Theory of Grammar

[cosmolinguist]

This is the class I wrote about on Monday.

I managed to talk to my lecturer after class, and I hung around on Tuesday too after everybody had asked all the questions they were too embarrassed to ask during the lecture even though this lecturer is the most encouraging of question-asking I've ever seen.

She knew right away what I was going to ask, and I was relieved she'd remembered me, but she hadn't been able to sort out the "visualizer" thing she talks about like I know what it is (some kind of camera that works even when you don't use the usual lecture-capture system, I presume from context) and she thinks it's to do with the fact that this class isn't showing up in her timetable or anywhere as a thing that she's teaching.

We've come up with a lower-tech solution anyway -- also much lower-tech than the advice I was given by my disability advisor when I emailed, which is just "you have this thing, can't you use that?" Not easily, tbh! I really feel like that's the kind of thing that needs a PA to help lug it around and set it up and make sure it's pointed at the right things. I have maybe five minutes, if I'm lucky, after the previous class have cleared out of the room, to get in, find a seat, get my laptop out, try to open Notetalker because I'm making audio recordings of the lectures, fight with Windows, fight with the screenreader, get Word open, etc...

Whereas my lecturer just suggested I arrange a meeting with her, after that Tuesday lecture, and one fit in neatly to both our schedules that Tueseday afternon. So I went and she drew me a syntactic tree on a piece of paper that was very similar to what we'd done in class, and I could ask her questions, and I left with the piece of paper and a somewhat better understanding and we were both happy.

So all that's okay. But this is also the class that I'm missing the seminar for this morning.

I was feeling pretty shitty yesterday anyway (my typology seminar was frustratingly pointless and I didn't have my most useful session with the "mentor"/counsellor), and I think the accidental attention paid to my mom's birthday present didn't help. My eyes were funny and I couldn't concentrate on my homework, so I thought I'd have a nap and do it later or in the morning. I woke up no better able to concentrate on my homework due this morning. Or to get back to sleep. Finally about five I slept and I woke up before my alarm but nowhere near long enough before to get the work done, and in no better state to do it.

This class has a weird and frankly probably ableist set-up for its seminars. You must do the work beforehand and bring two copies: one to hand in at the beginning and one to look at as we spend the rest of the seminar going through it. Then at the end of the semester you pick the four you think you did the best on and the average of those four provide 30% of your grade for this class (I think the rest of the grade is all in the exam).

The tutor says he'll tell us each week the average of the grades from the week before but we never see our own grade. We don't even get any feedback except what we're able to glean for ourselves in the seminar. (So far we've done one week that's a practice, one week where I think I drastically misunderstood what was expected and also forgot to do the question on the last page, and one week where I think I did okay? And now this week I've missed.)

t's not even that our four best grades are averaged; that would be okay -- we have to choose them, without knowing what they are! I otherwise like this lecturer but I cannot imagine what the point of this is.

You can miss attending or submitting work for two seminars without punishment; after that you have to go through the school's mitigating circumstances policy (which sounds like enough punishment in itself). So while nothing bad has materially happened to me because of missing handing in today's homework, I still feel pretty shitty to have "wasted" one of my two freebies so early in the semester.

I'm annoyed too, though, because I don't know how this jibes with the automatic one-week extensions I'm supposed to get on everything. I fear that means another email to my disability advisor and I haven't had any good experiences with those yet: as above, my best results seem to be when I can work out solutions to the problems by myself. But I'll have to see what happens I guess.

Comments

[erratio]

Oh gosh, what a weird grading scheme! A bit of thought on what result they might be aiming for produces 'this way you're forced to participate a lot in seminar (or at least pay a lot of attention) so that you can understand whether you did well or not that week'. It sounds very stressful in any case.

[cosmolinguist]

I don't think how much attention I pay corresponds very well to how well I did a homework assignment. :) But yes I'm finding the whole thing too stressful to work very well on me.

[used_songs]

How can he possibly justify not giving feedback or grades? I can't think of any legit reason for that.

[cosmolinguist]

I know, I don't understand it and I don't like it.

[conuly]

Clearly this system is set up to benefit those who are really good at figuring out averages and working backwards from there.

