I pride myself on many things, one of which is returning your exams the very next class period. While this does not ALWAYS happen, as there can be odd weeks in which 3 classes all have an exam on the same day +/- 1, but in 90+% of cases, this does indeed happen.

What doesn’t happen is a large portion of the population of the class attending that class period to get their exams back. I don’t understand this. Perhaps I am a robot and it just doesn’t compute. Why would you not want to see your exam / grading / etc…?

The process consists of firstly, all pencils / pens / papers / etc… put back into your bag and placed on the floor. The only thing that should be out would be your exam. While I hate doing this, in my first few years at ASU you would be surprised at the number (3-5 per exam) that would come up an ask why they received zero and a special mark when their work was all right there. Surprisingly, it was done step by step perfectly JUST the way I literally JUST did on the board. The second I instituted this policy, I have yet to see this occur since which as of 2024 was roughly 7+ years.

Now with respect to the review, the basic idea is that I want you to fully be aware of not only what you got wrong, but how to actually do the problem to select the correct answer, if it is multiple choice. If it happens to be free response, I outline the exact rubric on the board, i.e. how many points for this step, how many points for that step, etc… Doing this I can remove any subjectivity on my part from the grading process except for how I structured the rubric, which I have yet to have any one have issue on how points are split up.

This is also your opportunity to argue. Now I don’t mean the common concept of argue, e.g. yelling louder than the other person. I mean the classical Aristotelian arguementation, based on our father of logic and the most influential man in history (Sorry Jesus), Aristotle! So if you ask for points back because you worked REALLY REALLY HARD. You will get nothing. If you point to the rubric and state, you assigned 2 points for outlining the range of variables for integrating across the region, and I have it here but it may be a bit sloppy. Bingo, blamo, that’s perfect and we can talk.

I want you to exit the review process with the feeling that I did not grade you. An objective robot / Vulcan / Android graded it based on a rubric and thus you can take more ownership in your grade and with great ownership comes greater responsibility to improve comprehension and execution on the next exam.

Now in many cases, we don’t have the time at the end of the class / after class for me to go over items point by point. So at that moment, anyone who wants to discuss / debate points can then give me their exam and I will hold onto them. Given I have 400-500 students per semester, they will sit at my house temporarily. Then when your ready, you can email me and ask if we can discuss the exam and if I could bring it with. My standard response will be, “It’s in the bag”, meaning, it is now in my backpack I take with me to work every day and the next time you see me I will have it.

Be careful though as without a response, it is not in the Bag. Many students email me at 10pm thinking either I am up late or I check this stuff first thing waking up. That is not the case. Therefore, plan ahead!

I most likely will be implementing a new policy where I physically identify the exams of those who showed up for the review. I don’t know how it will work right now but the goal is to give some form of benefit for the students who actually showed up. This hopefully will motivate more people to come to class the day after an exam.

Bare in mind, we will also have exam statistics available. Rather than just mean, median and mode, I will post ALL exam scores and color code them based on your homework score. No names will be present but the standard trend that these statistics show time and time again, is that the average of those with more homework done, have higher scores. My goal being to hopefully encourage people to do more homework as it most definitely increases exam scores. This also let’s you know EXACTLY where you stand relative to the rest of the class.

Lastly, the grading process I employ is meant to be as objective as possible. Thus I go page by page and grade each given page for the whole class. It ensures the rubric is applied uniformly and minimizes errors. Doing so, I keep track of the previous pages by putting the number missed in the top corner of the NEXT page.