4 ms·

> Especially now that she has to post everyone's grades online, instantly emails roll in when a student didn't perform as well as the parent expected. Not to

> Especially now that she has to post everyone's grades online, instantly emails roll in when a student didn't perform as well as the parent expected. Not to take away from your point, which I think has merit, from the other side of the spectrum as a parent that has a child that struggled mightily to not fail for the first couple years of high school, the amount that teachers screw up the online grading is incredible. As teachers, if you're getting regular requests from parents worried about assignments showing online with zero/empty values for them that cause the grades to show F and it's just because you haven't finished entering all the work in, maybe find a workflow process that eliminates or reduces the amount of time the system shows that? Seeing multiple F's show online for days at a time leads to tense discussions and arguments with kids, and if it's all resolved with the teacher saying "I haven't finished entering grades yet" you start to really resent the system from the other side too.

cowsandmilk 8y ago
You're describing here a different problem, which I know from talking to teachers also causes them stress. The people who make the software cause this problem, not the teachers themselves. They often don't have a way to avoid this and they aren't the ones deciding what software is used.
- emiliobumachar 8y ago
  Seconded. Showing "F" as a placeholder for pending data entry is a very, very bad idea. Equivalent to a hypothetical email software that autofills "Fuck you" if you don't type anything.
- kbenson 8y ago
  I assume the simple way to avoid it would be to not create an assignment in the system ready for grades to be entered until you actually have grades to enter. While a way to put an assignment in a state that it doesn't affect overall grades would be good and annoying if missing, it doesn't seem like something that's impossible to work around.
  - ams6110 8y ago
    The system simply needs to differentiate between a grade "not yet posted" and a zero. I'm not sure why this observation has not been made by LMS software designers.
  - kaitai 8y ago
    But if you don't create the assignment, then it doesn't show up in the calendar, and if it doesn't show up in the calendar (even if it's in 28-point bold font with a date next to it on the main page) then students claim they didn't know there was an assignment due! One can create 'fake' assignment-like pages with the assignment details and then enter an event into the calendar that's not linked to the assignment-info-that's-not-the-assignment-so-it-won't-show-in-the-gradebook, but then you can't have the rubric for grading built onto it because only assignments can have the grading built in, and then you need to turn the assignment itself on at some point and make sure students know to submit there since it'll be a different link than the assignment-thats-not-an-assignment so you'll still have blank grades until the thing's graded, because you can't submit files through not-an-assignment pages. I've tried this and several other iterations.
- Aeolun 8y ago
  I don’t think it’s the people that ‘make’ the software. It’s the people that decide what software to make.
e40 8y ago
This. The number of errors my son's teachers commit is appalling, and he's in a top 50 hs in the country.
sethammons 8y ago
When I was teaching, grading took so incredibly long that there would be periods of time (read: nearly always) where I was simply behind entering scores. I typically did 10 to 12 hour days plus a good 6hr day most Saturdays, and usually a few hours Sunday. I only caught up on student vacations.
- kbenson 8y ago
  To be clear, the problem is not just being behind entering scores, it's entering base assignment info into the grading system and then being behind entering scores. I'm not sure what prevents teachers from creating the assignment in the system once they have scores to enter, so the time during which it would be erroneously affecting a grade is minimized, but a lot of teachers to not seem to do this. What I don't understand is why, given that they must see the problems this creates as they eventually roll downhill to the teachers.
  - sethammons 8y ago
    The software we used to have (Aries Portal) did not have a "ready to publish" state on entered assignments (at least, not back then). As soon as the assignment was entered, it was immediately affecting grades. I did not have high hopes for usability testing or anything really. You could, at the time, access student info that, as a teacher, you should not have access to (discipline records, for example) with basic url tampering.
  - kaitai 8y ago
    As noted before, on Canvas and Moodle, can't have student uploads for assignment without an assignment created, and some won't link correct calendar settings without an assignment.
- erikpukinskis 8y ago
  Whenever I got into that situation, I’d use a kitchen timer. Divide the total amount of time I had for that assignment by the number of students. Set the timer for that amount. Read as much of the assignment as I could, and then just guess the right grade. I made it clear to students that if they felt the grade was wrong, or they wanted more detailed feedback, I’d be happy to read it again. I grade quickly and mistakes do happen, I’d tell them. I’m not gonna grade 100 papers over three days for $2/hour. I am happy to do it for two students for free. Most of the time students don’t even look at the feedback anyway, so I’d rather let the ones who care ask proactively.
smileysteve 8y ago
But how does this work in the future. Weekly report cards in elementary. Daily live updates in high school. To a single final 100% determining your ap credit / college course? Sounds like millennials have taken their need for instant gratification and the system is coddling them.
- kbenson 8y ago
  The problem is not about updates being infrequent, it's about updates being wrong or partially applied for days at a time. If the official way to check grades is online (and it is, by school policy and pointed out in every teachers's take-home documentation and in the open house nights where you meet your child's teachers), then I would rank accuracy first with timeliness a distant second.

