This week I learned from one student that when they got their grades for their first essays, many students were assuming that I was playing a trick on them and would eventually tell them to reverse the numbers in the grades. In other words if a student got 86% they were assuming that I would tell them it was only 68%. So, I guess I had deflated them so much that they didn’t really believe that they could do so well. However, it is clear that most students are really trying and paying attention to detail and responding to feedback. However, there were some students who were of course, rather unhappy with their grades. I remember one student in particular who had her essay returned to her at least three times because it was not three pages which was the minimum requirement. Each time she returned exactly the same essay which was still only two and a quarter pages long. Eventually I had to give up and just give her a token grade.
I had to miss one of my lessons on Wednesday morning in order to deal with an important administrative matter. When I turned up for my 12.30 lesson, one of the students demanded fair and equal treatment – he was of course suggesting that I cancel the lesson as I had had to do earlier. However, when offered fair and equal treatment – come in on Saturday morning for a makeup lesson – he declined and was quite happy to be treated “unfairly and unequally”.
Well, almost half of the overall grades for the course have now been allocated and so students should have a fair idea of how they are doing. Hopefully they will be able buckle down now for the home stretch and maintain the momentum that we have built up. However, this is the time of the semester when students tend to be overwhelmed by mid terms and find it difficult to keep up with all their work.
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