Grading

[beige_alert]

My boss is one of the professors teaching a course in the biochemistry department here at the medical college, and he handed me the answers submitted for his question on the last exam. He’s going to do the actual grading, my task is just to rank them from best to worst to see how his and my judgments compare. I don’t know what exactly was covered in class, but the question is about the sort of thing I do for a living here, so I do know how much sense the answers make.

It’s tricky. Some people pretty much got the first part, some people at least kind-a get the second part, and a few have some clue about both. How to rank them? Is a hand-wavy but correct description as good as a detailed but not-quite-correct drawing of structures? Then there is the other category: people who apparently missed that lecture. Some people don’t know about what the question asked, but figured they’d write a page about something they do know. Some people apparently didn’t read the question. Is leaving the page blank, implying that you don’t know the answer, better or worse than filling it up with something that proves that you don’t know?

Comments

off the cuff...

[anach.livejournal.com]

I would probably start with a good answer to both parts, followed by a good answer to one part or the other (with some sort of idea about the other part), followed by a ranking on answers for just one part or the other. Then comes 'missed the lecture' or 'wrote a page of gibberish' depending on how much critical thinking they show about the material. Didn't read the question is a fairly poor response in my book.

As far as leaving the page blank, I would rather they at least attempted to come up with something.

Re: off the cuff...

[tigertoy.livejournal.com]

In the real world, honestly admitting that you don't know is much better than bullshitting. Unfortunately, the reverse is almost always the case in school, which is supposed to be where people learn how to handle the real world.