100-level courses are a bit higher than expected. Why? Major components of that course (20% of the overall mark) consist of easy marks (Information Literacy, Research Participation) that boost students’ grades. These components are out of my hands; I don’t do any marking, I just accept the results as they are. So should I make my exams harder to compensate for these “free” marks? Of course not. Class means on my exams in that course are around 65%, and I don’t want them any lower than that.

Let’s skip to my 400-level course. Yup, I recently had a class earn a median of A-. They all deserved it. It was the best bunch of students I’ve ever had in that course, and I was really happy to give the marks I did. Their term papers were great, and their exams were outstanding. Didn’t even know the median was so high until it popped out of my spreadsheet when I was filling in the final grade forms. (And look, another 400-level class only got a median of B.)

It looks like there’s something funny going on in my 200-level courses. Yup, the grades are a bit high, tending to a median of B+, whereas GFC expects a B. That’s not a huge difference--in terms of the percent cutoffs I use, 72% is right in the middle of my “B”, whereas 76.5% is the middle of my “B+”. That’s a difference of 4.5%. Still, for a class of over 200 to have a grade that’s almost 5% “too high” is significant.

So, why the high marks? In my 200-level perception course, the textbook I used was extensively revised a few years ago, and the testbank of multiple choice questions that comes with it was really--how should I put it?--simplified. Because these questions make up about half of the exam, the marks went up by a few points. In my 200-level cognition course, the textbook I use is written by the same person who wrote my perception textbook. This textbook was also recently revised. Guess what the testbank is like?

It’s tough to rewrite dozens of exam questions, but I’m slowly working on it. Realizing that the marks have been increasing, I’ve also been slowly changing the percentage cutoffs for each letter grade. I don’t want to make huge changes all in one term--that’s not fair to those students. But it’s also not fair to give them inflated grades compared to other terms.

I’d like to think that my teaching improves over time--but is this reflected in students’ grades? If that were universally the case, wouldn’t instructors near retirement have sky-high marks in their classes, and wouldn’t graduate students teaching their first class have rock-bottom marks? Hmm, unless those sneaky novice instructors are inflating their students’ marks.

But that’s the topic of my next post.

Why aren’t you studying?

The Spacing Effect

There is a finding in the scientific literature that's been known for over 100 years. Recent research has continued to support its existence, and it turns out to be one of the most robust effects ever discovered about memory and learning. The problem is, few people know about it. It's called: The Spacing Effect.

This effect was first described by Hermann Ebbinghaus, who discovered it while doing a series of experiments on his own memory. In short, he found that, although repetition helped him remember things, spacing the repetitions over time led to a big improvement in his ability to remember.

When you're studying, the spacing effects says that it's counterproductive to repeat what you've studied immediately after you've studied it once. Instead, you should actually let some time go by before you refresh your memories. How much time? That depends--when do you need to know the information? Here's the deal, taken from a study published in 2008:

When the gap between initial learning and test date was a week, the optimum review took place a day after initial learning... With a month gap, the ideal review occurred after about a week; with a year, the prime review came three weeks after learning.

So, midterms are roughly a month apart, right? That means you should be reviewing and repeating the material about every week.

The research shows that not only is spaced repetition a benefit to your remembering, but also that cramming is bad. Bad, bad, bad. Really bad. Did I mention it's bad? Optimally spaced repetition beat cramming by 77% to 111%. Note that a 100% improvement would mean a doubling of performance. Yeah, it's that good.

The bottom line: everyone should space out.

(For more, read the article, "Will that be on the test?" from the APS Observer.)

Why aren't you studying?

The High Cost of Textbooks

I've recently been exploring the cost of the textbook for one of my courses. By itself, it goes for $152.35 at the bookstore. However, I require students to do online labs, so they have to buy an access code. Previously, bundling the code with the (new) textbook added exactly $2.95 to the cost. The cost of the textbook + code bundle this term? A whopping $187.40. This means the code adds $35.05 to the price of the book. Yikes!

Just wait--it gets worse. If you buy this code online, it will cost you $33.26. Whuh? The reason why I've gone with the bundle is that it has saved students money--not cost them more. What's the advantage of bundling?

And it's even worse. According to the bookstore, the bundle increased in price since last semester by $17.75. Whuh? Worse, compared to a year ago, it now costs $41.19 more. Double-whuh? This is for the same textbook, mind you; not a new edition or anything.

Back in 2005, an error was made (either by the bookstore or by the publisher) and the price of the textbook + code bundle in another course of mine was too high. In that case, students were able to get a refund of the difference, as long as they still had their receipt from the bookstore. That time, the error was caught pretty early on, when the term was less than one month over. Now I don't know if students will be getting a refund this time, but even if that is the case, who hangs on to their receipts for everything for months and months? (And how come no mistake ever happens where the cost of something is accidentally too low?)

It may come as a surprise, but instructors don't know the price of textbooks beforehand. I kind of have the implicit assumption that prices will be stable--at least from one term to another within the same academic year. I see now that's not the case, which is pretty sneaky.

Asking students to spend almost $190 is just too much. I hate to dump a (very good) textbook just because of its price. I would also hate to get rid of a highly regarded and useful online lab because of price. But too much is too much.

What price do you think is reasonable for a textbook? (No, $0 is not considered reasonable...)

Why aren't you studying?

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Update: The publishing company rep got back to me with this on 3/20/2009:

Last year we had to bring our prices more in line with their prices to prevent cross border sales of lower priced product into their market (it is illegal but happens nonetheless). That is largely why the prices went up last year. We are under an agreement to maintain a certain level of compliance with this. We realize the price for the 7th edition is high but it isn’t a mistake.