[purplecat]

One possible reason for the weird grading scheme is some theory about encouraging students to reflect on their work. If the tutor in question is a new lecturer, then it's possible he's on a new lecturer training scheme and, at least when I did one, there was a lot of push from the scheme to try out non-traditional teaching methods based on (I felt rather spurious) theories about learning. If it's possible this is the case do you know if the other students are finding it stressful too? if so there are probably a few ways you can push back against it without expending a lot of spoons yourself (most obviously contacting the student rep for your module or year group and asking them to raise the issue through appropriate channels). You probably can't get the grading scheme itself changed since that will have been (should have been) documented and approved somewhere, but you might be able to get more individual feedback to help in choosing the four assignments.

If on the other hand, its an experienced lecturer who has been doing this for donkey's years, then you are probably out of luck. There would still be a value in getting your class or year student representative to ask for an explanation of the reasoning behind the scheme (ideally through the staff-student liaison committee or equivalent since the query will then get logged) but this would more be to flag up that the students are unhappy (and apply/continue to apply pressure if similar queries/complaints have come up in the past and continue to come up in future years) than in any expectation it would change anything for this year.

[cosmolinguist]

The lecturer and the tutor are different people: the tutors are usually PhD students so I assume this one is too but he's talked less about himself than they usually do! The lecturer is an older lady and has clearly been doing this for donkeys years and this is clearly her system and not the tutor's.

But yes finding the student reps for my year is probably a good idea, because I would like this logged. If we have any: I saw an email going around not long ago about how they were looking for some. :)

And yeah I'm just expecting this to suck for me this year. But I'd really like it if it sucked less for future students.

I can't see how this set-up can avoid some kind of alterative assessment for students registered with disability services who get automatic extensions like I do though because I can't hand in work a week late if we've gone through the answers in the previous week's seminar.

[purplecat]

I can't see how this set-up can avoid some kind of alterative assessment for students registered with disability services who get automatic extensions like I do though because I can't hand in work a week late if we've gone through the answers in the previous week's seminar.

Agreed.

University organisation is sufficiently distributed, chaotic and generally based on an assumption that academics are cats that can be herded but not directed that unless someone has flagged this up no one will have thought about it. And since flagging it up, requesting and negotiating an accommodation, and so on, all requires effort on the disabled student's part, I would not be surprised if most/all have accommodated themselves to the assessment rather than vice versa. If you can find a student rep, a query about what accommodation is in place through them might let you inquire without immediately embroiling you in some kind of negotiation with the lecturer.

[barakta]

^^^ Esp as expecting you to negotiate again is NOT lawful (it would be in the US and I think Australia, but in the UK once you've asked once, you cannot be asked to ask again - they'll try it on, but unlawful as fuck).

and general sympathetic yeah I see this bollocks noises...

[purplecat]

Problem is there are lots of ways to essentially make cosmolinguist negotiate without falling foul of the law. A conversation that starts "Let us discuss what is a good way to do this..." for instance.

[cosmolinguist]

I haven't asked anyone, though.

[cosmolinguist]

I would not be surprised if most/all have accommodated themselves to the assessment rather than vice versa

Indeed; this is what I always do and only when that seems harder than kicking up a fuss (which is exactly as effortful and draining as you say) do I resort to that.

I don't actually mind the prospect of negotiating with this particular lecturer (that's what ended up working when I had the problem with not being able to see what she's doing on the whiteboard), but I'll try it via disability services and see if I can find a student rep before I talk to the lecturer about it.

[worlds_of_smoke]

... That is a seriously, seriously fucked up grading situation. Learning from your mistakes is an important part of learning! If you're not told your mistakes, you'll keep repeating them and, even worse, potentially building on them. -facepalms- And that's one of the things that your prof should be working on preventing.

I'm really sorry you have to deal with this. It would make me an anxious mess.

[cosmolinguist]

Yep, it's like a math class where if you don't quite understand the topic one week, you'll be totally lost the next because it depends on what was previously covered.

I am pretty much an anxious mess about it myself. :)

[silveradept]

That grading system does not work. I can't see the benefit of forcing a student to choose, without anything more than the feedback obtained in an afterward session, and knowing how well or poorly a question might have been answered, what they think are their four best assignments. It also doesn't seem to be a good system for getting help on the things you're not doing well on by not knowing whether you've done well on them.

[cosmolinguist]

Yeah, when the lecturer keeps mentioning how important it is that we understand what we cover each week since the weeks after build on it, I really wish there was a chance for better feedback and making sure I'm doing things prperly as we go along!

[sfred]

That's a really weird grading system!