How to speed grading #2 - preventing complaints - corrections, not comments

Yesterday I wrote about getting into an umpire's mindset when grading.  You're not paralyzed or prejudiced by considering what your students might be thinking - you're simply grading what is on the page, according to the rubric.  No pity, no remorse, no exceptions.

I don't write comments on any student work!  I mean, we all know darned well that students don't read those comments anyway, except with the attitude of a defense attorney trying to find a legal loophole.  Writing comments takes an enormous amount of time, time that is usually wasted - and time that doesn't prevent complaints, but perversely encourages arguments.

Greg, that's easy to say in principle.  In practice, aren't all your tough calls mercilessly nitpicked by students, and then by their parents and your colleagues?  Isn't a student going to argue about every little point they lose, especially if that point was lost on a judgment call?

No one can argue if you don't give a marked-up test back right away.

Rather than write comments, I merely indicate which parts are not fully correct, and I make notes for myself for the purpose of tallying points.  I print out a blank copy of the test for each student, on the front page of which I indicate which parts of which problems were incorrect.  (Not how many points were lost or gained - just which parts weren't entirely correct.)

I return the blank copies to the class ASAP after a test.  The next assignment is test corrections, which are done collaboratively.  

So, no one can argue points!  If someone does ask - as they do early on in the year - why they got the problem wrong, I don't engage.  I just ask them just to do the correction.  Once they've done all the corrections and I've checked each one off as correct, the students can have their original test back.

(I write everyone's name on the board when the test is returned.  Then, when a student finishes all corrections, that student is asked to erase their name.  Between the opportunity to erase their name AND the opportunity to see their original graded test, that's some powerful not-grade-based motivation for getting corrections done!)

It's amazing the difference in response when a student gets their test back this way, compared to getting their test back immediately.  In the olden days, I'd give back a graded test and watch the whining, sour-grapes justifications of poor performance, arguing, and performative embarrassment* commence.  No one who didn't get a top score was ever satisfied.   A "bad" grade would send a student into conniptions (and then into even more conniptions when they saw that no one was paying attention to their first conniptions).

*Like when we got our school pictures in middle school.  Every last student turned the picture upside down so no one could see, while telling everyone loudly how terrible they looked, hoping that their crush would ask to see and say how they looked great, really.  It was all just dumb performance art.

Not any more.  Now, students look at the grade, and a gritty determination sets in.  They rationalize up rather than down!  Not "man, it's not fair, teacher shouldn't have taken off points here."  But rather, "dangit, of these points I missed, most were simple mistakes. I knew how to do these, next time I'm not going to screw up the easy questions!"

How to grade physics problems faster: Hint #1, mindset

I've been grading AP exams since June 1.  My brain is melting a bit.  

That said, this is the time of year when I am reminded of all sorts of wee tips and tricks about how to make grading faster.  I can get through a stack of my students' trimester exams in like a fifth of the time it takes my colleagues.  Why?  Well, for the same reason students on my high school's tennis team can whup my arse on the court.  Some are more natively skilled than I, some are not.  Yet, all of them have spent the last several years practicing and conditioning regularly.  I, on the other hand, eat an enormous amount of cheese in between my bi-annual tennis matches.

The AP Physics reading is my conditioning.  Just like physical conditioning, it's not always fun!  But the camaraderie on the team while we condition, and the long-term performance benefits, are way worth it.

I don't have the mental energy to write a big long post at night after I've read exams all day.  Yet, I should start a series of short posts sharing some ideas.  This series could go on for a long, long time.  (I've been grading AP exams since 1999.  Oy.)  But I'll start with just one fundamental thought about the mindset of the grader.

A teacher is caught between two opposing roles.  On one hand, we must be advocates for our students, we must build positive relationships with them, we must establish a positive team-like culture in which we are all working toward the same goal.  On the other hand, we are tasked with evaluating our students' progress objectively.  

Imagine a close play in a baseball game... and you're the coach.  The play is at the plate as your team tries to score the winning run.  Is your player safe or out?

The umpire isn't working today.  You have to make the call.

Call your player safe, and the opposing team is going to go ballistic.  Call your player out, and your team is going to show passive-aggressive or actual-aggressive anger for a long time.  Their reactions are independent of the truth!  No matter how right your call is, you are going to make someone mad, you're going to ruin a relationship somewhere.  This is an untenable position for a coach.

That's why umpires exist.  The umpire may take some flak, yes.  But whatever the umpire's call, each coach's relationship with their own team is preserved.  Even if the call goes against their team, the coach can use that as a building block for next game: "Remember how we were inches short of winning?  Let's do some baserunning speed drills.  Or, let's work on not striking out with the bases loaded in the first inning, so the game doesn't even come down to one call."  The team is likely to be cooperative with the coach, even if the baserunning speed drills are difficult!  They want to win... and because the umpire is the one who made the call, the players see the coach as their advocate.  Nothing can be done about the call, but the team has incentive to improve.

Now, you don't have a choice about serving both of these roles.  But you can consciously separate these roles in your mind.  When you sit down to grade, don't be a student advocate.  Change your mindset to that of umpire. 

Our job when we grade is to evaluate each response according to the rubric, informed by our understanding of physics and common sense.

When we grade we are umpires, not coaches.  We don’t need to consider why a student might have written something, what they might have been thinking, what they could have said instead.  

We just score what they did write.

No Pity, No Remorse, No Exceptions. 

It's amazing how much faster you go when you aren't trying to get into a student's head.  Just grade what's on the page.

But Greg, how do you respond when people complain?

That's tomorrow's post.

Poetry, I suppose - 2021 AP Physics 1 question 4

The cylinder rolls on its side.

The block, friction tells it to slide.

Rotational E, 

Equals thermal, you see,

With equal potentials applied.

Original question linked here - look for #4.