In a wacky twist, the new edition of the textbook (the 8th edition) is going to be cheaper than the 7th edition.

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Update on 9/3/2009: The new edition of the textbook is in--but the news is not good. The publisher told me the net price of the package is $121; the list price was supposed to be $151.95. The list price is the publisher's suggested retail price. So why is the package selling for $166.95 in the bookstore? According to the bookstore manager, that price reflects the bookstore's actual markup, which is 5% above list price. Argh!

The Screwup

Hi, and welcome to screwup week! Well, that's what it seems like.

First, I was late to a class this week. That's bad enough. But now I've discovered I've screwed something else up: the marking of some labs.

My teaching assistant and an assistant marker accurately followed my marking guide for a recent lab--but it was, er, wrong. So students were penalized for giving the completely correct answer. (I suppose students with the completely wrong answer received a mark that they didn't deserve, although looking at the marks, the average for this lab was almost one full point lower than usual. Duh!)

Worse, it took a group of very sharp students to notice this error and let me know about it. (To be fair, at least my marker noticed the problem, but forgot to tell me.) But wait--it gets worse.

I didn't write this particular question; it (and the standard answer in the marking guide) were provided to me by the creator of the online lab system. I accepted the answer without question, without thinking. I blab on and on about the importance of critical thinking--and then I go and make a screwup like this. Argh.

As penance, I re-marked the few dozen labs that hadn't been picked up by students yet. But I asked my marker to do the rest. (I'm not lazy, I'm up to my ears in marking essay exams which take first priority..and take a lot of time.)

So, what have I learned from all this? 1) Students are smarter than a lot of people give them credit for. I think they've learned the lessons of critical thinking better than I have...which brings me to: 2) I'm not as smart as I like to think I am--but I'm learning...

Why aren't you studying?

The Lateness

I was late for class yesterday. I was late by 15 minutes, and I apologize to everyone in that class.

I could come up with a whole bunch of excuses. I only left an hour before my class was due to start, and it took me three times longer than normal to get to campus. I should have left even earlier. The weather was pretty bad, and the roads were in poor shape. There was also a collision on the way (not in the direction I was going--but everyone else still had to slow down and rubberneck to get a good look at the crash). Surprisingly, the baby was not a factor in my being late--she was still sleeping when I left home.

None of this makes any difference. I was late by 15 minutes, wasting the time of about 200 students. Multiply 200 people by 0.25 hours, and you get 50 people-hours of wasted time. Yikes. Who am I to be wasting so much time--the government?

I try my best to get to all of my classes on time. I do leave home with enough buffer time to (usually) prevent being late. When I'm in my office, I actually have a little clock program that sounds an alarm when it's time for my next class. I try to be very time-aware, but sometimes, well...I'm late.

I'm going to try extra hard for the rest of the term to not be late to that class again. And I'm still going to try not to be late to anything else--classes, meetings, appointments...oops! Look at the time. Better get going; don't want to be late.

Why aren't you studying?

The Office Hour

I love my office hour--I get a lot of work done. Sometimes, I read a magazine or scientific journal. Oh, and sometimes I see a student.

Years ago, I used to have a lot of office hours--more than 10 a week. That number has dwindled over the years. Now, I have only one office hour this term. That's partly due to the fact that I have to help my wife look after our kids; she's got her hands full with the baby--not to mention our other daughter who is feeling sadly neglected. But a big reason is that there's not much point to having a lot of office hours.

Even with the single solitary hour I've set aside, I hardly see anyone. Oh sure, I get a lot of emails. But not many people actually trek through all the construction to get to my palatial office.

So occasionally, I agree to meet with someone outside of my regularly scheduled office hours. This is not easy to do, with my other commitments like committee meetings. When my wife goes back to work after her maternity leave, we'll "trade off." This means that as soon as I'm done work, I'll race home to look after the kids so that she can go to work (and vice-versa). In a situation like this, it's really hard to set up a meeting with a student outside of office hours: it requires that I ask my wife to change her work schedule, which is not easy to do and requires several days advance notice.

We did the "trade-off" thing with our first child, and I tried hard to meet with students. And this is what happened, more often than not. My wife changed her work schedule so that I could meet with a student...and the student never showed up. No message, no apology, no nothing.

So if I'm not available much outside of office hours, the reason is that previous students have wrecked it. Oh well, there's always email.

Why aren't you studying?

The Cold

The good news is that the baby finally had a good night over the weekend, sleeping for 5 hours in a row (!) at night (!!). The bad news is that I'm sick with a cold, so I wasn't able to sleep.

Instead of snuggling in my nice warm bed and trying to take a nap and eat chicken soup, I dragged my sorry self to work today. The Public Health Agency of Canada recommends this: "If you're sick, stay home!" What about the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control? "Stay home when you are sick..." And even the U of A says, "Stay home when you are sick."

Yeah, right.

If I had some kind of substitute or something, suuure I'd stay home. But I don't, and midterms are coming up. What, should I delay the midterm? How will I fit in all my lectures in the classes that remain? Should I just skip that lecture content? But I've already made up the exams and had them printed.

What do you think? Should a sick instructor still come in to teach? Do you appreciate the effort that's being made? Or would you prefer that the sicko stay home so that you don't get what's going around, too? (Yes, I figure you'd prefer a day off from my long-winded, boring, blah-blah-blah. But try to put that aside for a moment.)

Now I'm going to drag my sorry self back home and change some diapers...
Apologies in advance if I cough into the microphone in class.

Why aren't you studying?