Problems with CC- Is this the New Normal?

[Paige]

I have some DC enrolled in CC with the intent to transfer to a very good nearby university after completing their basic courses. The university and CC have an agreement and smooth transition process and it saves us thousands per student. 

My DC are telling me that the classes, mostly online classes, are just terrible. They said that even the worst homeschool online classes were better organized than these. Even an in person class might literally be just an online class. I don't know how it works, but I guess it was a hardware class (IT) and all the instruction was online and in canvas, and you could come in person to work in class or with the hardware, but if you had stuff at home- no need. We had expected it to be in person- it was listed as in person- and driving into class was a complete waste of time. 

The syllabi are also ridiculous. That's my biggest complaint. They are jumbled, incomplete, and don't make sense. They look like they were cut and pasted from previous semesters without any proofreading. I didn't believe my DC when they said how bad they were but there is no hyperbole. I was the type of student who read through the syllabus and wrote everything into my calendar and planned my schedule to accomodate big projects and tests from multiple classes so there would be no surprises. I tried to help my DC out by doing the same when they were getting overwhelmed and surprised by big projects. The syllabi were literally incomprehensible. I guess a syllabus is a requirement, but they don't expect anyone to read it. Say you have a 15 week class- the syllabus is written as if it's for a 4 week summer course, with dates from that course, but the summary mentions 15 weeks- and also 8 weeks! The dates don't match the current calendar at all. In other classes, assignments are TBD, readings are all online and you can't access them ahead of time to see how long they will be. Often assignments are only revealed one week at a time and the syllabus will read something like: Week 12: Lesson 12.  So if you wanted to plan your semester like a good, organized student should, you are out of luck. I've encouraged my DC to reach out to the instructors but they get no response. One child had an assignment with a dead link. The only info for the assignment was the link, and she obviously couldn't do it. She reached out to the prof and asked for assistance, and also if they'd consider giving an extension. She got literally no response other than the guy fixed the link. He didn't inform the class that it had been fixed or was dead. In that same class, the biggest assignment, worth the most points, was due in week 2! That seems so backwards to me. Shouldn't the students do some learning before outputting- especially in college? We have about 7 classes combined between the DC and only 1 has been "ok," which was an in person Composition class. 

Is this CC these days? If DC just switch immediately to the higher price university should we expect better? I told DC to send the syllabi to their respective Deans and complain, but we're pretty disillusioned. 

[TechWife]

I don’t think it’s normal, yet. I do fear it might be trending that way as positions are eliminated and both CCs and unis rely more on adjunct instructors. I think accountability and program consistency are really hard to sustain in the long run with adjunct instructors. If it’s affordable, I suggest sending them to the uni now. It doesn’t sound like these classes are preparing them for success in the upper level course work they will encounter later.  At the uni I think you can reasonably expect lower level classes to prepare for the upper classes at the same institution. Quality wise, though, I don’t know what that looks like. That probably varies by uni.

[livetoread]

I can't speak to CC since it's been before covid that my kids took CC classes, but my one left in a decent state university has shown me their syllabi. It's amazing to me how incomplete the info is. Like you, I used to plan my time noting when tests were, when assignments are due etc. There is little to none of that. Professors decide when things are due with little notice (sometimes 24 hours) and that notice is sent online through one of several ways to communicate. It is impossible to plan much in advance because the info just isn't there. Students might know from the syllabus that they have three exams and how much they are worth of their grade, but no idea when they will happen. Things are due at midnight on a Sat night. Who does that? I suppose having to print out your assignments and turn them in at class time was a pain, but at least you knew what to expect.

[TheReader]

Across the 3 kids and all the years of college we've done so far (be that cc or uni), it's spanned the whole spectrum from beyond awful to above & beyond.  It *does* seem to be mostly trending downwards lately, which is sad. Certainly we've had more "bad" syllabi/disorganized courses in post-covid years than before, almost like the "quick, we have to switch to online, ack!" emergency courses that were thrown together just became the measure of "good enough".  I mean, they were barely good enough at the time, but 4 yrs later, no, we shouldn't still be using the same "ack, how do we move this online?" stuff that squeaked through the pandemic. 

