teacher's dilemma -- I let my students allocate bonus marks

[Lisa]

... to the people in their work groups whom they feel have contributed more. In the case of students whose grades are near a borderline (e.g. C+ to B-, or A to A+, for example), this could be enough to boost them into the next level.

Many of the students have decided that everyone in their groups deserves equal credit. In a few cases, most or all of the people in a group have singled out one or two colleagues as having done more work than everyone else, or set such an example of co-operation that they made the experience pleasant for everybody.

So far, so good -- but today my teaching assistant received an anonymous note slamming her and complaining that the bonus marks idea was "ridiculously unfair". She's kind of upset -- my view is that if the person doesn't make a specific complaint, we can't do much. I guess that somebody who felt unappreciated by his/her group might be disgruntled -- or that there may be someone who feels that awarding bonus marks based on this kind of thing is too "touchy-feely". But this is the first time in more than a decade (with dozens of groups per year doing the same procedure) when we've had this kind of reaction. Usually, students are happy when their extra efforts pay off in real terms -- and several people have commented that actually having some say in these matters means they "aren't being treated like a bunch of high-school kids".

Any ideas on what to tell my teaching assistant?

[Vincardog]

1. Take a note from Dean

We do not respond to anonymous comments. If the remark had any merit the complaint-ant would stand behind it.

[elehhhhna]

2. Yes. What is meant by "ridiculously unfair"?

The real life peer-review experience?
Soliciting and using feedback from students?

Anecdote: Northwestern U's Masters Program in Advertising students dom ost projects in groups (like the real world!) and if you are not cooperative and blow the peer input part, you go home and thanks for playing!

[amazona]

3. no idea but it does sound totally unfair to me

The people who win the popularity contests of life have plenty of other opportunities to get ahead. They should not be awarded the grades as well. I'm surprised it's the first time you had a complaint. I would have wanted to complain although, come to think of it since you are handing out some portion of the grades, I suppose I would feel it necessary to wait and complain behind your back. Yes, anonymously.

Why do teachers find it necessary to set up these situations where students can play games with each other's grades? Ugh. It sounds pretty durn high school to me.

The conservation movement is a breeding ground of communists
and other subversives. We intend to clean them out,
even if it means rounding up every birdwatcher in the country.
--John Mitchell, US Attorney General 1969-72

[BBradley]

34. I agree, as someone who just got out of highschool I can tell you that

not only is there the chance of it just turning into a popularity contest, but it only take one type-A personality to get the more shy kids to give the bonus to them.

Maybe the next time you should have the students annotate who did what, or who lead this discussion, etc. You can then look that over and if you feel the students contributed equally then the bonus could be awarded such, and if you feel certain students did extraordinary work you could discreetly award the bonuses to them.

[Lisa]

35. the annotations are a great idea

Currently the form we use has a single question on it (we've found that a lot of people are reluctant to answer a whole bunch of questions on their classmates in only a few minutes -- I would be too).

I've noticed that people often do write in brief comments like "Sarah did all the statistical analysis" or "This was a good group -- we pretty much shared everything equally" -- so adding a "comments" column shouldn't clutter the page up too much.

The TAs are around when the groups are working in the lab and doing their presentations, and they tend to notice if type-As are taking things over or keeping people from talking -- but they can't be around all the time. I hope that if there is any lobbying behind the scenes, people will do what they originally had in mind (the ballot is confidential).

I should note that I don't make it a zero-sum game. I don't put a limit on how many bonuses I award per group -- the assessment is just a relative thing to see how the group is functioning. If all 4 people in a group are within striking distance of an A, and they all rate each other as having been equally helpful -- sure, I'd boost them all. And there has to be pretty firm agreement within a group (and from the TAs as well) before I decide that I won't. I guess I'd rather get criticized for being too lenient than for not helping someone out who genuinely deserved a break.

[cally]

4. I don't know how you justify this from an educational perspective

Let me get this...If you are popular or a "Leader", then you will get a better grade??? That is essentially what you are doing.

School is not about group skills. It is not about popularity. There will be plenty of times for them to get ahead on this. Explain how you justify this from an learning and educational perspective. I think you are completely wrong and buying into popularity instead of education.

