Drake Law Faculty Bumbles Writing Exams, Will Students Suffer?

[ISUCKATTHIS]

ISUCKATTHIS, can you please provide an affirmative proposal for what you think should happen?

That's a much harder question and I am not qualified to address it.  I'll take a stab anyway.

Probably the best solution, if it is possible, is to curve separately those students taking the test under different conditions.  That would mean having a separate curve for all those students whose exams were misformatted.  The obvious probablem with this idea is that there may be an insufficient number of such students to form a normal distribution.  This would mean de-emphasizing the latter two questions in the weighting scheme.

Another, less fair solution would be to re-weight the questions for all or a portion of the students according to their exam's format.  Students with the proper format would get the exams with the original weighting scheme, students with an improper format would get a weighting scheme that compensated for their misallocation of time during the exam. 

Finally, if all else fails, one or all of the following imperfect solutions could be applied:  1) the formatting and/or organization of essay answers to the latter two questions could be officially disregarded by the administration in the grading process (i.e., grading for content only), 2) students with misformatted exams could be given compensatory points or 3) the last two questions could be disregarded in the grading process.

I have a strong suspicion that the number of students who consider themselves to have taken the exam under detrimentally different conditions is exactly one, but whatever. Cady said that the student was welcome to ask for a solution, but that most of the solutions were not going to be very adequate or reasonable. Which remains true.

Well, you got me.  All possible solutions are totally unreasonable, inadequate or both.  

Must be true because you and Cady said so.  

 

I think it's time someone finally said it: your username is incredibly apt! 

I can only assume yours is too. 

[PILOFOLO_REGIL]

ISUCKATTHIS, can you please provide an affirmative proposal for what you think should happen?

That's a much harder question and I am not qualified to address it.  I'll take a stab anyway.

Probably the best solution, if it is possible, is to curve separately those students taking the test under different conditions.  That would mean having a separate curve for all those students whose exams were misformatted.  The obvious probablem with this idea is that there may be an insufficient number of such students to form a normal distribution.  This would mean de-emphasizing the latter two questions in the weighting scheme.

Another, less fair solution would be to re-weight the questions for all or a portion of the students according to their exam's format.  Students with the proper format would get the exams with the original weighting scheme, students with an improper format would get a weighting scheme that compensated for their misallocation of time during the exam. 

Finally, if all else fails, one or all of the following imperfect solutions could be applied:  1) the formatting and/or organization of essay answers to the latter two questions could be officially disregarded by the administration in the grading process (i.e., grading for content only), 2) students with misformatted exams could be given compensatory points or 3) the last two questions could be disregarded in the grading process.

I have a strong suspicion that the number of students who consider themselves to have taken the exam under detrimentally different conditions is exactly one, but whatever. Cady said that the student was welcome to ask for a solution, but that most of the solutions were not going to be very adequate or reasonable. Which remains true.

Well, you got me.  All possible solutions are totally unreasonable, inadequate or both.  

Must be true because you and Cady said so.  

 

I think it's time someone finally said it: your username is incredibly apt! 

Actually, I think he's pretty good at this.  You asked him for proposed solutions (something he was not even claiming to be able to provide) and he obliged.  All of the solutions were pretty reasonable.  You dismissed them without offering any reason except your totally unfounded speculation that there wouldn't be enough affected students to form a normal distribution.  Then you told him he sucked and left.

LOL.

[ISUCKATTHIS]

Dude, it's cool.  I don't think she was getting all into the argument anyway.  Plus I think she was kidding.

[ToTransferOrNot]

Doesn't require any particular intellect to do what third graders know how to do. Doesn't require a saint, either; I wanted to make sure my intuition was correct, and I didnt feel like having the proctor interrupt me in a panic 2 hours in to the exam.

As I think more about this, I have less and less sympathy for someone in law school that doesn't realize there is something wrong with this picture.

I think you've demonstrated to within a hair's breadth of certainty that anything you can do "Doesn't require any particular intellect."

I won't dignify the ad hominem with a response, but I'm glad you agree that making sure that an exam with massive future implications is complete and in the right order doesn't require a high degree of intelligence.

I say again, you keep blathering on about how the school should "do something!" What, precisely, would you have the school do that wouldn't be unfair to all of the students who either A) didn't screw up and fail at checking the exam; or B) took the exam at some later point?

Something to keep in mind for life in general: being able to point out a problem is meaningless unless you have a solution for it.