I will say, I have *not* noticed a difference in the rate, ratio, percent, etc. of good courses to bad courses when comparing cc classes vs uni classes (we've got kids in all of them/have been in all of them for the last many years), so switching to uni may or may not solve it, other than the point mentioned by someone else, at least at uni, they'd be better prepared for how that uni works. 

[gardenmom5]

It's probably a reflection on that CC.  It can also vary with subject.
1ds and 2ds both did AAS at the CC level before going on to get their bachelors.  Even 1ds's engineering classes (which weren't technically ABET, but HAD to meet the standard for ABET to transfer to our big instate 4yr. - where he got his BS, and MS.  He was working on his MS during covid.)

If classes are mostly online, can they try a different CC?  or even a legitimate online program that is associated with a B&M university?  (one of our -smaller - state universities offers online through our local CC, and dsil did his MBA at whatever Arizona University is online.)

[Heartstrings]

My kid is in a small local 4 year and we’ve seen similar.   It’s been really hard on my rule following, doesn’t like surprises, black and white thinker.   The quality of teaching is generally poor also, as is the quality of the tutoring services.   
 

He’s transferring this summer to a college I know is better quality overall.  

Edited April 11 by Heartstrings

[Arcadia]

35 minutes ago, Paige said:

Is this CC these days

Both my kids have online and in person dual enrollment classes. I took some CC classes too but mine are all online. Some instructors/lecturers do prefer to release one week at a time. Some would release all at a time. Some require the student to finish one module’s assignments and/or quizzes to unlock the next module.
Syllabus have always been correct except for summer ones. However, just halving the time for the syllabus would give the correct schedule for the summer ones since they are literally at double speed for the CC we attended. The CC also has a database of syllabus for each course so if a teacher’s syllabus isn’t clear, we can look at another teacher’s syllabus. We can look at past syllabus before signing up for a class.

The computer science classes my kids and I attended were all online. However, the lecturers have zoom sessions every week to explain class materials as well as Q&A. There is also weekly office hours on zoom which are like a 4hr window for students to pop in and ask questions. My computer science lecturers definitely have favorites. I get hyper fast reply from them because they know if I drop them an email, it means something is wrong. 
I have lecturers who said that they have so many emails that doesn’t say clearly what is wrong. They also get tonnes of emails. A clear subject line and a short to the point email helps. My lecturers have always emailed the class about broken links being corrected after I emailed them about their broken links (even the lazier lecturers do that). 

[Miss Tick]

If I had the time I might make a few appointments with people - advisor, president, people in between and show them what you are telling us, ask if this should be considered representative of the school, ask for your money back in lieu of returning your students time. Basically raise a polite stink.

[Heartstrings]

Just now, Miss Tick said:

If I had the time I might make a few appointments with people - advisor, president, people in between and show them what you are telling us, ask if this should be considered representative of the school, ask for your money back in lieu of returning your students time. Basically raise a polite stink.

I second this.  Department Heads and provosts too.  

[kbutton]

My kid is in DE classes, and while some of your examples are worse, we are having similar issues. It’s a goat rodeo.

In our case, I do have confidence in the content though. This institution has been doing this forever, and their classes are easily accepted just about everywhere.

10 minutes ago, Miss Tick said:

If I had the time I might make a few appointments with people - advisor, president, people in between and show them what you are telling us, ask if this should be considered representative of the school, ask for your money back in lieu of returning your students time. Basically raise a polite stink.

I’ve raised issues with the high school, and they are reluctant to rock the boat. I don’t know if our institution would listen to parents or not, but I think this is a good idea. DE in our state is handled in a compartmented way, so I think that makes a difference.

 

[Arcadia]

4 minutes ago, kbutton said:

I’ve raised issues with the high school, and they are reluctant to rock the boat

Our CCs have three different types of dual enrollment, all of them free 

1) middle college

2) classes in collaboration with specific local public high school so kids in those classes are from the same high school 

3) classes that are open to public and high school students are enrolling under their dual enrollment program for all high school students. This has a cap on free classes per term.

So if its the first or second option we are taking about, schools would be reluctant to rock the diplomatic relationship.

