After days and days of checking for A, B, C, or D, if the correct answer was true or false, and if the short answers were appropriate for the question, I have come to a decision about my own personal teaching philosophy. It happened rather organically, it was more of an immediate thought and feeling, and I've decided to adopt it into my beliefs as a teacher while grading.
Here it is, my golden nugget for the week:
When 95% of my students get an answer wrong, I'm throwing the question out. Obviously my question was either unclear or under taught or both and the students should not be held responsible for my own hiccup on their exam.
I understand that some students just do not take the time to study well for their exams, but when most of my best students are getting these questions wrong I feel the appropriate action should be taken.
I've also discovered that I'm probably too lenient with short answer questions; if the student basically gets it right, but does not actually come right out with the exact answer do I mark it right or wrong?
And I definitely believe in half credit! Sometimes the student gets most of the answer, but just misses a part of it and I don't think their efforts should be entirely shot down.
I can't wait to take on my first class this Wednesday and am able to utilize more of my own personal teaching philosophies with grading. Very excited!!