[Lisa]

6. You and amazona raise an important point ...

Never being one to win charisma-based contests, I also had concerns about this technique (which was actually introduced in our department more than a decade ago). Keeping in mind that there are people who happen to be more bossy or more charismatic than others, that's why I state (at the beginning of the course, to the class and also in a written handout) that they are being asked to evaluate their classmates in terms of actual quantitative things like amount of time put in, volunteering to book rooms and arrange meetings, doing a particuarly time-consuming data analysis, etc. -- also, they don't rate the entire class, but just their immediate group of 3-5 people. I hoped that this would reduce political lobbying or the "herd" mentality that you alluded to.

Plus, these are 2nd-year college students so by now most of them can spot free-riders, or people who talk big but don't deliver. In the past, some have expressed frustration about this. Unfortunately, how to get the most out of a group project is something that most schools expect us to pick up by osmosis -- they didn't give us any coaching on this until I was in grad school. That's why we go over some useful group work tips briefly, at the start of the term. It's actually a helpful set of skills for later on, since a lot of work situations involve some kind of collaboration, and figuring out how to cope with "control freaks" or "slackers" helped me get out of trouble on several occasions.

Each group has to do original research for a report and class presentation -- because it counts for a large proportion of the grade (by the wishes of the students, because they put so much time into it), there were some conflicts in the past because when the tasks were divided up, some people had more work than others. Ideally everyone would contribute the same amount of time and effort, but because of differing experience levels, hoped-for data sources not panning out, and interviewees not being forthcoming, it doesn't always turn out that way. The students themselves asked for some way to take this into consideration. For example, last year we had a group where one group member got stuck doing most of the legwork for the report, after someone else had to drop the course due to illness. The others in the group, on top of filling out the evaluation, asked me to reconsider her grade because they didn't think she should be stuck with a B- after doing most of the work. I thought this was pretty classy of them, so I boosted her grade.

So it's not really a prom-queen kind of popularity contest -- at least, I hope not. I hated that stuff in high school. (Although, if the prom queen volunteers to edit and collate the final report, no reason why she shouldn't be recognized for putting in the extra hours, if her group thinks so.)

p.s. Also -- I don't actually award a numerical grade based solely on what the students think of each other I agree -- that would be rather dangerous. I take the group experience into account, along with the TAs' assessments on whether a student is learning from the course and contributing in class, when deciding whether or not to give someone who's within one percentage point of a B- or an A, the benefit of the doubt. Hope this clarifies things!

[cally]

9. I support your goal

and I'm not trying to offend you. I'm trying to offer my experience. I went to graduate school, more than 20 years ago, and I can still rant about one classmate in a group project. We got a grade as a group and this idiot refused to accept any of the group projects. I'm still pissed about it, but more pissed about the grading system. Five of us agreed on the projects, worked hard, produced. This one jerk almost made us fail the class. We were supposed to work in a group. :eyes:

I also had many group projects where we evaluated each other. Probably similar to what you do. We could add to fellow students scores if we felt they added to the group. I remember that we would talk in these groups and try to gain points. Who got them is best left to another post. It wasn't the best or smartest students.

I graduated with great grades and stellar evaluations. I still think your system is horrible. I've had many group projects in the the 'real' world. I can guarantee that the made up ones for evaluation don't match what folks trying to get the job done do. We evaluate each other differently than we did in Graduate school. Twenty years later, it's all about being accurate and meeting deadlines. It's not about being innovative.

[Lisa]

14. one of the guys in my grad school class plagiarized his part ....

... of the assignment we submitted as a group. We didn't catch it because he was the last one to finish his contribution, and by then there wasn't time for us to do a final edit (there's an important lesson here, folks!). Anyway, we all got called into the programme director's office, and he 'fessed up. I don't think we'd have been expelled if he hadn't, but it was a very unpleasant experience. So I'm not surprised you remember the "jerk" so vividly! (More than a decade later, I talked to one of the other people in the group, and she admits that she's avoided conferences if she thinks that our guy might be there.) Stuff like that makes a pretty deep impression.

We actually don't let the groups have lobbying during the time when they're doing the self-evaluation -- we distibute a form for them to fill out, and we only give them a few minutes, on their own, so there's no time to chat about it. The "dollar amounts" or "bonus marks" they allocate to themselves and their groups are kept confidential -- we do notify people if we decide to boost their grades, but we don't tell them what their group allocations were. (Maintains some privacy that way.) All we say is "your group thought you deserved extra credit for all the extra work". I've had students say, even a couple of years after, that they still remembered that after forgetting their exact grade.

