|
TimelySubmissionOfGrades 20 - 15 Jun 2012 - Main.MarcLegrand
|
| | Days after we finished our finals we received the following email from the Dean of our law school which I am reposting here:
| | | I took a stab at addressing what I thought was the most offensive part of the email - the flippant tone. Elvira, what do you think? Once we have something finalized I would be happy to send the letter with you Jared.
-- SkylarPolansky - 14 June 2012 | |
>
> | I like this conversation, and the proposed letter. It relates well to my second paper, which is all about feedback (I'd appreciate any comments, by the way). One of the issues I faced seems to be replicating itself here. We all seem to agree that law school doesn't involve enough feedback, but I think that's the easy part. My question for everyone is what would your ideal course look like in terms of feedback? Let's assume we're talking about 1L classes with ~100 students. Obviously feedback isn't impossible in that setting, since I think this class is accomplishing just that. Do you think the same sorts of techniques (e.g. collaborative writing) would work just as well in a class like contracts or torts, where the professor ostensibly has a goal of teaching a textbook's worth of "substantive" law? Or maybe that shouldn't be the point of 1L classes to begin with...
-- MarcLegrand - 15 June 2012 |
|
|
TimelySubmissionOfGrades 19 - 14 Jun 2012 - Main.SkylarPolansky
|
| | Days after we finished our finals we received the following email from the Dean of our law school which I am reposting here:
| | | Dear Dean Schizer: | |
<
< | We are second-year students who wanted to voice our concerns relating to the e-mail you sent to the student body last month about professors' timely submission of grades. While we and our fellow students appreciate that you are asking professors to be more cognizant of the timeline of our job searches when submitting grades, we are worried that the attention being paid to speed in the grading process obscures a much larger and (in our view) far more pressing problem: the serious lack of feedback that students receive as part of their evaluation. There is obviously much debate among the student body as to whether grades should be kept or abandoned, but one thing almost all students agree on is that the amount of constructive feedback we receive to complement those grades is grossly inadequate. Yes, most professors are happy to take the time to go over your exam and point to areas of potential improvement, but many only have the time to do so months after we received our grades, at a time when we have little memory of the issues and the feedback contains little value. | >
> | We are second-year students who wanted to voice our concerns relating to the e-mail you sent to the student body last month about professors' timely submission of grades. The tone of the email was dismissive and insulting. An elaboration of the "other ways" in which late grade submissions effect students as opposed to a dismissive, catch-all phrase would better show your concern with and attention to the problem. A closer look at how late submission of grades effects students will reveal the underlying problem of a lack of feedback. This is not an affect which can be addressed through public shaming and moderate fines imposed on tenured professors.
While we and our fellow students appreciate that you are asking professors to be more cognizant of the timeline of our job searches when submitting grades, we are worried that the attention being paid to speed in the grading process obscures a much larger and (in our view) far more pressing problem: the serious lack of feedback that students receive as part of their evaluation. There is obviously much debate among the student body as to whether grades should be kept or abandoned, but one thing almost all students agree on is that the amount of constructive feedback we receive to complement those grades is grossly inadequate. Yes, most professors are happy to take the time to go over your exam and point to areas of potential improvement, but many only have the time to do so months after we received our grades, at a time when we have little memory of the issues and the feedback contains little value. | | | There are larger issues at play apart from busy professors that contribute to the lack of adequate feedback. We understand that there is a long tradition in law schools of students being evaluated by a single exam at the end of a semester or year. But such a system makes it impossible for students to have any real improvement or any guidance from the professors whose mandate is, in part, to teach us how to improve. Our entire grade is based on our ability to spot issues, make arguments and reason logically over the course of four hours, but when we take our exams at the end of first semester, this is the first time that we have done this, apart from a few practice exams that we take in the weeks leading up to the exam, also completed without any feedback or constructive criticism from professors. Our professors spend the semester teaching us the substantive material relevant to contracts or property, but they don't give us any guidance as to how to incorporate this information into a successful legal analysis until after the exam. | | | For other 1L courses I have no objection about the “timely submission of grades” policy. It’s not like we are going to learn anything more about Criminal Law or Constitutional Law after we finished our exams. But for this course, I feel strongly against it. Eben told us that learning is an ongoing process, and indeed it is. I got into the habit of rereading the materials we covered in class in the evenings. Those articles begin to show different meanings. Now I can take my time to appreciate the subtle points, pause from time to time to think, and jot down some notes. It’s unbelievable how many interesting points I’ve missed in the Folklore of Capitalism when I first read it! And it has been particularly thought provoking to read people’s comments. If we want grades to truly reflect commitment and improvement, giving them out in June probably is not a good idea.