[Corraleno]

I agree with others that a big part of the problem seems to be the increasing use of adjuncts. DD's CC classes have run the gamut from reasonably well-organized and well-taught to complete dysfunctional chaos. She ended up dropping several classes when it became obvious in the first few weeks that the instructor was a total flake and the Canvas materials were a disorganized and incomplete mess, and she retook them later with a better instructor.

DS is at an OOS flagship, and he's had a few really disorganized classes, too, all of which have been taught by either TAs or adjuncts. In one class the grad student instructor got an unexpected research grant and literally just left for Africa halfway through the semester! He'd occasionally upload a recorded lecture, randomly change assignments and due dates, and completely stopped replying to email. But other than that one class, I would say even the worst of his other classes were about the same level as DD's "best" CC classes.

I mean, I would not expect the level of instruction at a CC to be equivalent to a major research university, but for many of DD's classes the level of content, organization, and teaching was below a lot of classes I took in high school — and significantly below my kids' homeschooled HS classes. Even DS says he was totally spoiled by Lukeion, because none of his university classes have been that well organized!

[prairiewindmomma]

My kids have been very choosy about what section they get into. If an English class is offered by 5 different faculty, we research each and look at reviews and then pick. Our local cc has some truly fantastic faculty, and a few duds. 
 

Ds did get a bad prof with syllabus, tech, and assignment issues who has tenure. That prof does some high end research and publication, and honestly, all would be served well if they stopped teaching. But, it is what it is. Ds survived and left very honest and specific feedback in the review. Other students in the class apparently went en masse  to the department head at one point after they were tested on content not taught and not in the materials. I havent heard if things have changed…but I agree that just silently coping generally isnt the only solution.

[Indigo Blue]

I would not be surprised to hear that it is going downhill in quality. Everything seems to be. 
 

However, my youngest ds was in college fivish years ago, and his community college classes were above and beyond. He was a bit surprised at the difference when he went to the university. It wasn’t near as good as the CC at that time. 
 

Things are changing. Sigh. 

[cintinative]

well, my oldest has taken a bunch of asynchronous online classes at our local university, and unfortunately, at least a few of them have been like that. So I don't know that it is a community college thing.

[City Mouse]

My DS had some asynchronous on-line classes (even before Covid) that were well organized and planned out for the entire semester in advance. They followed the system for on-line course that I had been trained in several years before that. Then, during Covid, he took several classes at the same college that had become online due to the pandemic. Some of those were awful, and others were just ok. This leads me to think that the quality of the course is left to the instructor when there is so big differences on the same campus.

[Kassia]

52 minutes ago, cintinative said:

well, my oldest has taken a bunch of asynchronous online classes at our local university, and unfortunately, at least a few of them have been like that. So I don't know that it is a community college thing.

I agree based on my kids' experiences in both types of schools.  One in particular at my dd's university was absolutely terrible and should have been reported.  

[Paige]

57 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

IEven DS says he was totally spoiled by Lukeion, because none of his university classes have been that well organized!

Mr Barr is the bar that DS compares all his instructors to! But really, he was just what I expect a normal, responsible instructor to act like. 

[Kassia]

56 minutes ago, Indigo Blue said:

I would not be surprised to hear that it is going downhill in quality. Everything seems to be. 
 

However, my youngest ds was in college fivish years ago, and his community college classes were above and beyond. He was a bit surprised at the difference when he went to the university. It wasn’t near as good as the CC at that time. 
 

Things are changing. Sigh. 

Our local cc is mostly fabulous with really dedicated and great professors.  Can't say the same overall for the universities my kids attended (although there were certainly good and bad at both CC and university).  

[cintinative]

1 minute ago, Kassia said:

I agree based on my kids' experiences in both types of schools.  One in particular at my dd's university was absolutely terrible and should have been reported.  

It is hard because I have been pushing for my son to do this. He has put in reviews on ratemyprofessor but I think that when he declines this university's offer of admission he should be very honest about the fact that it has a lot to do with the course quality. Unfortunately, either because of quick growth or other reasons, many of the classes at this university are offered only as asynchronous. That was the nail in the coffin for us, because this semester's classes (of which some are sophomore level in the major) have largely been awful.

