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Student-Teacher Interaction
Providing feedback and defending grading decisions
Students, being inquisitive by nature, want to know what you think of their work, and indeed, what do you think of their classmates’ work. Frustration occurs when a letter or point grade is awarded that is less than the maximum grade attainable and the grade is presented without comments. To avoid creating frustration in students, it is politic to provide correct answers to exams and to provide written comments upon lab report or other composition efforts. In the former case, students should be able to compare their work with answered exams that clearly show partial credit if it is awarded. If questions still exist, students may bring their exams to your office for evaluation. In the case of a lab report or other composition, short comments upon the written material along with a grading rubric will usually satisfy the most demanding students. Providing students with written input on their efforts indicates that the grading was not done in an arbitrary and subjective fashion, and shows a respect for their efforts. Comments should never be denigrating or facetious, and as much praise as possible can only help to convince students that you are a supportive instructor. This perception can go a long way to improving student performance.
To provide students with a sense of their performance relative to their peers, it is helpful and appropriate to publicize a histogram of anonymous grades. This functions in two ways: it allows students to see how they are doing relative to their peers, and allows them to see how the instructor evaluates their work relative to their peers. The more public you are with your grading methods and grades awarded, the less likely it is that students will question your methods.
Return graded material in a timely fashion
What are reasonable student expectations for return of quizzes, exams,
and lab reports, and what are reasonable instructor responsibilities for
these? Student expectations and instructor responsibilities can be very
different. Just as instructors must realize that students in general take
several courses each semester in addition to their own, students must
understand that instructors frequently teach more than one course each
semester and have a myriad of other responsibilities. In spite of this
and with experience, instructors can set out at the beginning reasonable
estimates of the time of return of submitted material. It is
usually possible to return quizzes in the next class period. For hour
exams, a week is reasonable. For lab reports, one to two weeks
seems sufficient time to complete the grading task. Of course there are
variations on these suggestions, both shorter and longer, but the important
fact is to try to meet your grading deadlines, and if you cannot, announce
it immediately in class with a new anticipated date of return.
Student-Teacher relationship
The student-teacher relationship is a consenting relationship based upon trust. The trust issue demands that protection exists against improper disclosure by an instructor of any aspect of student performance. This understanding extends beyond the confidentiality of records, and includes student-instructor discussions and other academic interactions that must be maintained in confidence. In order to maintain the inviolability of the student-instructor relationship, trust must be built. The tone that an instructor sets from the beginning of a class will establish the success of the student-instructor relationship.