Something Happened! — That Sinking Feeling
Sometimes the grade distribution on your exam seems a bit low — maybe even horrifyingly low.
Perhaps there wasn’t enough time to focus on a topic due to a holiday, a bout of illness struck, or maybe there was a question that was ambiguously worded. The assessment might be brand new and still needs some tweaking, or maybe the students just didn’t get it — there was a collective lapse in memory.
Whatever the reason, the grade distribution is low and it feels bad for you and worse for your students.
What Happened? — The Empathy Hat
Now that you’ve identified there is an issue, the next step is to identify the reason for the low scores.
If the issues were caused by ambiguous question wording, your students will likely tell you about it. Take their feedback, put on your Empathy Hat, and check the question to see if the wording is inaccurate or if there’s a way it could be misunderstood.
Perhaps the students feel that the topic wasn’t covered completely or the question subject is a bit too obscure to accurately assess topical knowledge. Again, you’ll probably need the Empathy Hat for this.
Maybe your students just didn’t get it. You remember the glazed eyes and phones out; you tap-danced on the desk and sang the lesson, but sometimes their attention is unavoidably directed elsewhere.
Or maybe you’re not sure what the issue is, but you know the scores do not fall into the bell curve you’d like to see. There’s no time to do your research, submit a proposal, write that article, AND go through 60 exams to find the common thread.
Addressing the Issue — Plan for Tomorrow
If you can identify an issue, there are a few things to do:
- Nothing. The assessment is there to objectively assess competence. It did.
- Drop the question and it’s points from the overall grade.
- Grant extra credit to students who got the question right.
- Cover the topic and remind the class it’ll be on the next quiz.
Whatever you choose to do for the current students, remember to take precautions so this doesn’t happen again. Adjust the question’s wording for future students if necessary, plan to cover the topic in more depth, or be a better tap-dancing teacher.
If you can’t identify the issue and you want the bell curve, there’s still hope: you can curve the grades.
Easy Curving — Get to the Point Ian.
Curving is a deep and mathy topic. If you’d like to delve into it there is an excellent and comprehensive article by Dave Richeson on Division by Zero called “How to Curve an Exam and Assign a Grade.”
If you don’t have time to read it and choose your own method, I’ve set up an easy curving Google Doc that shows two sample curves and their effect on grades from 0/20 to 20/20 Points. The curve is not perfect. You’ll notice a student with 0 points gets curved to 25%. They’re still failing, and they probably don’t deserve an adjusted score. This document is not a prescription that will work for everyone, but I have found it works well for the majority of my faculty who would like to curve a grade.
To use this spreadsheet, just click FILE > DOWNLOAD AS, and choose your preferred format to download.
Put in your grades and see if it makes the adjustments you’d like. If the curve works for you, great! If not, it’s time for some research.
Next Steps
Whatever method you choose to address the grade disparity, make sure to address the source of the issue with the class and explain how you will address this issue.
Do you have a tip for curving grades, or a technique you like? Maybe curving is a knife in your heart? Let me know in the comments.