[EKS]

4 hours ago, Paige said:

Is this CC these days?

It's not just CC.  My university has similar issues, particularly for courses that have adjuncts as instructors.  I got paid as an undergraduate TA than the adjunct for the course I was TAing for got paid.  Because of this, I suspect that many adjuncts don't do anything to improve the courses.  The other issue is that I'm pretty sure that most students don't report problems or, frankly, even notice problems.

Edited April 11 by EKS

[fairfarmhand]

I'm currently taking classes at my community college. So far, there have been a few little hiccups, but overall, this has not been my experience. The classes I've taken online are decently organized and I can understand what is due and when it's due. The syllabi are generally up to date as are the due dates for projects and assignments. 

Some of my kids' university classes online have been fine while others not so much, but only ONE class during Covid was truly horrible. It seems that at their university, the professors who like online teaching and have the tech skills to do so manage fairly well, while the others who are better in person, don't seem to be required to teach the online classes (except for Covid and that was a mess). Even during covid, with the exception of the one horrible class, most of the professors managed their tech limitations with good humor and cut everyone some slack on due dates and stuff, if the professor's tech skills were the issue. 

[Corraleno]

One of the many downsides of using a lot of adjuncts and TAs for lower level classes is that those course sections are often listed in the schedule with "TBA" in the instructor slot, so there's no way to know in advance who you'll get. Even if you know the instructor, TAs and adjuncts often have few, if any, reviews on RateMyProfessor, because they may not have taught that particular class before and may never teach it again. 

And there are just a lot of inherent problems in combining the least experienced instructors with the least experienced students, including freshmen who are transitioning from the hand-holding of most high schools to the independence of college, while trying to figure out a course management software with 50 moving parts, which every instructor uses (or doesn't use) in different ways. 

[athena1277]

The CC my ds is taking DE classes at has a good reputation in our area.  This semester ds is taking 2 classes, one on person and one online (the only option for the particular class).  The online class has been fine.  It’s the in person class that’s stressing me out.  There have been no grades for over half the semester.  I really don’t understand how the teacher is running this class.  I’m just hoping that when it’s over ds will have a decent grade.

[Arcadia]

2 minutes ago, athena1277 said:

There have been no grades for over half the semester.  I really don’t understand how the teacher is running this class.  I’m just hoping that when it’s over ds will have a decent grade.

I took a one credit asynchronous class last quarter that is most likely used as a CEU by most students. The teacher was non existent all quarter and gave three assignments with the same weightage, no exams. She has graded two of the three assignments two days ago and spring quarter has already started. I am guessing everyone who did their assignments is going to end up with an A+ (100%) for their grade.

[PronghornD]

As a tutor, I had a student whose course videos were not working for an asynchronous class. It was hard to get fixed. I had to complain directly in the end, and the teacher fortunately listened to me. I think she said no other students complained.

In many of these online courses, the teachers really end up just being graders.

[catz]

Well I haven't read all responses and my youngest finished dual enrolling last year and graduated.  But both my kids generally had high quality classes and excellent teachers at their community colleges.  I will say we are urban, those jobs are very competitive, and some teach the same classes adjunct at much fancier 4 year colleges/universities local.  Both were able to transfer a lot of their credits to their chosen 4 year universities.  My older kid graduated from a top 15 public U and still says some of his best teachers were at the urban CC.  My younger kid had a CC teacher that went way above and beyond for her in a number of ways.  They took both online and in person classes at times.

I do get the feeling this can vary a lot by location and particular community college.  I am sorry you are having a bad experience.  

Edited April 11 by catz

[Bootsie]

I think CC experiences vary greatly depending upon the state you are in.  You add online/asynchrounous class structure on top of that and, unfortunately, some of these classes are of very low quality.  Sometimes these courses are taught by adjuncts who have little experience and little support who quickly become overwhelmed by more students than they can handle while being paid peanuts.  

[katilac]

CCs vary tremendously. I knew my kids were never going to do DE at our CC for anything other than a strictly-for-fun class, because most of their academic courses are not college level (they do have some great healthcare pathways). They did DE at one of the local universities.

