It Pays to Ask Questions!

Yesterday, I checked my grades for the class I’m enrolled in this session in school. Last week, the feedback on my discussion post (which I made a 94 on – figured into that score were discussion response grades of 85 & 90) said that I need to condense my posts to under 300 words and that my two responses to classmates’ postings should be more critical. I followed those instructions for the most recent posting and responses, but got a grade of 85 (which included two discussion response grades of 100 each). I was rather confused how I could follow all the instructions I was given but make an entire grade letter less than what I made when I was doing it ‘my own way’ … of course, being my social media addicted self, I tweeted:

Realizing that no one on Twitter could change my grade or explain the way my grade was calculated, I decided to take my husband’s advice and email my professor.

I received your feedback for last week’s postings. I am a bit confused about the grading process. Last week, your feedback instructed me to limit my posting to 250-300 words, so I drastically cut down the length of my post in order to meet this requirement. This week, I made 10 points lower than my average for the two weeks prior and was asked for more examples, which would have required more words. I don’t mean to question you on this but I did my best to follow the four instructions you gave me from last week, yet made a much lower grade than I was making before. I felt my discussion of the topic was stronger than that especially since even my responses received perfect scores this week (up from 85 & 90 last week) reflecting a strong understanding of the material and was just curious as to why my initial post grade was so low for this week. Thanks in advance for helping me understand.

I know some teachers detest being questioned so I was concerned as to how my email would be received; prayerfully, he would understand that I would accept whatever grade he determined my work deserved, but I just wanted to get a bit more feedback as to why it had been scored so low. I was ecstatic to receive the following email in response:

Kathleen, I am glad your asked that question, and please never apologize for questioning a grade; that is your right and more students should do it. After looking at your two postings, I can understand your confusion.  This was my thinking process in detail:  First of all, I do not compare a student’s postings from week to week, but look at each week’s postings as an individual unit. Your longer post contained some examples (one for each book) and it did include some great explanations on the topic. I gave it a 100 minus 5 for being over the work limit.  When I looked at your second posting I saw that you had a great understanding but no examples, therefore the 85.

This gave me a more solid understanding of how he calculated the grades, which I definitely appreciated. In the end, he agreed to regrade my post since I modified my method of posting in order to follow his instructions, but he did advise me to include more examples in the future in addition to keeping my posts to a 300 word maximum. The final verdict: I made a 95 :) People, it pays to ask questions! The worst that can happen is that nothing changes, but the best that can happen is what happened here: my point was acknowledged and he understood why my post wasn’t up to the same “par” as my previous posts had been. He reconsidered it accordingly and gave me instruction for future reference so that this wouldn’t happen again. WHOO HOO!!!!