Teacher Made Error with Final Grade

<p>Do you have any advice about how to handle this? And could someone please read the letter that I am going to send to her? --message me</p>

<p>Tell her she made an error and request fixing. :P</p>

<p>No need to send a lengthy email. If worst comes to worst, talk to the principal.</p>

<p>I have always found the best way to handle these is to start
"confused". Student should go to the teacher with their own evidence and confess confusion over the results. Can she help understand what happened. If it really is an error it is usually corrected very quickly. DH is a professor and has made errors occasionally. When students come to him this way he corrects it immediately or shows them how he got the results..</p>

<p>Errors happen. Right now, you don't know whether your calculations are wrong or the teacher's are. But both of you need to find out.</p>

<p>I suggest approaching the matter from a neutral position: your numbers don't agree with the teacher's. You can give you detailed numbers if you think it would help. And then ask the teacher if he can figure out why there is a discrepancy. Use words like "discrepancy" and "disagreement" rather than "you made a mistake." That way, if if turns out that YOU are the one who is in error, you won't feel so foolish.</p>

<p>I'm a professor. I make mistakes in grading. Everyone does sometimes. And questions/concerns about grading (for various reasons) are brought to my attention all the time. We can all readily make grade changes. A letter is not necessary! It's absolutely no big deal at all. Even the biggest egos don't need formality or tippy-toeing!</p>

<p>That happened to my D in her freshman year of college. She wrote a quick e-mail to prof, requested a review of final grade. Prof asked her to swing by, and bring any papers she'd done during the semester. She did. He'd recorded one incorrectly. Fixed it, and updated her records. </p>

<p>It wasn't a difficult process.</p>

<p>I think it is good that you are staying on top of this, but you may be blowing it out of proportion by "writing" a letter. Email, talk to Professor/teacher-let them know you have a discrepancy in numbers/grades and would like to review your file. As OP suggested, it saves your face if you are wrong, and saves the teacher/professor if they are wrong. In my DD case-she broached the subject w/teacher-and it turns out it was the administrations error in the posting-so teacher went to bat for DD and got it fixed.</p>

<p>lesson to all, make sure you don't discard any assignments during the year. Keep a class file and hold all papers until final grades are done. Errors happen all the time, easy to fix if proper documents there to back it up. Be polite, professional and friendly, haven't come across an educator yet who won't fix something if the proof is readily there.</p>

<p>It's also good to remember that teachers/professors often don't assign grades by actually averaging every assignment, test, and quiz. They frequently "bump up" a student who works hard, has improved over time, has perfect attendance, shows extra effort, adds to the class, etc. On the other hand, a student may be graded down if they do the bare minimum, skip class, have an attitude, or whatever else. (Not saying this is true in the OP's case, just pointing out that you can't dependably calculate your grade by averaging the numbers--even if a syllabus assigns a certain percentage to each assignment.)</p>

<p>Corranged, this doesn't match my experience. Throughout my own four degrees and having taught at numerous unis, it's always been the case that one's grade is calculated based on hte criteria laid out in the syllabus (with different assignments carrying different, pre-determined weights). </p>

<p>Though we may curve a whole class one way or another, I know of no one who bumps an individual student up or down based on anything but documentable and pre-determined criteria (even class participation has a particular weight and is based on a particular score). There are exceptions to special cases, but it would be a poor instructor who would, at the end of the day, sort of make up some grade based on their subjective opinion of the student. Any half decent professor should be able to show a student a spreadsheet that breaks down one's grade into its components and those components match the syllabus and are consistently applied across all students in the class.</p>

<p>Class participation generally includes most of the things I mentioned. Often this is laid out on the syllabus, at my school usually about 25% of the grade. There are some professors, though, who simply say "helpful participation will improve your grade" or something alone those lines without ever giving a definite percentage that it will count for. I've only had one or two professors who have told us how participation is calculated; their methods weren't a great reflection of actual levels of helpful participation. I highly doubt most of my professors have some kind of documented system for accurately calculating participation. I think it's almost always a sense more than a calculated number. In high school, participation is usually counted, but I've never seen a number attached to it. </p>