Having an agreement with state universities doesn't necessarily mean anything; a lot of kids have a rough adjustment to university after spending one or two years at our CC. Looking at syllabi and texts used can help you judge, along with listening to local chatter. I personally think that having a large number of DE students in class who are 16 (or even younger) makes it much harder to keep the class at a true college level - partially because the discussion isn't likely to be at that higher level, and partially because very few teachers feel like they can truly hand out a lot of D's and F's, even when they are merited, so they adjust expectations.

[Laurel-in-CA]

I think CCs vary. Our local CC is (luckily) one of the best in the state and my two kids who have gone there and then on to state U report that CC classes were definitely more challenging than state U. That said, transitioning to online classes has not been smooth, especially for older profs. As one kid said, "I know more about Canva than my instructor." I also think there's something to be said for butts in seats twice a week, at least. One of my youngest's classes for next semester (senior year) is 6 hours on a Friday...in a seat. It does make it easier to work her 32-hour-a-week job around her school schedule, but that's a LOT of time on one topic!

[Laura Corin]

I don't have CC experience but I have a question  - I'm a university administrator and if module deadlines were that poorly signposted, it would give students grounds for appeal to get adjusted marks or other accommodations.  Is that not an issue?

[Arcadia]

57 minutes ago, Laura Corin said:

I don't have CC experience but I have a question  - I'm a university administrator and if module deadlines were that poorly signposted, it would give students grounds for appeal to get adjusted marks or other accommodations.  Is that not an issue?

It is grounds for appeal if deadlines are not clear or just plain wrong. I emailed two of my lecturers over wrong deadlines and they apologized in the reply and immediately corrected it on Canvas.  The issue is many students would not appeal for fear of backlash. It is very easy for me to get a response because lecturers know I don’t need the credit and have time to kick a fuss. 

[Laura Corin]

On 4/12/2024 at 8:59 AM, Arcadia said:

It is grounds for appeal if deadlines are not clear or just plain wrong. I emailed two of my lecturers over wrong deadlines and they apologized in the reply and immediately corrected it on Canvas.  The issue is many students would not appeal for fear of backlash. It is very easy for me to get a response because lecturers know I don’t need the credit and have time to kick a fuss. 

I think professors have more absolute control over courses in the US system. In my department in Scotland,  an appeal would go - confidentially  - to the head of dept., eta who is an academic. And evidence would be collected by an administrator. 

Edited April 14 by Laura Corin

[madteaparty]

4 hours ago, Laura Corin said:

I don't have CC experience but I have a question  - I'm a university administrator and if module deadlines were that poorly signposted, it would give students grounds for appeal to get adjusted marks or other accommodations.  Is that not an issue?

From what I understand, grade appeals are very rarely successful here. It basically needs to be a constitutional issue (a prof friend of mine told me she changed a grade when a student would have failed some licensing process without it). It seems crazy to me there is no process to dispute a grade but that’s the way it seems to be, profs have full autonomy. 

[regentrude]

23 minutes ago, madteaparty said:

From what I understand, grade appeals are very rarely successful here. It basically needs to be a constitutional issue ...

it seems crazy to me there is no process to dispute a grade but that’s the way it seems to be, profs have full autonomy. 

I don't think that is generally true.

We are required to list the contact for complaints about the instructor in our syllabi, typically the chair or in some cases the associate dean.

Any student is free to contact department chairs with issues, and there is a committee that handles complaints about capricious grading. Instructor not adhering to syllabus policies would be grounds for complaint, as would inconsistent grading between different students. 

While a low test average alone wouldn't constitute a complaint worthy issue, schools take DFW rates very seriously when it harms graduation rates and the tuition revenue -  forcing instructors to dumb down their content or inflating grades.

Edited April 12 by regentrude

[Bootsie]

1 hour ago, madteaparty said:

From what I understand, grade appeals are very rarely successful here. It basically needs to be a constitutional issue (a prof friend of mine told me she changed a grade when a student would have failed some licensing process without it). It seems crazy to me there is no process to dispute a grade but that’s the way it seems to be, profs have full autonomy. 

