Most of the class just got zero on a quiz. What now?

I gave my AP Physics 1 class an AP-level problem as a five-minute start of class quiz.  It described a block-spring system on a table, and asked students to graph various forms of energy "as a function of position" on the labeled graph provided.

Thing is, I've emphasized energy bar charts so much, about half the class didn't pay attention to the question prompt, or the labels on the graph.  They just reflexively used the grid to make an energy bar chart.  That earned zero points on the rubric.

And then half of the remaining students got no points for their graphs, which seemed to be made by three hundred monkeys sketching for three hundred seconds.  

What now?

Nothing.  

I explained how to solve the problem correctly, and each student graded someone else's to the rubric.  Some folks asked good questions; some copied down the correct answer and reasoning.  Some just graded the problem in front of them.  I collected the quiz, and we moved on.

How did we avoid complaining about the fairness of this question, or of life in general?  Through significant culture building since September.  This class long ago accepted me as an ally and coach, someone whose mission is to train them to prepare on the May AP exam.  They know in their collective souls that I wasn't making some sort of chest-thumping point about how dumb they are (or how smart I am).  They know that when they don't understand something, they've discovered an opportunity to learn and improve, not an excuse to be (figuratively) spanked.

Of course, no one feels good about missing every possible point on a quiz!  I don't want fluffy-bunny "I'm so happy for my zero!" responses - sarcastic or not - from my students any more than I want them paralyzed by shame.  

I don't mind that my students' egos were bruised a bit.  A quiz can hurt.  That's okay.  It's like a softball team losing a game - if you don't care that you lost, you're not invested enough in your team's success.  But if you're gonna throw a tantrum and quit, well, you've got a lot to learn about losing graciously.

The ideal response to a loss is to find something to improve upon for next game, acknowledge the hurt... and move on with lesson learned.  Same thing here.  I want my students to find one thing they could have done better and move on.  Even if that one thing is as simple as "when a problem asks me to sketch a graph, I need to draw a function, not make a bar chart or a free body diagram."

Because I saw how many students had drawn an energy bar chart, as we graded I pointed out the language of the problem, and explained how "sketch a graph" must be interpreted.  I solved the problem and described the rubric.  When we finished, (as always) I asked the student with the high score to choose the music to be played during the remaining lab time - it was important for all to hear that several folks got 8s and 10s out of 12.  They couldn't rationalize that "no one" understood the quiz - clearly a few people did!

Okay, but how did we build culture to eliminate whining?  It was a long process, and started the very first week.  I think it's important to call out complaining, whining, or sour-grapes rationalizations the very first time we hear them; and to follow through, again and again.

"Oh, we have a quiz today?  Ugh, I'm gonna fail."  We have a quiz every day.  Would you dare tell Coach Dugan* that you're planning to strike out four times today?  What would he say if you did?

*Played by Tom Hanks

"This grading is ridiculous, how were we supposed to know to use the variable g rather than 10?"  Excuse me?  I'm not comfortable with the tone of your question.  Now, if someone else has a similar question, they may try to ask in a respectful manner, and I'll gladly answer with reference to official AP scoring principles.

"I lost a lot of points just because I didn't understand what "magnitude of the acceleration" meant.  I could totally have done this problem right!  What can I do about that?"  You can do better next time you encounter the word "magnitude" on a physics problem.

"This totally isn't fair - most of the class failed the quiz.  Are you going to give us extra credit?  When everyone fails, it's not our fault."  If you have an issue with the content or difficulty level of the test, contact information for the College Board is available on their website.  You may explain your concerns to them.  Until they make the changes you request, though, I'm preparing you for the exam the best way I know how, and I will continue to do so with content commensurate with the difficulty of the real exam.

You know you've won this particular battle when the students themselves are giving these sorts of replies to their classmates.  See, the majority of your class want to focus on physics, not grub for points.  The majority want the loudmouth arguers to be quiet.  The majority will appreciate you setting a positive tone.  And then the culture reinforces itself in the long term, such that terrible performance on one quiz becomes a mere blip.