easypeasy Posted July 1, 2019 Share Posted July 1, 2019 (edited) Professor assigns online quiz Quiz erroneously states that #3 is wrong (when, in fact, the student's answer is correct... must be a typo or something) Multiple students realize the error One student emails professor, asking about the question and for a correction Does the professor make the correction for ONLY the student who spoke up and asked her about it, or should the prof. automatically correct EVERYONE's grade? Edited July 1, 2019 by easypeasy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RootAnn Posted July 1, 2019 Share Posted July 1, 2019 IMO, the prof should correct everyone's grade but sometimes only corrects the grades of those that speak up. Since I've seen the latter happen (both on purpose & also not by design), I encourage my kids to always email notification unless the professor sends out an email that says the correction will occur for everyone. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kassia Posted July 1, 2019 Share Posted July 1, 2019 10 minutes ago, RootAnn said: Since I've seen the latter happen (both on purpose & also not by design), That's terrible. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mom22ns Posted July 1, 2019 Share Posted July 1, 2019 I would not assume the professor would go back through all the quizzes and manually check that answer. I would be sure to notify the professor for the best chances of getting credit. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pegasus Posted July 2, 2019 Share Posted July 2, 2019 Sometimes they assume that if a student doesn't contact them that they don't care. Why should the professor care more than the student? DD's first semester, she was enrolled in a course with around 550 students. They were required to use an online homework system. The instructor had not set up something correctly on his end and students could not access the system. DD had to email several times between the instructor and the IT help desk to try to resolve the issue, with the instructor trying various fixes. Note that this wasn't a problem that only DD was having but she was the ONLY STUDENT to get in touch with the professor and pursue a solution. She asked him how that could be and he replied that the others just don't care. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kassia Posted July 2, 2019 Share Posted July 2, 2019 1 hour ago, Pegasus said: Sometimes they assume that if a student doesn't contact them that they don't care. Why should the professor care more than the student? DD's first semester, she was enrolled in a course with around 550 students. They were required to use an online homework system. The instructor had not set up something correctly on his end and students could not access the system. DD had to email several times between the instructor and the IT help desk to try to resolve the issue, with the instructor trying various fixes. Note that this wasn't a problem that only DD was having but she was the ONLY STUDENT to get in touch with the professor and pursue a solution. She asked him how that could be and he replied that the others just don't care. Because the professor made an error and the students are the consumers. It's the professor's responsibility to notify students if there is a mistake. Dd is taking an online class now and the professor's class welcome announcement said everyone had to take a quiz before starting the class. There was no quiz available. Dd contacted the professor and he replied that he decided not to do the quiz since the class is so short. But, even knowing he had the mistake, he didn't correct the announcement. So the other students in the class were wasting time (like dd) did trying to find a quiz that didn't exist. After a week went by (this is only an 8 week class) some students used the messaging system asking about the quiz and dd informed them of what the professor said. Finally, after that, the professor made an announcement stating that the quiz didn't need to be done. I think the other students cared but didn't want to ask the professor. On the other hand, my dd is very passive and would be uncomfortable asking a professor about a grade so she might prefer to miss out on points she earned rather than actually contact the professor asking for a change. But she would definitely care. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
katilac Posted July 3, 2019 Share Posted July 3, 2019 6 hours ago, Pegasus said: Sometimes they assume that if a student doesn't contact them that they don't care. Why should the professor care more than the student? Why would the professor assume that students don't care because they don't bring up an incorrect answer? Why, indeed, would they assume that all of the students realized it was incorrect to begin with? Your dd's case is completely different - but honestly, even then it doesn't mean the other students simply don't care. They may not have had time to pursue multiple emails and attempted fixes. Or they may have made a strategic decision that it wasn't worth putting in so much time for a low-stakes quiz, and they put that time toward something more productive. This could be a smart decision even if your dd got points for pursuing it and they didn't. In the original post, all students should get the point for the right answer. Because it's the right answer. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
katilac Posted July 3, 2019 Share Posted July 3, 2019 6 hours ago, Pegasus said: Why should the professor care more than the student? The instructor had not set up something correctly on his end and students could not access the system. If the instructor set it up incorrectly, isn't it his responsibility to fix it? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