Every university I hae taught at has a process for a grade appeal.  That process is clearly outlined in the student handbook.  Generally the student has to have some grounds for the appeal--evident bias in grading; grades were not calculated int he manor described on the syllabus, course grade was miscalculated, etc.  Grades often cannot be appealed for things like student things the course was too difficult, student needs a higher grade to keep  a scholarship, student did not show up for an exam and received a zero.

[Melanie32]

My daughter is finishing up her AA at a community college and her classes have been mixed-some great, some simply awful! We choose each class and professor as carefully as possible but sometimes all of the options seem bad. Overall it has been a positive experience though and she has had some great professors! Her math professor has been exceptional!

We will see how her future University classes compare.

[Arcadia]

23 hours ago, Paige said:

If DC just switch immediately to the higher price university should we expect better?

Look at the class sizes at the university. Here, the class sizes for freshman and sophomore are huge for state universities. The discussions are done by TAs. People like my DS18 who need small class sizes to thrive choose the CC transfer route and is going to be a junior in fall. DS19 is currently a junior and his class sizes for core classes for his computer science major is still larger than CC. A engineering school lecturer there commented that the CC transfer students do better than those who came in as freshman according to department data. His guess is maturity of the CC transfers. 

[SHP]

I had had at least one in CC since 2018. There has been a huge shift since the pandemic. I cannot day it was the pandemic as much as I can say it was that the pandemic seemed to have been the proverbial straw the broke the camel's back. The ones who started in 2018 had some of the best teachers I could have asked for. They got so much from the instruction, built relationships, and had a great experience in every way. By comparison, this year was a class that only met a few times, the teacher couldn't answer content related questions and suggested Google. Despite upwards of 12 hours a day trying to figure out and learn the content they got a B because they bombed the final essay that wasn't really related to the subject matter they were trying to learn. Had the class been better organized they would have aced the essay, the essasy would be in their ability. Due to the extreme stress and anxiety that came from having to not only self teach college level material, they didn't have the time or resources to put in towards the essay. 

Went something like this:

This is a class.

Google to learn the content.

Your final is an essay. 

The amount of self teaching required was beyond acceptable. The final essay didn't reflect the content of the course or what was expected to be learned from the course description.

[madteaparty]

11 hours ago, Bootsie said:

Every university I hae taught at has a process for a grade appeal.  That process is clearly outlined in the student handbook.  Generally the student has to have some grounds for the appeal--evident bias in grading; grades were not calculated int he manor described on the syllabus, course grade was miscalculated, etc.  Grades often cannot be appealed for things like student things the course was too difficult, student needs a higher grade to keep  a scholarship, student did not show up for an exam and received a zero.

Oh I’m sure there is a process and it’s well articulated on paper. Blessed by lawyers even 🙂 

i have never heard of a grade changing for a reason other than what I wrote. Many things can be true at the same time.

[madteaparty]

12 hours ago, regentrude said:

I don't think that is generally true.

We are required to list the contact for complaints about the instructor in our syllabi, typically the chair or in some cases the associate dean.

Any student is free to contact department chairs with issues, and there is a committee that handles complaints about capricious grading. Instructor not adhering to syllabus policies would be grounds for complaint, as would inconsistent grading between different students. 

While a low test average alone wouldn't constitute a complaint worthy issue, schools take DFW rates very seriously when it harms graduation rates and the tuition revenue -  forcing instructors to dumb down their content or inflating grades.

Just out of curiosity, how many grade changes have you seen in your career? 

[Kassia]

28 minutes ago, madteaparty said:

Oh I’m sure there is a process and it’s well articulated on paper. Blessed by lawyers even 🙂 

i have never heard of a grade changing for a reason other than what I wrote. Many things can be true at the same time.

Ds1 was able to have a grade changed at his university but he had to push very hard for it.  I don't remember the full process (he graduated from college 11 years ago), but it definitely took a lot of work on his part and his assertive personality certainly helped (I have other kids who are much more passive an wouldn't have pursued the grade change).  In his case, his grade fell from an A to a B due to a poorly worded/graded test by the instructor.  She wasn't a full-time professor - she worked in industry and taught part-time. 

[regentrude]

1 hour ago, madteaparty said:

Just out of curiosity, how many grade changes have you seen in your career? 

