Running with the squirrels

Yes, originally it was the Running of the Bulls… now it is squirrels, or homework and students. This last week I know I wasn’t running from a physical animal, but I think I could empathize with those who have. Metaphorically, this clip has a lot to say about a graduate student trying to stay ahead of a stampeding amount of homework or a teaching assistant trying not to be run over by students.

To stay with the theme of running with the squirrels, I mean no disrespect to my students or my student status. The three most important concepts to me this week were: group grading, grading strategy, and cheating.

As the reading stated earlier, we need to command authority and make sure to develop respect from “the squirrels”. Part of our role is administering grades for the quality of student work. The first concept from the reading I will summarize is the idea of group grading. This concept suggests looking at individual performance when assessing grades for group work. I support this grading philosophy because of past experiences as a student. It never failed that I was in a group where at least one person didn’t do their share of work, resulting in someone, or myself, finishing the assignment. I never felt it was right for the slacker to receive the grade equivalent of the others. I know one argument against this approach is that in the real world your boss will not care who does what as long as it is done. I disagree. My work experience has shown me that they too see who completes their tasks and if it is on time. Eventually, this lack of, or additional, motivation is noted in a performance evaluation and/or a pay raise.

Individual grading will be useful when my students have to do debate speeches. I hope that the assignment will lend itself to doing individual evaluations. If not, my goal will be to try to develop a way for them to work in groups. As a communication student, a lot of my undergrad projects were group based. I also see group work coming into play now as I move towards being a part of a research team. Individual grading allows the instructor to assign grades that are equivalent of the work a student does. In research projects, these grades come in the form of the level of recognition as a contributor to an article or research project.

Next, as teachers we need to remember that students are often very focused on grades and we shouldn’t forget that this grade fixation may make it difficult to “manage squirrels”. Handling graded material can create a lot of stress for both the student and teacher. I recently experienced several of my squirrels reacting negatively to their grades. This section of First Day to Final Grade can be summarized by saying that students are emotionally linked to their grades. Identifying this emotional link helps us understand if our classroom experiences a climate change, or change in attitudes and participation, after the first assignment is returned. The text also suggests doing a quick average of how the class performed so students can gauge where they are at. And a recommendation is made to hand back material at the end of the period and save time to discuss it. This is timely for me because I recently handed back their first speeches and have seen an attitude change in my classes. I feel like we may be coming out of it, but the class has another speech starting next week. It is helpful to know that handing back work at the end of the period is a more efficient strategy. I plan to use this approach in the future, especially because I recently did it at the beginning and that didn’t go well for any of us!

I think the class average is useful for students to see where they are in comparison to others. If they are feeling poorly about the grade, the statistics may help them realize where they are at when compared to their classmates.

I believe that the approach to handling graded material can be applied to any field. Specifically in the communication field, one way to apply handling material would be to explain to students how they can improve their projects for the future.

My final point from this week’s reading is “you have to think like one”. How do you catch a cheater? You have to think like one. Some of the suggestions about how students cheat were surprising to me. I would have never thought of them. McKeachie gives examples like passing an eraser, writing on clothes, or calculators. (McKeachie does reference cassette recorders which I found comical.) The book talked about hiring people via the internet to write papers that contained enough mistakes so it looked like their own work. I know people do it, but does it really work. People innately have a writing style that allows their personality along with grammar usage habits to come out. The cheating information is useful to me because it caused me to stop and think about how students could cheat in public speaking. I had only thought about plagiarism from sources, not about them purchasing their speeches. I’m not yet sure how I could approach discouraging cheating in public speaking. I think I would be able to recognize it because I know who understands speech structure and who does not. I think I would question them if they suddenly show up with a perfectly organized speech.

In the communication field I think plagiarism or cheating would be like committing career suicide. Our field is founded on writing and creating messages, and a student who cannot complete the assignments should re-evaluate their career choice. Having information about how students cheat allows instructors to know how to evaluate assignments for signs of cheating. I’m curious to know if instructors do test runs with the groups that offer papers online to understand how the process works. I think it would help us “think like one.”

Wrapping up this week’s blog, the three main points are a little more philosophical than the other weeks. None the less, they are “the legs I will use to run with the squirrels” both in the student and teacher role.

additional tips for grading:
Group Grading Process Tips