regentrude Posted July 3, 2019 Share Posted July 3, 2019 (edited) If the professor set up the quiz incorrectly, it is her responsibility to fix it for everybody. It is her mistake, and she needs to own it. As most of you know, I am a college professor. I can't fathom not changing it for every student if I screwed up the answer key - whether they contact me or not. And if it is a commercial system, it is my responsibility as instructor to make sure the quiz is actually correct and not rely on the company. Edited July 3, 2019 by regentrude 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frances Posted July 3, 2019 Share Posted July 3, 2019 17 hours ago, Pegasus said: Sometimes they assume that if a student doesn't contact them that they don't care. Why should the professor care more than the student? DD's first semester, she was enrolled in a course with around 550 students. They were required to use an online homework system. The instructor had not set up something correctly on his end and students could not access the system. DD had to email several times between the instructor and the IT help desk to try to resolve the issue, with the instructor trying various fixes. Note that this wasn't a problem that only DD was having but she was the ONLY STUDENT to get in touch with the professor and pursue a solution. She asked him how that could be and he replied that the others just don't care. I think professors who assume the students don’t care if they don’t pursue every point possible are just plain wrong. They might be surprised to find that some students care more about actually leaning the material than they do about spending time chasing points. In the current case, the professor should own up to their mistake and correct it for everyone, primarily because they shouldn’t want the students to have a false understanding of course material. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EKS Posted July 3, 2019 Share Posted July 3, 2019 8 minutes ago, Frances said: I think professors who assume the students don’t care if they don’t pursue every point possible are just plain wrong. They might be surprised to find that some students care more about actually leaning the material than they do about spending time chasing points. In the current case, the professor should own up to their mistake and correct it for everyone, primarily because they shouldn’t want the students to have a false understanding of course material. As a person who has had to do this many, many times in the graduate courses I've taken, I can attest to the fact that it takes an extraordinarily long time to deal with each instance. In the cases I dealt with, the questions were so ambiguously worded that more than one answer was technically correct. This happened on every single quiz we had across multiple classes, and it would take me at least 20+ minutes to prepare each email. I was informed that I was the only student out of hundreds that had ever noticed these problems, but they always agreed that the wording was ambiguous and gave me the points. That said, I have no idea what they did about other students who had chosen the same answer I did but didn't say anything. I suspect that those students were out of luck. I spent the time "chasing down points" because for most of those classes, the quiz grades counted for an outsized portion of the grade--frequently each answer was worth 1% of the final grade, and when an A is set at 95 and above, just a few "wrong" answers had the potential to make a big difference. However, I would suggest that the only reason I was able to detect the ambiguous wording of the answer choices was that I had learned the material to a very high level. So in my case, I spent the time both "actually learning the material" and "chasing down points." 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miguelsmom Posted July 3, 2019 Share Posted July 3, 2019 Can't he just omit the question and recalculate the scores? Yes giving no one the points but I think it's the only thing I can think of. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reefgazer Posted July 4, 2019 Share Posted July 4, 2019 I've been here - I automatically correct the mistake for everyone. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
easypeasy Posted July 5, 2019 Author Share Posted July 5, 2019 Thank you for the input! I'm not crazy, then! lol I find it tedious to contact the prof(s) about every single incorrectly missing point and have decided to only do so now if I think I NEED those points toward the end of the semester. It takes real time & effort to set up an email with my "proof" of having the correct answer, etc. But I keep wondering... surely... someone else has contacted the prof about the missing points? Surely SOMEONE needs them? Should I contact the prof on behalf of others in the class who maybe didn't realize the question was incorrect? Or did someone else contact the prof and he/she only corrected their quiz? Argh. The not knowing is making me crazy, lol. I don't need the points, but admit that seeing the missing points just sitting there on my gradebook irks me. 😀 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mom22ns Posted July 5, 2019 Share Posted July 5, 2019 9 hours ago, easypeasy said: I find it tedious to contact the prof(s) about every single incorrectly missing point and have decided to only do so now if I think I NEED those points toward the end of the semester. It takes real time & effort to set up an email with my "proof" of having the correct answer, etc. I would not look kindly on a student that tried to get me to change a grade at the end of the semester after sitting on it for weeks. I'm not sure what I would do with that. I don't give quizzes and writing often doesn't have clear right/wrong answers, so I never face this, but the end of the semester is a busy time and I know how I would feel about it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kassia Posted July 5, 2019 Share Posted July 5, 2019 1 hour ago, Mom22ns said: I would not look kindly on a student that tried to get me to change a grade at the end of the semester after sitting on it for weeks. I'm not sure what I would do with that. I don't give quizzes and writing often doesn't have clear right/wrong answers, so I never face this, but the end of the semester is a busy time and I know how I would feel about it. My kids would probably only contact the professor at the end of the semester to wait and see if it would affect the final grade. If it doesn't, then there would be no point in contacting so they would wait. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
easypeasy Posted July 5, 2019 Author Share Posted July 5, 2019 3 hours ago, Mom22ns said: I would not look kindly on a student that tried to get me to change a grade at the end of the semester after sitting on it for weeks. I'm not sure what I would do with that. I don't give quizzes and writing often doesn't have clear right/wrong answers, so I never face this, but the end of the semester is a busy time and I know how I would feel about it. Thing is, though, I don’t look kindly on professors who repeatedly can’t enter in their quiz questions correctly (remember: this is happening to me a lot over many classes) and can’t be bothered to correct when I do email them about it (because I don’t need the points at that time). Saving it to the end seems like it would save both of us a lot of time in the long run. 😄 This attitude would ONLY apply to multiple choice questions. Those classes where I have essays or essay tests - I would absolutely contact the professor immediately if I had questions about the points. I definitely wouldn’t keep those held til the end. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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