Hundreds.

(Eta: for perspective: in the last ten years, the 10,000 students in my classes have written 30,000 exams containing 90,000 fully worked out problems that require grading with partial credit, plus an additional 160,000 multiple choice exam questions.)

1. I teach a large class (500 students), and our exams are graded by a team of instructors and TAs. We have a regrade procedure where any student who feels their exam has been misgraded can file a written appeal, and we take another look. Sometimes the student has no grounds and we deny; sometimes, a TA made an error and we fix the grade. When I am the sole instructor for a class, I almost never got complaints. But as soon as you have to use TAs to help, there will be errors, because it requires a lot of experience to evaluate incorrect solutions and give appropriate partial credit. We have several requests for each exam, and each is evaluated carefully and often leads to a grade correction. 

2. I have had students contact me about incorrectly entered final grades by their instructors. We submitted grade change requests to the registrar. This doesn't happen very often, only every few semesters.

3. As I do not serve on the capricious grading committee, I do not see what happens with other instructors. In our department,  there are usually no complaints about instructors not adhering to their syllabi or nonuniformity of grading. OTOH, uniformity is pretty easy to achieve in physics, compared to other subjects. ( ETA: just asked our department chair who says, in his six years as chair, he never had any complaints)

Eta: 4. Occasionally,  a student discovers an ambiguous phrasing in a question, or an error in the answer for a multiple choice. Those get fixed by adjusting the grades. This happens every couple of years.

Edited April 13 by regentrude

[Corraleno]

DS had 2 classes as an undergrad where grades were changed for the entire class.

In one case, final grades had already been submitted and appeared on unofficial transcripts, and then about a week later everyone got a vaguely worded email from the instructor saying he had regraded the final exam, which changed final grades, so check transcripts for updated grades. That was the class where the instructor took off for Africa in the middle of the semester, and there was material on the final that was never covered in the text or the (nonexistent) lectures, so I assume there must have been a lot of complaints. 

The other was an upper division class taught by a new instructor who had very high standards and was a really tough grader; a lot of students were really upset when they got lower grades than they were used to, and some complained to the department head. After the final exam a lot of students were really unhappy and went to the department to complain, and apparently the instructor was required to add a certain number of points to everyone's final exam grade because of "too many low grades."  DS actually liked the class and worked his butt off and the extra points ended up pushing his final grade to 104, lol. He even wrote a letter of support to the chairman saying he felt that the students' complaints were unfair and he thought she was a good instructor who really knew the material, but unfortunately she was not rehired.

(ETA: there were also a few cases in GenEd/Intro classes where there were errors on multiple choice exams that got regraded when the errors were pointed out. The above are the only cases where grades were changed due to student complaints about the content of the exams or grading standards.)

Edited April 13 by Corraleno

[Bootsie]

I have been teaching at the university level since the mid-1980s.  Over the years, I have had a number of students who came to me and I regraded their work.  Sometimes I missed part of a students answer, sometimes I couldn't read their handwriting, sometimes they made one careless error that through them way off and once they pointed it out to me I could go back and grade from the error and give them extra points, sometimes I recorded a grade incorrectly, sometimes I misadded points, sometimes a student explained their misinterpretation of a question and how their answer showed reasonable knowledge of the material given their misinterpretation, a few times a smudge on a paper has led to a Scantron machine misgrading a paper.  

I am extremely careful when grading and recording grades, but I have had semesters with 750 students, some of which I have had 24 hour turn-around time from giving a final exam until grades had to be sumbitted.  Errors do occur.  Talking to a professor about grading and having a professor correct an error, or reevaluate the paper, is relatively common, in my experience. 

Students having an administrator overturn a grade a professor assigned, however, in my experience is extremely rare.  Over the years I have had students who have not been happy with their grade, and I have alwys pointed out the process they are to follow to appeal a grade (which has varied by university).  In all of the years, I have had ONE student who has filed an appeal.  At that university the process was that a written appeal was made to the department chair.  The department chair did not overturn the grade; the student had the right to escalate the appeal to the dean's office (and then the provost) but chose not to.

