I think the prof is acting stupid to allow dumb survey to bring down grades from a solid A to B. I know about dashes and zeros. However, it’s a power play, so apparently, the prof doesn’t want to play nice with your daughter.
No way should non substantive assignments affect grades this much; should be done as extra credits or for tiny portion of grades.
Basically, I agree with you, but it is what it is. Only thing you can do is learn from this experience and maybe not take classes from this prof.
My son had two small things last semester. 1. The professor set up the grade system incorrectly and it was providing the wrong grades. My son, of course, believed that someone else would point it out. I guess everyone else in that class thought the same thing, so no one told and the professor went on sabbatical immediately after the final. It was resolved, but it was a pain for everyone and had some consequences like academic probation for a couple of people.
Son had a project that was given instead of a final. He was working on it in the lab the night before it was due and felt it was completed and exactly what he wanted. The professor was around and peeked over his shoulder. Son told him it was done and joked that he was setting two alarms to be up on time the next day to hand it in on time. Professor said he would take it and save my son a trip, which he did. In front of people. Of course, he forgot, misplaced it, and gave my son a 0 and an F until he was tracked down and reminded. He was apologetic, found it, fixed the grade and all was well. But two unusual mishaps in the same semester elicited a letter from the dean before it was all done.
“Her bio prof said that she should have known the dashes were zeros.” (Would become zeros.)
Your sister “said that a dash is read as not graded yet.” (But if nothing was submitted, there is nothing to grade yet. The dashes are a holding spot only. Of course they can’t be included in the running gpa.)
So what did your D think the dashes were for? Big difference between, “Oh, ok, I submitted but it’s not graded yet” and “What assignment? Why the dashes?” Did she not ask herself what that missing work was?
It doesn’t need to be a zero to tell her there’s someting there to look into.
From the instructor’s end on Blackboard, when a student submits an assignment it goes into a “needs grading folder.” It is possible to track down missing assignment by double checking the “grade center.” No automatic alerts go to the student when work is missing; the professor or TA then would have to individually email students about missing work. For a large introductory class, this is not a reasonable expectation, IMO.
In my school’s blackboard, replacing the dashes with zeros is done by manual entry.
It is puzzling that the professor did not indicate the % that the “grade boosting” homework would have in calculating the overall GPA. If that information was not provided up front, then your daughter might have better grounds for appeal. What does the syllabus say?
@websensation part of the problem is that profs and teachers often put a lot of weight on homework or “participation” instead of assessments as a grade booster. In the first semester of a class in HS, my daughter had daily homework and she missed two assignments in the whole semester. She happened to miss two that were checked (most weren’t). Missing two homeworks resulted in her overall grade dropping six points! The reason the homework carries so much weight is to supposedly reward effort and boost the grades of students who are not quite mastering the material. It rewards conformity over mastery. I hate the trend.
I think it rewards productivity, not quite conformity. Homework is rarely optional. Not in the long game. They can like to see you keeping up with th paced work, to avoid kids cramming last mnute for a test.
It sounds like biggest contributing factor to the student’s failure to recognize that she hadn’t turned in the assignments was that Blackboard (which I’ve never used or seen) calculates a grade for a sub-section when not all grades have been submitted. I can appreciate that a student may not realize that is what Blackboard is doing and upon seeing an A think that all is well.
From a software UI design perhaps Blackboard should have some indicator next to the grade (like x out of y assignments graded, or z pending grades) to make it more clear what is included or not included in the grade that is being shown. Unfortunately that’s an issue for Blackboard to address, not the school (assuming there isn’t some configuration parameter build into Blackboard to show something like this that the school chose not to turn on).
Overall though I agree that this is simply one of those life lessons. My daughter learned a similar one on the first day of her very first college class. The professor verbally referenced during class one assignment that was due. The online tool (not sure what it’s called) which my daughter had no prior experience with actually listed two different assignments that were due. But since my daughter only heard the professor reference one assignment she did one assignment and didn’t look for any others. And, she got a 0 for the assignment she didn’t do. Tough break but she didn’t make that mistake again.
@lookingforward the homework is not corrected, though. If you do it all and get every single answer wrong, you still get 100%. That’s is not really productive. It depends on the teacher and the student’s workload whether they have to triage or not. At this particular schools, students are told at the beginning of the year that they won’t be able to do every homework so they should work on what they least understand first. Mixed messages are common. In college, though, there are no mixed messages because the professor is king. You just do what they say and that’s it.