[PILOFOLO_REGIL]

Sorry to burst your bubble, but goaliechica is a man.  I met him in real life in the summer of 2006. He is an illegal immigrant form the Chinandega province of Nicaragua named Joaquin Bustos and uses an oppositely-gendered pseudonym in order to evade immigration authorities.

[ISUCKATTHIS]

Doesn't require any particular intellect to do what third graders know how to do. Doesn't require a saint, either; I wanted to make sure my intuition was correct, and I didnt feel like having the proctor interrupt me in a panic 2 hours in to the exam.

As I think more about this, I have less and less sympathy for someone in law school that doesn't realize there is something wrong with this picture.

I think you've demonstrated to within a hair's breadth of certainty that anything you can do "Doesn't require any particular intellect."

I won't dignify the ad hominem with a response, but I'm glad you agree that making sure that an exam with massive future implications is complete and in the right order doesn't require a high degree of intelligence.

I say again, you keep blathering on about how the school should "do something!" What, precisely, would you have the school do that wouldn't be unfair to all of the students who either A) didn't screw up and fail at checking the exam; or B) took the exam at some later point?

Something to keep in mind for life in general: being able to point out a problem is meaningless unless you have a solution for it.

You might want to look at my post of several hours ago in which I identify at least five possible solutions, Mother Albert Einstein Theresa.  Shouldn't be that hard, it's quoted at least twice on this page alone.

Something to keep in mind for life in general:  being stupid is bad.

[ToTransferOrNot]

Doesn't require any particular intellect to do what third graders know how to do. Doesn't require a saint, either; I wanted to make sure my intuition was correct, and I didnt feel like having the proctor interrupt me in a panic 2 hours in to the exam.

As I think more about this, I have less and less sympathy for someone in law school that doesn't realize there is something wrong with this picture.

I think you've demonstrated to within a hair's breadth of certainty that anything you can do "Doesn't require any particular intellect."

To be honest, I didn't see your other posts. That said, I'll be sure to take your "stupid" comment to heart while I'm typing my resume.

That said, my problem with some of your solutions is that they penalize the folks who had the properly formatted exams. That simply isn't a plausible solution. You may argue that the people who failed to check their exams are largely innocent- but if you honestly think that at least a small part of the screwup doesn't fall on them, you're hopeless. The same cannot be said for those who took the exam with the proper formatting (or those who took it with the improper formatting and did what the OP should have done.) They really are 100% innocent here, and punishing them is beyond the pale.

You're right that having a seperate curve for those effected is probably the best solution, if possible. You're also right that it probably isn't possible; generally, classes under 20 or so people aren't curved. I imagine fewer than 20 were effected, but if that isn't true, then that solution (which I'm sure is being considered) would be best.  

Edit: for the record, my solution, if the curve one isn't plausible, is to grade them as they stand. They had extra time on the first question, they should have made some of the lost points up there (it is very rare that anyone gets 100% for any given question- the extra time should have allowed OP to get closer.) Tough lessons to learn, but there isn't any other solution.

[ISUCKATTHIS]

"You may argue that the people who failed to check their exams are largely innocent- but if you honestly think that at least a small part of the screwup doesn't fall on them, you're hopeless."

They failed to correct the administration's mistake, yes. But, then, so did everybody else in the room, including the proctors, the professor and the students with the correctly formatted exams. 

"I imagine fewer than 20 were effected, but if that isn't true, then that solution (which I'm sure is being considered) would be best."

You mean "affected."  The above is pure speculation based on nothing.  Aside from the grammatical correction, it doesn't merit being addressed.

[ToTransferOrNot]

"You may argue that the people who failed to check their exams are largely innocent- but if you honestly think that at least a small part of the screwup doesn't fall on them, you're hopeless."

They failed to correct the administration's mistake, yes. But, then, so did everybody else in the room, including the proctors, the professor and the students with the correctly formatted exams. 

The students who had the correctly formatted exams would have no way of knowing there was anything to correct. That is why punishing them in any way is absolutely beyond the pale- they are the only innocent group in this situation.

[ISUCKATTHIS]

"You may argue that the people who failed to check their exams are largely innocent- but if you honestly think that at least a small part of the screwup doesn't fall on them, you're hopeless."

They failed to correct the administration's mistake, yes. But, then, so did everybody else in the room, including the proctors, the professor and the students with the correctly formatted exams. 

The students who had the correctly formatted exams would have no way of knowing there was anything to correct. That is why punishing them in any way is absolutely beyond the pale- they are the only innocent group in this situation.

The group with the misformatted exams is not "guilty" of anything.  They are just as innocent as the group with the correctly formatted exams.  You're just talking nonsense now.