Since you've had more experience than I have in this area, could you recommend some suitable group evaluation techniques that students could use which would would be more realistic, based on what you deal with? No matter how much technology and theories have changed, the one thing that they've always been interested in is what to expect out there. The guy who taught these courses before I did used to have a rating system based on some government agency model that took ages to fill out, and a lot of students complained that it was "busy work" and embarrassing, to boot. And when I did do some seasonal contract work with a group of people, they didn't give us anything of the sort.

[cally]

26. Noone is as nice as you are

and I thank you for that. I'll offer some suggestions but I'm not an expert.

I think the difference is that there are deadlines. It's not about being the smartest or the best but meeting the deadline. If I were a Professor, I would create scenarios with 24 hour deadlines. If you can't get along and make it work, that tells you about this person.

Lisa, you are incredibly reasonable. Thanks.

[Lisa]

29. this is great! Thanks!

Giving them a good reason to meet the deadline -- or having a make-or-break time horizon like that -- would be challenging but it does sound like it would give them a better idea of what to expect. Especially (wicked grin) if they had to get together with the same bunch of people and do it again -- so they couldn't afford to sideline one person with an overload, or have a big outburst and alienate the rest of the team.

One of the biggest problems at this time of year is the number of people who are asking for extensions, or just handing things in late. Most instructors have late deductions to try to discourage this, but I've noticed that a lot of students just factor in the deduction and go on as before. I know for a fact that since our department generally takes off 10% per day, and the people in Bio have been known to dock 15-20%, that they will purposedly hand in stuff late to me so they can finish their Bio assignments on time. And who am I to say -- time management, right?

There is a guy down the hall from me who refuses to accept late work, period. He's actually taken a lot of flak from Admin over this. (Ironic, considering they're always telling us to incorporate more "real-world" situations.)

I tried an experiment earlier in the term, for a different (upper-level) course, where I had the students peer-review each other's papers. (Not for marks, though -- just for experience.) I told them that we were simulating what happens behind the scenes at a professional journal, where I'd once worked as an editor. For it to come together, everyone had to show up with duplicate copies of the paper -- one for me, and one for the person who'd volunteered to review the paper. Of course, for various reasons, some people didn't show up with their papers (or they forgot and only brought one copy). Meanwhile their reviewers are standing around waiting -- luckily, being kind of skeptical, I had someone standing by to whip out and make some extra photocopies so nobody left the class empty-handed. Most of the class got it ("oh, so I can't negotiate this deadline, because other people are depending on it") -- but I'm still working on how to make things more realistic.

Maybe I could try your 24-hour scenario during an intersession course (where there aren't as many classes being offered, so I'd have a better chance of being able to schedule in something like this without a course conflict with someone else's field trip, etc.).

[cally]

31. Getting my masters, we had to pass this 24 or 48

hour ritual. I don't remember the hours. Basically, we were assigned a topic and had to produce a research paper. At the time, I thought it was ridiculous. I've done many similar papers in my career. That's the real world. We get asked, well I'm paid now so I accept it, and we produce. We, and I do mean we, make sure we are correct.

[cmd]

5. I rather like your idea

Kids recognize who puts work into a project and who doesn't. This is one time when popularity doesn't rule. Work ethic does. What response should you make? None. Anonymous doesn't deserve it.

[proud2BlibKansan]

7. Have you had any training in

Cooperative Learning?

Doing this kind of grading is a big no-no. The authors of Cooperative Learning recommend using these structures as an instructional tool, but never for assessment. Students should ALWAYS be assessed individually and grades should be determined by the teacher, not by peers.

I don't teach college. I teach elementary school. But if you are asking my opinion, I would trash the peer grading idea and grade each student on their individual product.

Your story here is a classic example of why peer grading systems are not a good idea.

[Lisa]

8. actually, these kinds of techniques are being suggested on campus ...

We have a mandatory professional development day every semester, when the teaching centre suggests a range of different techniques aimed at "increasing student involvement in courses". I don't know what the situation is for elementary and high-school classes, since I have no experience in that, but the branch of administration which deals with Learning and Teaching Instruction has suggested this and other techniques for undergrad and grad courses. It seems to be happening at other (Canadian) colleges and universities, too. I wonder if it's based on the "empowerment" literature that's been influential in the social sciences lately (participatory action research, community control, etc.).

They do seem to be trying out some unorthodox or controversial stuff on us, though. After talking with some of the other instructors in my department, I drew the line at some of the things proposed, like having a "course union" for each class (a group of student volunteers who would pick course topics, decide how much assignments should be worth, and consult on grading disputes), because I had questions about ultimate responsibility for how things turned out. There was also the time when the school was urging us to incorporate new "online forums" software, and a couple of my colleagues reported that students posting legitimate questions were complaining about being flamed by some of their more outspoken or intense classmates -- I was glad I'd opted out of that particular experiment.