-- MeiqiangCui - 12 June 2012 | |
>
> | I took a stab at addressing what I thought was the most offensive part of the email - the flippant tone. Elvira, what do you think? Once we have something finalized I would be happy to send the letter with you Jared.
-- SkylarPolansky - 14 June 2012 |
|
|
TimelySubmissionOfGrades 18 - 13 Jun 2012 - Main.JaredMiller
|
| | Days after we finished our finals we received the following email from the Dean of our law school which I am reposting here:
| | | -- ElviraKras - 12 Jun 2012 | |
>
> | Elvira, I'm of course open to any and all changes, but I'm not sure what you mean exactly about "stressing the particularities of the email the Dean sent out." Perhaps you can make changes/additions in the wiki and we can work on it. I would like to send this out sooner rather than later if at all possible but am happy to collaborate on it - anyone else interested in joining?
-- JaredMiller - 13 Jun 2012 | | | For other 1L courses I have no objection about the “timely submission of grades” policy. It’s not like we are going to learn anything more about Criminal Law or Constitutional Law after we finished our exams. But for this course, I feel strongly against it. Eben told us that learning is an ongoing process, and indeed it is. I got into the habit of rereading the materials we covered in class in the evenings. Those articles begin to show different meanings. Now I can take my time to appreciate the subtle points, pause from time to time to think, and jot down some notes. It’s unbelievable how many interesting points I’ve missed in the Folklore of Capitalism when I first read it! And it has been particularly thought provoking to read people’s comments. If we want grades to truly reflect commitment and improvement, giving them out in June probably is not a good idea.
-- MeiqiangCui - 12 June 2012 |
|
|
TimelySubmissionOfGrades 17 - 12 Jun 2012 - Main.MeiqiangCui
|
| | Days after we finished our finals we received the following email from the Dean of our law school which I am reposting here:
| | | In my experience no potential employer has ever asked me for my transcript but I see the validity in the point that while we still have grades, having grades in on time is important. I still object strongly to the tone and tenor of the email, as well as, the "solutions" that are to be implemented. Jared, I think you drafted a great email addressing feedback and grading issues that we have felt. Personally, I would like to stress more the particularities of the email the Dean sent out and our response to that and then segue more into a discussion of the grading and feedback that we receive. Thoughts?
-- ElviraKras - 12 Jun 2012 | |
>
> | For other 1L courses I have no objection about the “timely submission of grades” policy. It’s not like we are going to learn anything more about Criminal Law or Constitutional Law after we finished our exams. But for this course, I feel strongly against it. Eben told us that learning is an ongoing process, and indeed it is. I got into the habit of rereading the materials we covered in class in the evenings. Those articles begin to show different meanings. Now I can take my time to appreciate the subtle points, pause from time to time to think, and jot down some notes. It’s unbelievable how many interesting points I’ve missed in the Folklore of Capitalism when I first read it! And it has been particularly thought provoking to read people’s comments. If we want grades to truly reflect commitment and improvement, giving them out in June probably is not a good idea.
-- MeiqiangCui - 12 June 2012 |
|
|
TimelySubmissionOfGrades 16 - 12 Jun 2012 - Main.ElviraKras
|
| | Days after we finished our finals we received the following email from the Dean of our law school which I am reposting here:
| | | I hope people won't mind a little humorous cynicism but I often feel like this describes law students' idealism about grades very well.
-- JosephItkis - 10 Jun 2012 | |
>
> | In my experience no potential employer has ever asked me for my transcript but I see the validity in the point that while we still have grades, having grades in on time is important. I still object strongly to the tone and tenor of the email, as well as, the "solutions" that are to be implemented. Jared, I think you drafted a great email addressing feedback and grading issues that we have felt. Personally, I would like to stress more the particularities of the email the Dean sent out and our response to that and then segue more into a discussion of the grading and feedback that we receive. Thoughts?
-- ElviraKras - 12 Jun 2012 |
|
|
|
|
This site is powered by the TWiki collaboration platform.
All material on this collaboration platform is the property of the contributing authors.
All material marked as authored by Eben Moglen is available under the license terms CC-BY-SA version 4.
|
|