Finally, my students who found themselves outside of good
academic standing (would that be academic sitting? lounging? lying about?) have
come to see me with their exams from last year (also known as, “the reason why
I have to see you…..”). So now what?
I just had a student come by with three exams
from last year. This student had not
talked to the professors who graded these exams except, evidently, to request a
copy. Copies in hand, the student came
to me looking for the reasons why his/her grades were below par. One professor kindly included an outline of
the major issues and how they were to be resolved as well as a copy of the exam
itself, the others did not. None of the
professors included their multiple choice questions or the student’s score on
them.
So, I read the exams. I tried to decipher the various marks left by
the professors. Some were easier than
others, like the “?” or the “No!” But
most of the marks were mere numbers to be added or subtracted from the student’s
total for scoring purposes. So what else
is there to do but call in my personal (that is: living in my head) Crime Scene Investigators.
First, I called in the spot the issues (“STI”)
expert. The spot the issues expert
examined whether, thanks to the outline provided by the professor, the student
found all the possible issues to be discussed. Then, I called in the correct rules applied (“CRA”) guy who looked for
whether the student had, in fact, not only spotted the issue, but actually used
the correct tool to get a plausible answer. Finally, I consulted with my use the facts (“UTF”) expert who looked at
whether the student used almost every fact contained in the question. These experts were only able to operate on
this one exam because the professor had left me with some clues to work
with. In the end, I had to ask the
student to talk to at least one of the other professors.
As to the exam I could investigate most
fully, I diagnosed a “kitchen sink” type of crime, that is: the student used every rule they knew and
contained therein was the correct rule, but because there was so much
superfluous analysis required for the issues that hadn’t really arisen, the
real issues received short shrift.
I
will have to file the other exams away until the student sees the other
professors. Hopefully, in ten years,
someone from “Cold Case: ASP” will be
able to figure out what went wrong. (ezs)