I figure that limiting the involvement to this extent means that people haven't seen their grades actually docked because some classmate was out to get them (and the TAs watch to see if there are group conflicts being reported, which helps). Any potential increase in grades is also rather small (not like going from C's to A's, which would be dodgy no matter what). Since I tend to use essay-type, more subjective evaluation techniques rather than multiple choice, it's a bit more subjective than a lot of other courses -- and if I'm going to err, I know I'd be more worried about giving a B+ to someone who actually deserved an A-, than the other way around.

[proud2BlibKansan]

12. How sad

Cooperative Learning was 'invented' by two families of educators. One of them is Canadian. How awful to see such a great program watered down to this. But I am not surprised. We are good at screwing up good things in education.

[Lisa]

16. it's the buzzword thing again ...

cooperative everything, students-as-clients, building critical assessment abilities -- Admin is keen to jump on the bandwagon, but these things require support, trained personnel, and (usually) smaller class sizes and more time.

Hence the watering-down and screwing-up.

[proud2BlibKansan]

18. Are you Community Building yet?

That's one of our new buzz terms in elem school.

One of my friends told me that her principal even told their staff that they could build community during testing by letting kids take turns passing out pencils.

I thought I would build community tomorrow by walking in an orderly line to lunch. :)

[Lisa]

22. they've mentioned it but they haven't told us what they think it means

We're still dealing with the "collegiality" and "student-focused participant evaluation" sections of our departmental review. Maybe at the fall PD seminar?

I tried to build community last week by putting some leftover Easter candy in the main office. Somehow I think the spectacle of people grabbing handfuls of chocolates and rushing off to eat them in their offices isn't what we were going for there ...

[proud2BlibKansan]

24. You should have made them share the candy

that would build community. LOL

[Nevernose]

30. I don't think you can make such a blanket statement

There are a lot of assessment techniques recommended for cooperative learning, depending on a variety of factors.

If there is some sort of group product being produced (a play, a poster, what have you), then two grades may be appropriate -- one for the group that everyone shares, and an individual one that represents each particular student's knowledge gained. I'm thinking here particularly of alternative assessments (in lieu of yet another essay test on Macbeth).

I've also had teachers and college instructors tell me that they have averaged the lowest and highest grade from the individual test scores and assigned that average to the whole group. Personally I don't think I would do that, especially not at my urban public school, but perhaps in a private school with only fifteen or twenty students in a class it might work, assuming that the class dynamics are such that all of the students have some kind of vested interest in performing.

There are a million more, as I'm sure you're aware, and I'm fairly certain that the research indicates that the important thing is that a group evaluation can't be the ONLY method of evaluation, merely one part. Anyway, I'm not trying to argue with you, just brainstorm. Maybe this would make a good topic for the education forum?

[Lisa]

33. we tried class assessment of presentations ...

Just for fun, I had the class rate a series of student presentations (in areas such as content, clarity, and creativity). I took the names off the results, made histograms, and worked out the medians. Then I showed them the ratings I'd come up with during the same time. The students were shocked, because nearly always, they marked their classmates more harshly than I did -- on a scale of 1 to 5, my grades were 0.5 to 1 higher than the medians, in all categories. (And also, it was a great way to introduce the topic of statistical error!)

It sure put a halt to complaints about my being a hard marker (especially when they knew more than half the class were more critical than I was). I've noticed that students frequently pay more attention to feedback, positive or negative, from their peers (I guess they figure I'm getting paid to say stuff about their work, so it doesn't count as much as unsolicited advice?)

Thanks for the suggestion about splitting the grade like that. Maybe I should include a project-related question on the exam, as a way of figuring out what individual students have learned.

[Lex]

10. The popular kids will get extra points

and the unpopular kids will not get extra points no matter how much extra work they've done.


Am I the only one who sees this?

[proud2BlibKansan]

13. I see this

it sucks, doesn't it?

[JVS]

11. Doesn't pass the smell test by me. I wouldn't allow this

I've seen groups where nobody did any work because they knew that a particular member would do it if they slacked. I don't think that it is important that people feel that they "aren't being treated like a bunch of high-school kids", I think it is much more important that each student's grade is an accurate reflection of his/her work, and thus would shy away from group work and wouldn't touch the idea of peers assigning credit with a ten foot poll.