<p>Beyond that, I don't think I've ever had a teacher who hasn't looked favorably upon an upward trend in grades. Obviously these things don't completely change a grade, but if a grade is on the edge, in my experience a teacher or professor will give the student the benefit of the doubt if she's put in solid effort, shown improvement, volunteered in class, etc. If the opposite is true, the grade stays at the lower point.</p>

<p>Anyway, maybe I've just had a bunch of crazy, non-traditional teachers and professors. I guess it's possible. If I've had this many, though, probably some other posters reading this thread have had similar experiences.</p>

<p>I'd reiterate Opie's suggestion: Keep all assignments (and copies)! DD was confused about one grade. She asked the Prof about it and was told she hadn't turned in an assignment! She gave him a copy of the paper. No problem.</p>

<p>Corranged, I teach in a business school. Maybe it's different in other disciplines. Participation is a very important part of the pedagogy. It almost always refers to attendance and contributions to class discussion. I've never heard of it meaning hard work or improved grades. If teachers don't explain what it means, however, I can see how students might come to believe it means all kinds of other positive subjective/political stuff. There is a lot of mythology out there about such things.</p>

<p>Ok, this is what's happening. My average in the class is an 80 point something percent. I recieved that average because my professor told me in late November (which was the last time I saw her before she had her baby) that I had a 92 in participation. So when I figured that 92 percent with all my other grades, the final average amounted to a 80.1 percent.</p>

<p>I strongly believe that she erred somewhere. But instead of owning up to her errors, she is now claiming that I recieved a 72 percent in class participation, which is absurd considering the fact that she has touted me more than once about my class participation. (And I never missed a single class, and I spoke during every class) This is the first time that she's claiming I have a 72 on class participation. The sad part is that the class participation, the most subjective thing ever, is the tipping factor that could secure my B minus in the class.</p>

<p>This professor is not one of those teachers that agrees to making changes because, when it comes to grades, she will dig her heels in. And when I emailed her this week about this, she started accusing me of negotiating grades and stated there was nothing she "could" do. I don't know what to do. I tape recorded her saying that I recieved a 92 on class participation, but I can't find the tape. And I'm hesitant to use it since it could be very destructive evidence. </p>

<p>I really don't want this thing to escalate because I hate confrontation. However, I know that I must pursue this until the very end because:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>I have nothing to loose. I will never take another class with her nor ask her for a recommendation.</p></li>
<li><p>I need at least a B minus in the class in order for it to qualify for my Spanish minor. </p></li>
</ol>

<p>Considering this new information, what advice would you all suggest? I appreciate your help.</p>

<p>go for it. why do u have a tape anyways haha</p>

<p>As a student, I would definately ask her how in the world your participation dropped 20 points in two-three weeks. I would think that you would have had to stop coming to class for that to happen. Start with your advisor and/or the head of the foreign language department, maybe a neutral 3rd party can talk to your prof. If that doesn't help, you can go to the dead of liberal arts and sciences. This doesn't make sense to me and you should definately take action. But remember to keep yourself calm, cool, collected, and cooperative :).</p>

<p>I think I would start by asking her how I received a 72 in participation.</p>

<p>Narcissa, I usually furtively tape record important conversations just in case. I pray to God that I find that tape.</p>

<p>bump..............</p>

<p>Just a word of caution--in a few states (such as Massachusetts), it is illegal to record a person's voice without their consent. So, if you find the recording, be sure it's legal before you start playing it back for others. You should play it for the prof first and give her a chance to rectify the situation before trying anything more drastic. Tell the prof you record these types of important conversations simply to keep a record since your memory isn't that good. Don't be confrontational.</p>

<p>WikiAnswers</a> - Is it illegal to tape record a non profit membership ...</p>