Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: In this appeal, I request a review of my instructors decisions on grading of final examinations and/or term work in BIOL 442 (Evolutionary Medicine). This year has been extremely difficult. I dealt with 3 very personal and very sudden deaths. Firstly, in late October, my young, healthy, 44-year-old uncle has passed suddenly. This loss shook my family and I to the core. Not only was I mourning the loss of the coolest and most incredible uncle, I have a great responsibility looking after my aunt and younger cousins with any help they need, whether it be school work, sports, or just really wanting a hug. They live in Toronto, and while being in school in Kingston (and grateful to have my own car), I would drive home whenever they needed me. Second, my housemate and childhood friend lost her grandfather in mid-November. I had been very close with the family and went home to Toronto for the funeral and Shiva (7-day mourning period in Jewish tradition). Now, I had to be my own rock, as well as the rock for my close childhood friend. Lastly, in late February, my other housemate and best friend lost her young and healthy father. After just seeing my cousins lose their father, I was crushed to see this happen again in my best friend. Again, I went home to Toronto for the funeral and Shiva. After this, my best friend did not return to Kingston for school. I found myself going to Toronto almost every weekend to visit her and her family as well as my family. I have never experience such terrible losses in such a short period of time and it so difficult to put into words how this has impacted me. Throughout this year, it has felt as though every time I stand back up, the rug underneath me is being pulled at once again. This grief and sadness on top of the added stress and anxiety of wondering who's next (because really, after 3 deaths it just feels like someone must be next) has made this year the worst one yet. That being said, I like to believe that with time, comes healing. Towards the end of the year, I was able to pull myself together to raise my grades back up in my final exams. BIOL 442 did not have a final exam, which is why I think my final grade in this course was not able to reflect me as how I normally am as a student. Hopefully, you can see that and help me achieve a better mark in the course that I typically would have received had I not had such an awful year.

Here, I would like to focus on 2 assignments in the course - Tutorial 4.3 (Rebuttal of Debates) and the SciComm Assignment.

1) Tutorial 4.3:
I was given a grade of 70. The instructor provided no feedback on this assignment grade whatsoever. The instructions for this assignment were Your rebuttals should directly address the arguments made by your debate opponents and should be based on evidence that suggests flaws in those arguments or supports counter arguments. Only the first 2 comments will be marked, with a 500-character limit per comment. Both rebuttals were just under 500 characters and evidence based (as requested), with brief in-text reference to the studies/evidence provided (stated the year, researchers, etc.). The rebuttals addressed arguments in the debate, pointing out weakness and counter arguments.

2) SciComm:
I was given a grade of 72.2. I will break this down into sections of the rubric.

Topic Section - Required an evolutionary, interesting, and important as the criteria. Allergies in the context of the evolution of the microbiota (while incorporation evolutionary medicine topics discussed in course contents, such as mismatch hypothesis, smoke detector principles, levels of defence, etc.) is an evolutionary, interesting, and important topic. The comment here was just ¿¿good¿. I do not understand why a full mark was deducted from this section (3/4). There is no real rational for a full mark deducted for this topic choice.

Language Section - Required clear language, accessible to a general audience, without sacrificing accuracy as the criteria. A word bank was provided and believed to be necessary for certain scientific terminology. Just because the design was a board game, it does not mean that is can only be played by children. In fact, the vision was to make this a fun, interactive way for university students to learn more about this topic ¿¿ such as if there were an exam or big quiz they can learn and discuss while playing with their peers beforehand. The comment for including a visual is a fair request, however, it may have been out-of-place to include diagrams and flow charts in a game board. 1.5 marks were deducted (2.5/4) seem unfair for providing a word bank (to make the unaccessible language more accessible) and because of a design criticism (for not including a diagram/flow chart) that was not a part of the requirements for the assignment.

Organization Section - Required to flow logically, no leaps in logic, no problematic gaps as the criteria. This project was handed in online and the order of the pages in the document would not have been reflected the real board game. For the hard-copy of this assignment (if it was allowed to be done no thanks to COVID-19), the board game would not even be considered a page (as it would be the actual board) nor would the memory cards (as they would be cut out cards). The instructions, questions, and word bank would have been its own pamphlet being completely easy to access. Half a mark was deducted here (3.5/4) for the online format, which seems slightly unreasonable given that the assignment was not allowed to be provided in its actual form.

Engaging and Entertaining Section - Required to hold the audience's attention, is fun to read/listen to/watch from start to finish as the criteria. The comment was Good - it is a great idea, but there is so much information tho out there that it felt more like homework and not necessarily a fun game. This comment seems a little harsh and deducting a full mark (3/4) for this seems harsh too. These SciCom projects are all meant to be educational and a form of learning. As mentioned previously, just because this was a board game, it does not mean that is can only be played by children. From a university student perspective, playing a game would likely be best type of homework you could be assigned. It can be argued that although this seems like ¿¿homework¿, doing homework in the form of a board game would be infinitely better than listening to a lecture or podcast, reading a blog, or completing an assignment/quiz.