Students here just finished midterms (to the degree they had them which is whole different blog entry), and while they looked at me like I had two heads when I told them to thank their doctrinal professors for giving midterms, I stand by it. Information about your performance that isn’t the basis for your entire final grade is good information– even when it is bad news.
Now, I wait for the stream of students who are disappointed with how they did on these midterms.
What do I tell students who are not happy with their grades and/or feedback?
- Go talk to the Professor. Find out what went wrong –or didn’t hit correctly– so you can avoid that on the final.
- Examine the gap between performance and expectations. What did you think was expected? Was your expectation incorrect?
- If you think you did it all right, did you communicate it in a way where the grader could follow along? Did you show all your work or were there some things that stayed in your head that might have amplified the communication of your knowledge?
- Think about which parts of the way you studied were useful and pivot to a study method that incorporates more of that-but don’t switch to only one way of studying! Variety is the spice of life for exams as well.
- You can only control what you can control. The bad luck of being asked about the one thing you didn’t get to study is something you can control for next time. The most important thing you can control is your reaction to a grade you are disappointed about.
- Yes, sometimes there will be something about an exam that is unfair, but it is very uncommon. I would use the word unfair like saffron in cooking: in tiny amounts and rarely. It is also very expensive in terms of mental energy because there is no corresponding action you can take to avoid it.
Overall, I am hoping for good news from my students, and I hope in the face of disappointment, I can take my own advice when needed.
(Liz Stillman)