cowsandmilk 8y ago

You're describing here a different problem, which I know from talking to teachers also causes them stress. The people who make the software cause this problem, not the teachers themselves. They often don't have a way to avoid this and they aren't the ones deciding what software is used.

emiliobumachar 8y ago
Seconded. Showing "F" as a placeholder for pending data entry is a very, very bad idea. Equivalent to a hypothetical email software that autofills "Fuck you" if you don't type anything.
kbenson 8y ago
I assume the simple way to avoid it would be to not create an assignment in the system ready for grades to be entered until you actually have grades to enter. While a way to put an assignment in a state that it doesn't affect overall grades would be good and annoying if missing, it doesn't seem like something that's impossible to work around.
- ams6110 8y ago
  The system simply needs to differentiate between a grade "not yet posted" and a zero. I'm not sure why this observation has not been made by LMS software designers.
- kaitai 8y ago
  But if you don't create the assignment, then it doesn't show up in the calendar, and if it doesn't show up in the calendar (even if it's in 28-point bold font with a date next to it on the main page) then students claim they didn't know there was an assignment due! One can create 'fake' assignment-like pages with the assignment details and then enter an event into the calendar that's not linked to the assignment-info-that's-not-the-assignment-so-it-won't-show-in-the-gradebook, but then you can't have the rubric for grading built onto it because only assignments can have the grading built in, and then you need to turn the assignment itself on at some point and make sure students know to submit there since it'll be a different link than the assignment-thats-not-an-assignment so you'll still have blank grades until the thing's graded, because you can't submit files through not-an-assignment pages. I've tried this and several other iterations.
Aeolun 8y ago
I don’t think it’s the people that ‘make’ the software. It’s the people that decide what software to make.

e40 8y ago

This. The number of errors my son's teachers commit is appalling, and he's in a top 50 hs in the country.

sethammons 8y ago

When I was teaching, grading took so incredibly long that there would be periods of time (read: nearly always) where I was simply behind entering scores. I typically did 10 to 12 hour days plus a good 6hr day most Saturdays, and usually a few hours Sunday. I only caught up on student vacations.

kbenson 8y ago
To be clear, the problem is not just being behind entering scores, it's entering base assignment info into the grading system and then being behind entering scores. I'm not sure what prevents teachers from creating the assignment in the system once they have scores to enter, so the time during which it would be erroneously affecting a grade is minimized, but a lot of teachers to not seem to do this. What I don't understand is why, given that they must see the problems this creates as they eventually roll downhill to the teachers.
- sethammons 8y ago
  The software we used to have (Aries Portal) did not have a "ready to publish" state on entered assignments (at least, not back then). As soon as the assignment was entered, it was immediately affecting grades. I did not have high hopes for usability testing or anything really. You could, at the time, access student info that, as a teacher, you should not have access to (discipline records, for example) with basic url tampering.
- kaitai 8y ago
  As noted before, on Canvas and Moodle, can't have student uploads for assignment without an assignment created, and some won't link correct calendar settings without an assignment.
erikpukinskis 8y ago
Whenever I got into that situation, I’d use a kitchen timer. Divide the total amount of time I had for that assignment by the number of students. Set the timer for that amount. Read as much of the assignment as I could, and then just guess the right grade. I made it clear to students that if they felt the grade was wrong, or they wanted more detailed feedback, I’d be happy to read it again. I grade quickly and mistakes do happen, I’d tell them. I’m not gonna grade 100 papers over three days for $2/hour. I am happy to do it for two students for free. Most of the time students don’t even look at the feedback anyway, so I’d rather let the ones who care ask proactively.

smileysteve 8y ago

But how does this work in the future. Weekly report cards in elementary. Daily live updates in high school. To a single final 100% determining your ap credit / college course? Sounds like millennials have taken their need for instant gratification and the system is coddling them.

kbenson 8y ago
The problem is not about updates being infrequent, it's about updates being wrong or partially applied for days at a time. If the official way to check grades is online (and it is, by school policy and pointed out in every teachers's take-home documentation and in the open house nights where you meet your child's teachers), then I would rank accuracy first with timeliness a distant second.