I recently blogged about a commitment made by our math department. As a reminder to you, dear reader, here is the statement from one of my course syllabi:
Beginning in the 2017 – 2018 academic year, our math department is adopting a policy of expecting test corrections on all in-class tests. The policy is described below.
- When grading tests initially each question will get one of three point assignments
- Full credit for reasonable support work and correct answer.
- Half-credit for minor mistakes as long as some reasoning is shown.
- Zero credit (in very rare cases) when there is no reasonable support shown or if the question is simply left blank.
- When grading tests, I will not put comments, I will simply mark one of these three ways.
- You will be allowed to turn in corrections. Corrections will be on separate paper and will have written explanations of errors made in addition to the correct work and answer. This work is to be in the student’s words but can be the result of consultation/help. These corrections will always be due at the beginning of the second class meeting day after the assessment is returned. You will return your original test along with your correction notes. I will remind you of this every time I return a graded test to you.
- It is not required that you turn in test corrections.
- The student can earn up to half of the points they missed on each individual problem.
- This policy does not apply to quizzes, only to in-class tests.
There are a couple of items in the learning curve to report on here. I will lead with the positives –
- We have an after school conference time that many students take advantage of for extra help. My room has been more crowded this year than it has been for years. I take this as a plus sign that students are committed to seeking help and investing in their math studies. Many of them are there talking with me and with their classmates about test corrections.
- I have had a number of students turn in their corrections the same day that they received their tests. It is a rare thing for students to turn in work days early, it is happening regularly right now.
- I walked out of my classroom today with a new student who was talking excitedly about how she is really thinking carefully about her work and she is sure that she’ll remember material better because of this.
- It is faster to return tests since I am simply marking them 100%, 50%, or 0% for each problem.
Now a few negatives, followed by some philosophical pondering about this whole endeavor.
- I anticipated that there would be very few zero scores on problems. There have been more than I thought but I hope that is a factor of students learning to show some work. This may be a positive as a zero stings a bit and they may be more inclined to be careful in their explications.
- Some students feel stung by relatively minor mistakes that initially result in a 50% on an individual problem. These minor mistakes turn into 75%. I am trying to point out that relatively major mistakes can also end up at the 75% level but some students feel a bit cheated.
- Early in the year averages fluctuate quite a bit anyway, but the fluctuations are exaggerated in this system. I see already that overall averages are a bit higher than normal and there is much less variance in scores. However, some students are scared since they have a hard time seeing the long game as clearly.
- Explaining this to folks outside the department has been a bit of a challenge.
When I was working on my doctorate I had a professor (my thesis advisor) who had a policy that every paper will be rewritten, not just every paper can be rewritten. The way he did this was to return our first drafts with no comments, just hash marks in the margin at certain points of the paper. These hash marks might be there to point out a flaw in our argument or our paper’s structure. They might also indicate a highlight. They might indicate a misspelling or a simple grammar problem. He was willing to discuss these hash marks in his office hours as long as it was clear that we had sound questions about them, in other words we had to prove to him that we had reflected on our writing. I have never thought so much about my own writing as I did in that class. I do not expect my 14 year olds to do this kind of self analysis, but I know that they ARE capable of careful reflection if they are given the time, space, and motivation to do so. What I am seeing when they come to me is that they have looked over their test, they have referenced notes and their HW. They have done careful thinking and they can usually explain their mistake on their own. This is not universal, but it is happening more often than not. Many students who come to my room to work on corrections have almost no question for me. They are berating themselves for ‘stupid mistakes’, they are laughing at silly things they wrote, they are even saying ‘I have no idea what this work means’ I am pretty convinced that this can be a huge growth opportunity for my students. They are being responsible for their own error analysis here and they are writing thoughtful reflections in the form of ‘On problem 4 I made this mistake, I should have done this instead’
We have midterm grade comments looming and as department chair I know I will have some questions coming my way about our reasoning and the long-term impact on grades. I will try to steer the conversations to long-term impact on learning and self-sufficiency. So far the policy has exceeded my hopes in my classes. I will be checking in with my department to get other points of view soon and I plan on sharing some of those conversations as well.