I was asking some of my tutees about their grades, and whether they knew which topics they might need to review for comprehensive finals and so on. Two of my students in AP Physics at their schools said none of the tests they have taken this year have been graded yet. That is to say: even tests they took early in September have not been graded. One has taken four unit tests and zero have been graded.
Other tutees say tests take a long time to grade, so for example, one has gotten is test on Kinematics from early September graded, but none of the other tests have been graded. So, that’s 3 kids with tests graded so s_l_o_w_l_y that I would deem “slow grading” to be seriously counterproductive to learning. All these kids are in public schools. (The kids at Benet Academy which is private report somewhat slow grading of labs, but tests are graded fairly promptly– as in within a week. Though not optimum, I’d say slowish grading of labs has sort of always been fairly common. )
I haven’t been “grilling” all of them to get specific statistics– but basically, more teachers than I would have expected seem to give a really, really, really low priority to getting tests graded in a reasonable time, or perhaps are so very, very busy and overworked they can’t manage to find time to grade them.
Those of you with kids in high school: Is zero tests being graded even as Thanksgiving approaches within the range “new normal”? Or have I encountered a statistical anomaly?
Lucia,
You specifically asked for responses from people with high school kids, and I don’t have that. Elementary, middle, and college kids for me at the moment.
This said, I am under the impression that my college kid doesn’t wait nearly so long for her tests (she’s a UAH student now). I will verify with her though. I’m certain my elementary and middle schoolers don’t.
Teaching at Iowa State, I did my best to get tests back the next time the class met. After all…. they’d all be asking repeatedly if I didn’t. And I’d have to grade the sometime, so right away was good option unless it was impossible for some reason. I’m not sure if I always managed.
I’ve had college students were turn around time was a bit slow. That’s because physics is often in a BIG lecture hall and grading was divided up. So test got passed around in some manner I don’t know the specifics of. But still… a week, maybe two. Certainly test taken even by the end of September was graded by now!
But yeah, I want to specifically know high school. I figure elementary tests are so easy to grade the time comparison might not be fair to high school teachers. College is a bit different too.
My sophomore daughter has a class where no tests have been graded, but the three others are typically done within a week (private school on block scheduling, hence the low number of classes).
It’s very hard to know how you’re doing when the teacher isn’t letting you know. She is very frustrated by the lack of feedback.
I had a class with a homework assignment that was grade very late. I didn’t realize there was a no collaboration policy for the class, so I did it with a friend. Months later, the TA comes back and is asking for a breakdown of who did what to penalize.
Lucia,
I have some relevant empirical evidence from a large public university in the Northeast.
Results from a recent research project looking at success in college gateway (required for entrance into a major course of study) courses in Biology, Chemistry, Math, and Physics showed that we could predict (85% accuracy) if a student would earn a productive final grade (C- or better) at one quarter of the way through the course (end of the fourth week). The data were collected weekly as the number of points a student earned and the number of points it was possible to earn. Point were given for tests, quizzes, homework assignments, and other measures of participation that the instructor had defined in the course syllabus.
One conclusion we drew was that for students who were likely to earn unproductive grades, we could start interventions very early in the course when it was possible for them to recover. So prompt feedback was essential and has become a deliberate action for us to take. Even feedback to students who are sailing along affirms their work and helps to keep them on track. Instructors who don’t evaluate student work in a timely manner and let them know about it are not doing a complete job of teaching. The learning process goes both ways
Gary,
Thanks for the evidence. Do you have a link to the paper? That would be interesting to read.
It seems obvious to me. But as I wrote on Twitter:
“…and whether they new(sic) which topics they might need…”
Fortunately, you weren’t tutoring them on English or spelling.
Around 50 years ago, we California eighth graders had to pass long tests in US history. Students who failed to pass the first time had to retake the test a second, or possibly third time. As I recall, the tests took an hour or two to complete- my memory may be incorrect some after 50 odd years.
There were three 8th grade classes at my school, with about 30 odd students in each class. The teachers in two of the three classes took 3 or 4 days to finish grading the tests, but one of the three, I distinctly remember his name- Mr Frisk, stayed up all night, got two of his close friends to help, and got the test results back to his class the next day.
You’re right about the immediate feedback needed. As you say, that slow feedback is counterproductive to learning.
Alan,
Or typing & proof-reading. 🙂
I would think 3-4 days is ok particularly if there are lots of tests and lots of students. No one should expect the impossible or even the very, very difficult. If I had to pass a particular tests to pass high school, I would definitely appreciate knowing I needed to do that as quickly as possible.
We had some sort of constitution tests in high school in Illinois. I don’t remember if it was difficult.
In grade school a number of teachers used a somewhat unique method. After taking the test they were collected and then handed out randomly to students. The teacher went through the test 1 question at a time and gave the correct answer, along with an explanation if needed. Sometimes they’d do it the next day so you had to think while you were grading someone else’s test.+