[Lisa]

15. so how do we fix this? Suggestions?

A couple of people have commented that there are a lot of problems with any kind of group project -- even setting aside the popular/unpopular group dynamics issue. And I agree this can happen -- there was a case several years back where, partway through the term, one group had a major disagreement about who was doing most of the work. The TAs and I got suspicious and met with them on an individual basis -- in this case it wasn't one slacker causing the problems, but one person with high expectations and lots of free time, two more who sided with her because they were a bit scared, and another student with a normal courseload who was doing an okay job but just not satisfying the others' expectations. We managed to defuse the situation -- the high achiever backed off a bit, and they pulled together a great project. I always mention this situation whenever a TA says "we've got a slacker in the transportation impacts analysis group", just so we don't all jump to conclusions.

So I could drop the group project -- but it's also the part of the course that's consistently gotten the highest rating from the students.

We've found that having an interim report halfway through the term, and a meeting with the TA, tend to flag any potential problems before it gets too late. But even then, there's the uneven workload issue. We've tried to make suggestions about how to divide up the work -- it would be handy if we had a nice, controlled project where the data already had been collected and we already knew what they "should" be finding. It would be a snap to mark, too, But based on what I've seen, it's not great practice for real-life situations.

Should we forget about any attempt to allow for discrepancies within and between groups, in terms of project difficulty, or is there a better way to do this?

p.s. regarding the situation JVS mentioned, we had a similar thing happen last term, where one person got stuck doing the bulk of the work because everybody else left it to the last minute. The overall project didn't turn out well, because that group member was stressed to the max. After talking to her, and the rest of the group (who actually apologized to her for not doing what they'd promised) -- the instructors ended up boosting her grade because, considering these things, she'd done a pretty good job, for one person working round-the-clock on what was supposed to be a 4-person report. So, as far as rewarding actual work, that's one way to look at it.

[Rabrrrrrr]

19. Lisa, no matter what you do, someone at DU is gonna bitch about it

I say treat them like you should treat the anonymous complainer - ignore the hell out of it.

I think peer review is an excellent idea, and I have learned shitloads from it. Shitloads about myself, about working in a group, about being in a community, and about how I interact with others andhow others perceive me and, yes, how just about every group of people gets one or more assholes in it and how to deal with the fact that one will almost always have someone trying to sabotage you specifically or sabotage the group in general.

And after reading your many posts in which you explain your process, it seems to me you are doing fine and you have a good, mostly not-abusable system in place. No system is perfect; and hence, no matter what you do, or how you do it, someone is going to think you are fucked up. Ignore them. Do what you feel is right, and what you know works.

I think I would rather enjoy your class dynamics very much!

[dsc]

17. I teach high school

and have to say group work has the potential of both being great and causing havoc. One question I would have is did you or did the students choose their groups? If you did, then the bonus allocation sounds like a real problem, but if they did, then there should be less of a problem. In any case I would never use that system in high school due to the popular problem.

[Lisa]

20. the students choose their groups, as well as their topics ...

And we give them a list of "topics to avoid" which we already know are very difficult to research, or which previous years have had problems completing. This is done in verbal and written form early in the semester -- we encourage them to keep in touch, and leave a half-hour in the lab slots every couple of weeks, for optional meetings (since in theory this is the time when everyone should be available).

We do give them a timeline to follow, to decrease the chance of them falling so far behind that they have to do the whole thing in a couple of days. And the teaching assistants check up on them periodically, in case of any problems. We also suggest optimal group sizes (smaller than 3 makes for heavy workloads, and 5 or more can make it difficult to meet and co-ordinate).

Takes some work to arrange, but the past few years, when I've polled students, most of them haven't been briefed on useful group work tips yet. Some students have said that this has helped them get organized for 3rd and 4th-year projects where there isn't much guidance -- and even for the individual honours degree independent research projects, which are solo but are a year long and require lots of planning.

[proud2BlibKansan]

21. My son is still mad

over the time in middle school he was working on a group project and the 'perfect' girl in his group decided he hadn't done his part well enough, ripped it up and did it for him. Then the teacher dropped the grade for everyone in the group because they all had not contributed equally.

He is 26, this happened 15 years ago and he still gets mad about it.

I never told him I called and complained big time that the teacher was assigning individual grades based on a group project. The teachers at his school had been in the same Cooperative Learning training program that my school was in and we had been told repeatedly not to assess kids based on group projects. I asked the principal if this teacher had slept through that part of the training.

