I think the question posed by the parent was about the grading!
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Exactly.
I donât understand why the teacher is having great difficulties producing the Canvas score report.
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This article really focuses on cheating in an online environment. Cheating happened before the pandemic, during the pandemic, and will continue after the pandemic.
Cheating doesnât answer the basic question of why a student/parent canât see the test answers and understand why the answers are wrong. How is a student going to learn if they are given a âCâ with nothing else? How will they know how and upon what to focus?
Citing cheating as a reason not to show the parent/student what answers were wrong and why misses the bigger point that all of this is about educating students. Indeed, other posts are saying the OPâs request is blaming the teachers. Citing cheating is blaming the students.
The simple way around micro cameras etc is to have the parent/student meet with the teacher with no devices etc. I am not sure that is so difficult to achieve without compromising whatever confidentiality is afforded the test.
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I mean, itâs one thing to ask for âmore learning opportunitiesâ and âgeneral improvementâ after we CONFIRM that the scores are indeed reported accurately.
Just like if a cop tells you âyour daughter was doing 50 miles over speed limitâ - maybe before everything else check with her to make sure she thinks the cop isnât making stuff up. ie. If she disagrees, and tells you she knows she wasnât speeding, then why is it so wrong to ask for the hard evidence on the radar etc, instead of taking the verbal statement at face value, and unquestionable fact which is a travesty just to even ask for evidence
We just asked for the Canvas score printout showing the numerical scores only, after they said the full report (eg all the questions and answers together) is confidential. They then said theyâre unable to do that. Like why?? Itâs literally the printout, of the Canvas auto-graded scores for the multiple choice. Whatâs the evidence or basis for the score (# correct) they verbally reported to my daughter then?
So we went to the school admin and the school admin wrote back by email with a curt reply saying they âcheckedâ and nothing was amiss. Ok, but we didnât request they just âcheckâ, we specifically asked to see the Canvas score printout, which theyâve been unable to produce.
To the speeding analogy again, if the first cop canât produce any radar evidence, then his boss tries to sweep it under the rug by saying âsure, we checked, everything is correctâ but ALSO canât produce any radar evidence, then surely you should get to the bottom of things and seek the specific radar evidence before anything else
Canvas is on online learning management system. OP states the MCQ test was given in Canvas.
As I noted above, there are many ways students have leaked test questions and I do not have authority to strip search students or their parents.
I think the best option would be to ask which concepts the student got wrong and what they could focus on learning more about.
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Has she explicitly asked to review her test answers to see what she got correct and incorrect? If so, did the teacher refuse?
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Asking to see a test and its results in a school office is not a âstrip searchâ, nor does it remotely come close to necessitating one. It simply involves a single school official (preferably the teacher) working with the parent/student in a school office to show what the problem questions were.
I donât disagree with asking the school to identify the problem areas for starters, but the issue comes down to whose ârecordâ the test belongs to. I am not an educational lawyer, but I do not think that a parent asking to see the test and the responses is unreasonable. It is one thing to ask to see letters of recommendation by school admin/staff teachers. However, this is a TEST. How else can the student learn?
Cheating has nothing to do with this basic point about enhancing the education of students.
Rather, the schoolâs frankly odd refusal to do anything but confirm, without any other effort, a letter grade is odd. Iâve had kids in public and private schools, and I would find the schoolâs apparent response totally unacceptable if this were to occur with our family
The OP has VERY clearly said that they would be fine if they were shown SOMETHING that substantiates the grade. The problem here is that the school in question appears to be willing to do NOTHING to that reasonable (IMHO) request. The other issues that OP raises are secondary to the basic issue of seeing the test and his Dâs responses to that test. That seems like a basic and reasonable request to me.
Perhaps there are others who can cite, as a matter of law, that a parent/student has NO legal right to see this. As indicated before, OP should ascertain this. Certainly, being combative serves no reasonable purpose. But simply asking to see what I would view as basic information is very different than a full-frontal attack on the bona fides of the school/its staff.
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A teacher who reuses tests obviously will be concerned about cheating because it is easy for old tests (or parts of them) to be leaked.
The easy answer (in terms of cheating prevention) is to make new tests each time, and give the old ones out as practice tests.
The hard answer (in terms of cheating prevention) is to make it hard for students to see the test other than when they are actually taking it. However, that is still not leak-proof, while limiting the ability of students to review what they got correct and incorrect afterward. The secrecy around the test can also worsen trust issues, as this thread demonstrates.
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The cheating issues would have occurred during the initial administration of the test! âŠif they would have occurred at all.
AFAIK, this is not the SAT.
Last postâŠfor tonight!
Well, certain questions go unanswered and that is fine. I have been on here long enough to know there is probably more to this story. But I believe the OP will update tomorrow if I read that correctly. I am interested to know what is learned.
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So despite evidence to the contrary (the radar gun that caught the person speeding), the person denying they were speeding is right and the policeman is wrong? Thatâs an interesting take. Is it a bit like the person who got a C on the test saying that they didnât get a C, even though the test says otherwise? Cops and teachers are liars? Could it be that the speeder and the person who scored a C donât want to admit such things?
Btw, I definitely think itâs completely fair for a student to see their test. However, thatâs not my call to make and I know a lot of schools and colleges do not let students see tests. Iâm having a hard time understanding the OPâs premise overall in terms of cover ups and discrimination based on nothing more than suspicion.
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Oh, I donât know. I wouldnât dismiss out of hand the notion that the teacher failed to report the correct grade. I mean, stuff happens all the time, both in and out of schools, that was formerly inconceivable.