@adlgel all you have to do is click to view all of the assignments’ grades. Everyone should realize that a calculated grade is only valid if it includes all of the graded assignments. The OP’s daughter just never checked. My kids have been checking that kind of stuff all through school. It really is a lesson that needs to be learned.
@CCtoAlaska Homeworks, I understand but these two “assignments” were some post class assessment tasks, akin to house work, no? All I gotta say is the prof is not that reasonable person. Yes, life lesson learned, take a lump and move on.
I do sympathize with OP and her daughter; that’s what I wanted to say. You try very hard for the entire semester and then your grade takes a dive over some dumb thing like this.
A side point was that in high school at least, a lot came down to the teacher’s discretion. Basically, if they like you, they help you. lol Also one time, my kid turned in an assignment but the teacher’s assistant didn’t grade it and it was not uploaded, so he had big fat ZERO, so I had my kid go meet the teacher and explain, and they finally found the assignment and he got an “A”. I would hate to think what would have happened if they did not find the assignment.
“They can like to see you keeping up with th paced work, to avoid kids cramming last mnute for a test.”
What do they care if you cram for a test? That’s more of a life lesson than being punished for an honest mistake. Cramming has saved many a grade BTW. Staying up all night is a time honored tradition.
Back in the stone tablet era, we had a midterm and final. That’s it. And the curve so grades didn’t tell the whole story anyway. So the syllabus (for me anyways) was short. First half of book for midterm, the whole book for final. Go for it.
Do homework or problems in book if you want (answers in the back). Learn to be organized or you’re sunk.
Quizzes were a much smaller part of the overall grade mostly meant to point out how much work you still needed to do if you wanted to pass the class .Nothing like panic to stimulate you to study more.
I’ve successfully gotten a grade changed–a kind teacher who I begged and realized I really did need the grade to get accepted into my program. I was very close (just a point or two off) and he just gave it to me. I bless him to this day.
I had a prof who gave everybody “incompletes” on their report cards–because he hadn’t gotten around to grading the final in time to turn in grades. Ugh.
One prof was presented with tar and feathers at the end of the quarter–and fired subsequently by the university. He was that bad.
A super brilliant egotistical prof who had 17 plus drug patents and did incredible research (so valued highly by the university) gave exam questions where there was no way to study–his questions on exams were not answered in lecture notes, in the books. No where to be found (and believe me–it was a class project to figure out how we could ever have answered the questions). And he gave essay type questions–he’d give partial credit though. You’d get a test back and see where he’d mark plus 3, change his mind and make it a 2 or a 4 depending on how he felt.
My roommate didn’t pass the class by THREE POINTS TOTAL over several exams. Any 3 points of partial credit over many essay questions and three separate tests would make the difference. Just one extra point per test.
And a huge difference–it was the difference between graduating and not, being able to start the job she already had lined up, taking professional exams timely. Repeating the course.
It was huge. Three points based on opinion. Many higher ups went to bat for her. He wouldn’t budge.
He cost her graduation (although they let her walk with our class anyway), her job, six months salary.
I haven’t forgiven him yet for being such a #%* and it’s been a long, long time. And it wasn’t even me.
@gouf78 I hear you. I am forever grateful to several teachers and law school profs who upped my grades from Ds to C- or from F to D so I could graduate with enough credits. lol I justified their trust or sympathy in me by graduating timely and having done pretty well in my career.
“A side point was that in high school at least, a lot came down to the teacher’s discretion.”
Guess what? In college it comes down to the teacher’s discretion also.
I don’t buy into “team projects” as real world. They aren’t. Real life you fire the losers. You pick your team.
I don’t think "you missed the deadline by 15 minutes so all is lost " is real world. Like someone above said you don’t throw out months of work and negate it because a superficial deadline was missed. Real life has adjusted deadlines on a daily basis.
People make mistakes. Everybody. To call everything “a life lesson” and accept harsh punishment when you’ve innocently screwed something up is not right. That truly is conformity at its worst.
I expect compromise to be reached between reasonable people. And I expect professors to be reasonable because they have a lot of power.
@websensation I did not see what the assignments actually were. Did I read they were surveys? It doesn’t really matter what they were, they were still part of the class grade. On my daughter’s midterm she had a question where the prof warned them that they should try it but it’s never been solved and if they did solve it they would win the Nobel prize. Points on that question factored into her grade. She’s not in school for the grade, though. She’s in school to learn to solve problems. So she loved that question. In her other class, however, she got the problems right for the most part on all of her exams and assignments but lacked the discipline to follow hundreds of complicated formatting instructions (like tab twice instead of once, etc.). She nearly flunked over that. But that was the real point of the class - to teach discipline and precision and close attention to detail because that is what that particular discipline requires. It is what it is. I think some profs are actually sadistic but asking students to track and hand in assignments is a skill that most students learn early on and is expected. The prof should not have to worry about it.