[Lisa]

23. that's too bad ...

One of the better things to have come out of those training seminars was the concern about "process" vs. "product". There was a mature student in one of my courses last term, who already had his degree and had decided that he knew better than the rest of his group. Kind of like Miss Perfect -- he took it upon himself to rewrite the entire project, because it "wasn't good enough". The others were understandably furious -- he was bewildered, insisting that "what does it matter as long as the work is high-calibre?". That was his only concern. There are a lot of people in academia and the private sector who have a similar Miss Perfect attitude -- never mind if they rip off someone else's work, or annoy their co-workers and contacts so much that the project is in danger of collapsing, or work to the point where they make themselves ill (martyrdom?) -- as long as the product looks good and ships/is submitted on time.

He was honestly shocked when the TA and I explained that he'd hurt people's feelings and made them want to drop him from the group, when he cut their stuff out of the report, substituted it with his own, and belittled them to their faces. My guess is that he'd been doing this all the way through his schooling, and people either didn't mind him taking on the work like that, or were too scared to say anything. I bet that Miss Perfect has either had a similar "intervention" by now, or she's leaving a trail of destruction at a series of workplaces.

It may be that group projects just aren't practical for certain courses, or for the earlier grades. I try to resist the pressure to have them just out of convenience. I would rather mark a hundred individual papers if I think that the students will learn more from that ... and during my summer courses, I do (because the semester only runs 2 months and I don't think it's reasonable to expect a major group project in that kind of timeframe).

[proud2BlibKansan]

25. Some teachers from Kentucky

once told me that they call the little miss perfects 'bow heads'. I just love that expression! Can't you just picture a little goodie goodie two shoes girl with a big bow on her head? :)

[Lisa]

27. Heh!

It's interesting when the "bow head" gives him/herself high ratings, but the rest of the group think that a different person (often the quiet, non-grandstanding type) deserves most of the credit, instead!

One of the things I like about independent, less-structured research projects is that the Miss Perfect type doesn't always trump everyone else. If they've basically memorized a bunch of things by rote, and that isn't working, it can throw them for a loop. The more easygoing types (who can be very creative) then have a chance to make suggestions which the group can see are quite valuable. One of my favourite groups had a couple of hippie guys who were pegged as B-students by their classmates. After the original project idea ran into problems, they talked the others into taking a road trip to San Francisco during the spring break, where they researched the waste being generated by a snowboard factory instead. The students had a great time, the project was a hit, and the group found out that they can all do A-level work in a pinch.

I pose the one question ("If your group were paid $1000 for this project, how would you split up the money, based on the amount of work contributed?") -- and 70-80% of the time, the secret ballots divvy it up equally, or very close to that. And looking at the situations where most members agree on who did the most work, most of the time that person is modest about it and doesn't claim more than everyone else. In both those situations, if I'm dealing with a 150-person class where I haven't gotten to know most of the students personally, I feel better about relying on group and TA input to back up my decision to allow a borderline grade -- otherwise the only thing I'd have to go on is "that student offered a lot of ideas in class", or "I taught her last year and she got good marks then", and if you aren't in either of those categories, tough luck.

[Nevernose]

28. One complaint? Out of hundreds of students over the last ten years?

You can't please all of the people all of the time.

[Lisa]

32. quite possible that there are others, though ...

Too busy -- or worried about rocking the boat -- to complain.

This is why it's been valuable for me to see people's thoughts on this thread. There's a range of people posting (some of whom have finished school and can look back on what they experienced themselves in similar situations). And I'm pretty sure none of you guys are in my classes (and if you are, I don't want to know about it) -- so that means that it doesn't put me in a situation where I'm grading the work of someone who's criticized me. That comment about wanting to complain anonymously doesn't indicate paranoia or fear of me being vindictive -- it's actually standard in many situations. There actually ARE course evaluation forms all the students get to fill out anonymously, for lectures as well as labs, but I guess the person who left the message for my TA couldn't wait! Those evaluations are where I found the student suggestions regarding extra marks for individuals or entire groups who'd been dealt some bad luck despite hard work. Only nobody proposed how to go about it.

I did incorporate a student idea in the late 1990s about bonus marks for groups that took the extra time to edit, correct, and submit their reports for publication with a local NGO -- a few groups do this (everyone gets the marks as long as they pass the NGO's publication requirements, and everybody takes part in the rewriting).