Manage Appeals
Petition Type: New
ID: 4891
Submitted: August 15, 2018 at 7:27:29 PM
First Name: Edward
Last Name: Strahlendorf
Student Number: 20010756
Email: 15eas3@queensu.ca
Degree Program: BAH
Plan: PHIL
Level of Study: 3
Petition Categories
Petition Categories: Request a review of instructors' decisions on grading of final examination and/or term work
Code: ENGL 100
Term: Summer
Year: 2018
Petition Category: Request a review of instructors' decisions on grading of final examination and/or term work
Instructor's Name: Dr. Robert G. May
Component: Discussion Forums (Assignments)
Petition Letter
Petition Letter: Thank you for taking the time to read my appeal, Dr. Bénard.
I am appealing Dr. May's assessment of term work I completed for his online ENGL 100 course.
Dr. May's online ENGL 100 course has four units. For each unit, students are marked for their contributions to a week-long Discussion Forum pertaining to the unit's assigned readings. Each of the four Discussion Forums is worth 5 for a total of 20 of a student's final grade.
In the course syllabus, there is a rubric for the Forums, and the syllabus states: Please see the rubric below for detailed information on how students will be evaluated for using the Discussion Forums.
All semester, I organized my performances in the Forums by the rubric to be worth Bs and As, but I received: 5/10, 6/10, 3/10, 3/10. I received 8.5/20 for the Forums and lost 11.5 of my final mark.
When I asked Dr. May for a rubric breakdown of my mark of 3/10 for the fourth Discussion Forum, he revealed to me that the rubric was only a rough outline for how he had been evaluating the Forums. He told me he had been grading Discussion Forum performances relative to the performances of other students rather than grading by the rubric in the course syllabus.
In conclusion, Dr. May provided a rubric in the syllabus, explicitly stated it was detailed information for how students would be assessed, then assessed me by an unannounced model of relative performance. The result was that I received poor or failing grades for performances that would have been marked well by the provided rubric, and I lost 11.5 of my final grade.
In the future, if I receive marks that do not make sense by a provided rubric, I will contact my professor immediately. I believed that syllabi are contracts between professor and student. Because of this belief, I blamed my own performance for marks that did not make sense. I should have emailed Dr. May after I received a 5/10 on the first Forum, but I thought it was extremely unlikely that a professor disregarded their own syllabus. I will not make this mistake again.
I am appealing Dr. May's assessment of term work I completed for his online ENGL 100 course.
Dr. May's online ENGL 100 course has four units. For each unit, students are marked for their contributions to a week-long Discussion Forum pertaining to the unit's assigned readings. Each of the four Discussion Forums is worth 5 for a total of 20 of a student's final grade.
In the course syllabus, there is a rubric for the Forums, and the syllabus states: Please see the rubric below for detailed information on how students will be evaluated for using the Discussion Forums.
All semester, I organized my performances in the Forums by the rubric to be worth Bs and As, but I received: 5/10, 6/10, 3/10, 3/10. I received 8.5/20 for the Forums and lost 11.5 of my final mark.
When I asked Dr. May for a rubric breakdown of my mark of 3/10 for the fourth Discussion Forum, he revealed to me that the rubric was only a rough outline for how he had been evaluating the Forums. He told me he had been grading Discussion Forum performances relative to the performances of other students rather than grading by the rubric in the course syllabus.
In conclusion, Dr. May provided a rubric in the syllabus, explicitly stated it was detailed information for how students would be assessed, then assessed me by an unannounced model of relative performance. The result was that I received poor or failing grades for performances that would have been marked well by the provided rubric, and I lost 11.5 of my final grade.
In the future, if I receive marks that do not make sense by a provided rubric, I will contact my professor immediately. I believed that syllabi are contracts between professor and student. Because of this belief, I blamed my own performance for marks that did not make sense. I should have emailed Dr. May after I received a 5/10 on the first Forum, but I thought it was extremely unlikely that a professor disregarded their own syllabus. I will not make this mistake again.
Documentation
Document: Strahlendorf Appeal Evidence.docx
Amendment to Appeal 4891
Relevant Petition: 4891
Student Number: 20010756
Documentation
Professional Letter Detail: NO DOC
Document: Forum Posts-1.docx
Documentation Detail: The relevant term work