I directly know of two other students who have appealed grades.  One was a student who had been witness to a professor sexually harassing another student (for which the professor was disciplined); the student had to take a class that was team-taught by that professor because it was the only offering for her major; she received a low grade because of grading on subjective work (presentations, etc.) and was able to appeal that it was retalitaory grading; she won.  I know of another student who was able to get a grade overturned on the grounds of capricious, discriinatory grading; that case went through the entire appeals process of the university.  

I also know of students who have appealed grades that they received due to academic dishonesty.  At some school a professor determines academic dishonesty has occurred and grades accordingly with the student having to appeal if they disagree with the determination; at other schools, the professior cannot penalize a grade on the grounds of academic dishnesty without submitting the violation and a committee ruling that it has occured.  

I know of no cases of adminiistrators changing grades because the class was too hard, too confusing, overall grades were too low, etc.

 

[Shelydon]

YES!  I have one who has completed college, one in college, and two enrolled in dual credit.  Between them, we have experienced college class in two community colleges and 3 universities.  The lower level classes are atrocious.  They are so, so very light weight and do not teach anything worthwhile.  One of my daughter's literature classes watched two movies and had to write a paragraph about each, and that was the entire class.  They didn't read a book for American Literature.  My current dual credit student is enrolled in a American Lit class this semester.  To date, they have read a web-"published" short story each week with homework like  identify one character or identify the setting.  My oldest took a statistics class at a small university (only 25 students in the course).  She pulled out her graphing calculator that she used for high school math and pre-cal/calculus in college and not one of the other students had ever seen one.  They all used math apps to get the answers for Alg. 2 in high school.  It's crazy town.   It is so incredibly dumbed down it is NOT worth the money.  We now do dual credit on top of a regular homeschool full load because I am not paying $1500 for a crappy class when they get to university.

 

[BusyMom5]

My kids have taken classes at my local CC for the past 6 years- it's very mixed!  Some instructors are great- and that includes both online and in person classes.  Others are terrible- they are on my NOT AGAIN list.  I know one I complained about to the DE coordinator- the professor was fired (I wasn't the only complaint).  

At the bigger universities you can still find lousy instructors.  One if mine had one last semester and she was awful!  I'm not sure how many students failed the course, but she isn't an instructor this semester (according to RMP she has taught at 3 other colleges).  My DD managed to get an A, but she self-taught the whole course,  several hours of studying a day.  

 

[Shelydon]

I have seen grades over turned by department chair via an appeal.  In one case, a upper level science instructor stated that she would provide a formula sheet for the final with specific formulas on it, so she wanted students to not spend their study time memorizing those formulas and instead work on other things.  On the final, she declined to provide the formula sheet.  The class was recorded and all of the students appealed and showed the head of dept. the recording.  They were allowed to retake the final exam. 

[regentrude]

4 hours ago, Shelydon said:

YES!  I have one who has completed college, one in college, and two enrolled in dual credit.  Between them, we have experienced college class in two community colleges and 3 universities.  The lower level classes are atrocious.  They are so, so very light weight and do not teach anything worthwhile.  One of my daughter's literature classes watched two movies and had to write a paragraph about each, and that was the entire class.  They didn't read a book for American Literature.  My current dual credit student is enrolled in a American Lit class this semester.  To date, they have read a web-"published" short story each week with homework like  identify one character or identify the setting.  My oldest took a statistics class at a small university (only 25 students in the course).  She pulled out her graphing calculator that she used for high school math and pre-cal/calculus in college and not one of the other students had ever seen one.  They all used math apps to get the answers for Alg. 2 in high school.  

What you write about English sounds atrocious.

However, I have one comment: not using a graphing calculator is not a sign of a weak math education. I have a PhD in theoretical physics and have never used one, nor have either of my kids who both have physics degrees.

[regentrude]

4 hours ago, Shelydon said:

I have seen grades over turned by department chair via an appeal.  In one case, a upper level science instructor stated that she would provide a formula sheet for the final with specific formulas on it, so she wanted students to not spend their study time memorizing those formulas and instead work on other things.  On the final, she declined to provide the formula sheet.  The class was recorded and all of the students appealed and showed the head of dept. the recording.  They were allowed to retake the final exam. 

As they should.