" I did not see what the assignments actually were. Did I read they were surveys? It doesn’t really matter what they were, they were still part of the class grade."
I disagree. It does matter what they were. Not every assignment is created equal.
Do you spend the same amount of time with every bill and ad that arrives daily in your mail?
@gouf78 I get you. I hate fluff assignments that are purely designed to up the grade for the students who aren’t doing great on real assessments of mastery. My daughter’s grade in a high school class dropped a full 6 points because of missing two homework assignments that didn’t even get graded for correctness. I let it be a lesson to her, though. I’m not sure she internalized it all that well LOL.
@CCtoAlaska All I’m saying is that there are good web page designs and bad ones. Good ones make clear that which could otherwise be easily mis-interpreted. Saying “everyone should realize” something is a bit too big of a generalization for me. Everyone looks at data and information through their own “lens” based upon their past experiences or lack of past experiences with relevant situations and content.
Sometimes there are hard deadlines in the real world and even five minutes can mean a missed opportunity. If our proposal is not where it needs to be by the time of the bid opening, we are out of luck even if we have the best proposal ever. Driving it there and get caught in a traffic jam? Fedex is late? Too bad. In other cases, a deadline can be relaxed.
It is always hard to judge a story that is third hand on a message board. Of course it seems like teachers should accept the 15 minute late lab that would allow a kid to pass a class. But what if it is an hour late? Three hours? What is the real deadline then? Or what of the kid that forgoes something else to finish it on time, only to find out it wasn’t really a deadline.
And gouf someone said they were surveys, but how could one assignment like that bring a grade from an A to a B? The OP said one grade was dropped so only one of these counted against her grade. Seems like it must be more than a minimal assignment.
Thank you for all your feedback. I am just catching up on all your responses. I have been avoiding asking my daughter any more questions until after her final tomorrow but this is what I know. I don’t believe she noticed those dashes. I agree that its her responsibility to make sure everything is submitted. She wasn’t aware she didn’t submit two of these assignments until last Friday when the zeros were factored into her grades. Blackboard always showed A’s in all of the grading sections.
She did post the syllabus up on her wall and thought she was keeping track of all her assignments. She tried looking into these online “post class” assignments to see if she recognized any of the questions because she found it difficult to believe she could have missed two of the five online post class assignments given throughout the semester (worth 30% of her grade). She wasn’t able to get into these assignments so she has no idea whether she did them and they just didn’t submit properly or if she just missed them altogether.
She has had 4 in-class, closed book tests which she averaged a 95/100 (every one of them was above the class average). Each of these are worth 10%. The online “post-class” assignments are done at home and the lowest one gets drop and its worth 30% of her grade - it was an A until last Friday. There are also “pre-class” assignments done online at home worth 10% - also an A. These online pre and post class assignments are meant to be grade boosters. Than there are a couple of 5% grades for participation and blogs - also A’s.
Her bio prof was not keeping the dashes in so students can have a grace period - these were due when they were due.
After talking to the biology chair, she felt he was in her court but he said grading is left to the professors. She will definitely never let this happen again. I wish grades didn’t matter so much, but she would like to get into a research lab next semester and no one is going to want to hear why that B wasn’t an A. As a freshman, the competition to get into a lab will be difficult and your first semester grades is all you can show for yourself. She will also be applying for summer research labs that will be based on her first semester GPA so this will impact her chances for that as well.
Yes, in real life you don’t get to make excuses like, “I missed that.” Try that on a business proposal. Or missing a deadline, when the prospect will start reviewing the next day. Or holding up contract work because you didn’t get it all. You don’t get to complain that they’re unfair or this is too “discretionary.” You play by their rules.
Now, OP might say, the rules weren’t clear. But she did see the dashes. And there’s even legal precedent where “I didn’t know” is no excuse. Presumably, the students were informed of this.
Wait til you hit the Common App or CSS Profile, where there are not detailed instructions for every step. Wait til you hit weeder classes for premed (where they can test on untaught material.)
So what if some profs (no one here can speak for all) don’t grade homework? This thread is about a middle college course. If it were my kid, I’d have her try for leniency, but quickly be helping her find the life lesson on this.
And by “freshman,” do you mean 9th grade? Is it common to send brand new hs kids to middle college?