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I know many good teachers who reuse test questions.
People can steal test questions right in front of you without you even knowing.
Every school has a formal grade appeal process. As an instructor I am bound to follow that process. However, students are also obligated to follow that as well.
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First the teacher brushed off my daughter, telling her thatâs the grade she got on the exam and thatâs it
Then they tried to brush off us, saying the full report with all the questions and answers are confidential
Then I looked into it, and Canvas does have the automatic score report which can be printed off as a numerical report on the # questions correct
We went back to the teacher, who said they canât provide that Canvas numerical report for us. On the exam landing page, they âmutedâ the numerical score for the exam, which is why the only info my daughter got on the exam was the verbally given score the teacher gave her
So we went to the school admin and specifically asked for the Canvas numerical report to start with, because
- My daughter tells me she didnât think the grading felt right
- The teacher said the overall exam (the full set of questions and answers) is confidential, but also canât even provide the Canvas numerical score printout (they muted the auto-graded score), only told my daughter verbally what she got
- The Canvas numerical report is directly available, the teacher just refused to provide it to us
The school admin then emailed us afterwards with a curt reply saying they âcheckedâ and everything was right. But there was no Canvas numerical report shown to us in any way, shape, or form.
Even the speeding tickets need radar evidence, why is it so hard for them to take 3 seconds to print out the true Canvas score report at this point if thereâs nothing to sweep under the rug
Sorry if itâs all triggering, eg. even if there are some pushy parents out there who you donât like, whatâs ultimately the travesty about asking for them to print out the numerical score report to confirm that the verbally reported score the teacher told my daughter she got is in fact accurate
I felt like I needed to apologize every so often and couch my messages in a very subdued way
I guess weâre trying to evaluate our options now & come up with a stepwise plan
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Alright last post tonight,
The attitude they had in terms of not being able to even show us the numerical score report was what raised red flags for me.
We just asked for the Canvas score printout showing the numerical scores only, after they said the full report (eg all the questions and answers together) is confidential. They then said theyâre unable to do that. Like why?? Itâs literally the printout, of the Canvas auto-graded scores for the multiple choice. Whatâs the evidence or basis for the score (# correct) they verbally reported to my daughter then? That teacher canât just decide to assign her and a few of her peers some below average mark to pull down their overall final grade.
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Has this teacher done this before?? I think lots of us (at least me) are confused why a teacher would purposely target a group of students to lower their grade intentionally???
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Ok. So I lied about my last post of the night.
OP:
You strike me as being completely above-board. Youâve shared a lot here.
This is my step-wise suggestion:
- Ask the school to sit down with you and your daughter at school to go over the test and the wrong answer.
- Ask the school to check with its ultimate governing body (e.g., school board) if there is any issues with this basic request. If there is, you might need to get more help.
- I think youâre being totally reasonable here. You have raised some additional issues, but your basic point is that you/your D want basic corroboration about the grade. There is NOTHING unreasonable about that.
- I totally agree with the other posters: be very polite in your WRITTEN and ORAL communications with the school and make sure that the school understands from your communication that you are doing this to enhance your Dâs education so she knows where she needs to improve. I think you are best served in putting your requests in polite, simple emails.
- Good luck!
- Good night!
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she probably just got a c lol
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I smell a rat. In high school I donât remember any examples of teachers being unwilling to share answers. My daughter had one science teacher in HS teacher who she sent several emails (politely) about mistakes/corrections for him on some tests. I found out about it after the fact (I havenât logged into Schoology in many years because she keeps track of everything/deadlines-- so I am one of the lucky parents who paid no attention to that in high school). He never took it personally and in the very nice recommendation letter he wrote for her, said he mentioned he sometimes used her tests as the answer key.
In one of her calculus classes fall semester at PSEO at the U of M, one of their TAs became fairly infamous for doing problems wrong in the discussion breakout sessions. The students would all be confused and have to go to the tutoring center or work together to figure it out. So stuff like that does happen.
However the point of high school should be to learn, the whole secrecy thing here feels twisted. Thatâs silly if the teacher is not wanting to do a new test each year and paranoia is the issue.
A way long time ago my daughter needed to score on certain physical tests to move up to a different gymnastics team. One of the girls also vying for a spot was the niece of one of the person who tested my daughter. When my daughter got her test back (the gym was very transparent and showed scores in each portion), my little daughter insisted she never did the 2 tests on which she got the lowest scores. I mentioned this to the head of the program. To their credit, they checked video and sure enough she never did the running test and whatever the other one was (so long ago I donât remember). I was shocked that they actually followed up and called me and apologized that it had happened, It really made me respect that program manager. It was a moot point because she wasnât ready to move up, but their policy of transparency showed me 1. They cared about the kids 2. The whole point was to know what to work on 3. They cared about ethics. That coach was no longer there a few months later. Weird stuff does happen. Lack of transparency gives power and power corrupts, right? But as a parent you learn to pick your battles⊠is this one worth fighting?
At the U of M this year, my daughter didnât see all of the tests this year, but she always was told the numerical score, as well as any curve adjustment points. I think the lack of a numerical score in a HS is weird. Like I said, I smell a rat. But is this a battle your daughter wants to fight?
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I am of the mind that elementary/middle/high school and college exams should be the property of the student, just as a medical record is the property of the patient. I understand that unethical students get exams from previous students. Thatâs a problem that has to be dealt with separately. But it is not educationally sound to not allow students to review their graded tests.
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