December 14, 2006

posted by Daniel J. Solove

My 4 year old son, who is mastering the ABCDs, often provides useful and cost-effective labor to assist with grading. Eric.

Funny coincidence, Eric. My much younger kids have only gotten A, B, and (less helpful) H down. So, bad news for the Associate Dean who wants me to follow the curve; great news for my students!

Hilarious post Dan. You must've gotten some odd looks while doing this.

Paul -- Fortunately, nobody saw me create the post, but I got locked in the stairwell and had to walk down 8 flights of stairs to exit. The things I do for the art of blogging . . .

That is *so* unfair!! I can't believe how little you care about your students.

Clearly, the only proper way to grade the exams is by drawing large circles on the floor representing each letter grade, and tossing the exams in the air.

I am so glad I'm not in your class.

Great - this is so much better than my legacy method. We used to have numeric grades here in Norway, and then I could just measure each paper and multiply with a factor (thin paper - good grade). An intermediate solution with lots of if..then.. in the spreadsheet has proved unsatisfactory, but our new building has lots of staircases that seem purpose-built for grading tosses. Maybe I will have time for celebrating Christmas after all....

Personally I prefer the Standardized Lottery grade Awarding Method (SLAM) where grades are awarded according to a draw. This is an entry level method and I know it's time consuming, but it's still fair.

Furthermore, I understand through this Standardized Toss Down Stair Case grade Awarding Method (STD-SCAM or STanDard-SCAM as it is commonly refered to) that it's important to either hand in first (be in bottom of the pile) or deliver last (in order to be on top of the pile). The problem is to know if you hand out the grade A from the top or the bottom of the stair case.

Clearly the "higher grade at the bottom" is correct, but for reasons opposite to those you describe: A little theoretical physics and experimentation has convinced me that the heavier exams fall sooner than the lighter ones and tend to drop first, i.e., higher up the stairs. There are two reasons for giving lower grades to heftier exams: (1) Expert exam writers/graders quickly learn to write questions that are best answered by pithy responses from knowledgable persons. Less prepared students and those with little test savvy will usually attempt to "snow" the professor with extensive, rambling, and unresponsive persiflage. Such behavior must be crushed. (2) It is good if deans and the occassional student seem to see you assiduously grading exams. Lighter exams make easier reading in such circumstances. Students who write these useful exams should be rewarded.

I did learn valuable pointers from this site about grading papers that teeter between steps. One issue you did not cover was exams that "fall between the cracks". This can be a major problem both in older universities with wooden staircases and extremely modern ones with cantilevered concrete risers. My solution has been to give these the lowest possible passing grade, since they create additional work for the grader. On the other hand, this has gained me a reputation among students and colleagues as being somewhat of a tartar

Heheheh. I have about 100 papers to grade by Friday of next week and a system like this is very tempting.

Having not had quite as many years as Dan in teaching, I do hesitate to correct his obvious mastery of this grading skill, but I must make one point for the sake of clarity, should someone mistake graduate level grading with undergraduate level grading.

The essense of the method is the same for both, but for undergraduate grades, the professor should toss up the stairs rather than down. With the grade scale still extending away from the professor (higher up the stairs will be a higher grade).

This makes sense, since undergraduate students cannot have developed as a refined sense of the subject matter as graduate students and the tossing up will naturally take this into account using gravity to appropriately adjust the curve.

Ya gotta throw em over your shoulder, to assure impartiality!

It is comforting to know that professors get just as punchy around finals time as students do! :)

"(2) It is good if deans and the occassional student seem to see you assiduously grading exams. Lighter exams make easier reading in such circumstances. Students who write these useful exams should be rewarded."

If only my own professors would take this into account, and reward me for brevity! (Lack of knowledge has nothing to do with it, of course.)

Interesting. I believe my school issued grades based on handwriting quality. First year, handwritten exams with my atrocious penmanship, mostly middle of the curve grades. Really, my name should have been Joe B. Curve. Second year, I moved to the typing room... bada bing! A .2 improvement across the board, into that rarified 57% percentile region! Yes - Instead of being perfectly mediocre, now only 43% of all students in my class were better human beings and more worthy than me in every respect, thanks to International Business Machines and their excellent Selectric III.

I don't recall what happened third year because I was drunk and golfing the whole time, normally with a couple other students and and a couple business law professors who made millions and didn't really see teaching one or two classes a year as work. The intensive effort on my drinking and golfing has definitely paid benefits in my post law school life. If I had known the importance of drinking and golfing at the start of law school, I think I might have skipped law school and just worked on my short game, and sunk the student loans into Bud Lite. I think that's what that latter-day Clarence Darrow, John Daly, is up to. I hear he's been admitted to the bars in many states.

This is a most entertaining post. Thanks, Dan!

I am sure you will all be interested in a new proprietary software program for use with electronically filed exams: Active Test Adjudication and Result Insertion (ATARI).

The program creates a random swarm of exam papers and simulates hurling them toward the viewer of the computer monitor. Using the arrow keys (or a joystick) the "grader" fires photon "grades" at the attacking papers; each "hit" is assigned a random grade acccording to preset curve data, thus assuring a double-random result (which self-evidently is as normatively "fair" as any student could wish.) A counter at the bottom of the screen shows the remaining supply of each letter grade, but not which one will be fired next. Exams that "get by" the photon killing zone are automatically assigned the midpoint of the requisite curve, so that the grader is granted the joy of greater "result randomness" as his/her accuracy increases. This keeps the grader mentally "in the game," which is something students often deserve.

Funny post, but my question is this: if you really grade exams by tossing them down the stairs, why is it that it takes you lazy bastards so long to get me my grades? Since most of you teach the same crap each year and grade students ONCE every six months, I would think you could expedite the process a bit more.

This is a hilarious post. I felt compelled to disclose my grading system over at Legal Profession Blog

Dan,

I was about to start drafting my grading sheet when I saw your post. This is much better than my own method of taking my own exam, grading it (hope I get an "A+"), preparing a detailed grading sheet, and painstakingly allocating points. It would be intesting to use my method then use your method and see what happens. I'm terrified that the results might be the same.

I personally like the system that required all exams to be written on the back of any form of U.S. Currency. This helps simplify the entire process. Short answers and the denomination of the currency shows how serious the student considers their education.

Mike -- It would violate the school policy of enhancing student angst in every way possible if we were to provide grades quickly. We would receive nasty notes from the Dean, horrid committee assignments, and classes at 8:00 a.m. Monday morning and late Friday afternoon in the same semester if we were so freely to breach the profession's standards. Unthinkable.

Nope, don't believe it. This method requires the prof to actually touch the papers at some point. Ideally he should never even be in the same room.

The method as described is sound (and quite old - but the action photos are an Internet innovation), however the actual physical work should, of course, be done by a grad student.

Seriously, what are those Teaching Assistants for? Not for teaching, surely.

A wealth of scientific evidence exists (I am told) which supports the central premises of this analysis. It would be a crime against humanity if it is not submitted to the J.I.R. (Journal of Irreproducible Results).

The bender granted an A is bending on top of another bender. I insist In fairness the stomped-on bender be granted an A too.

Too much bias in the stair toss.
I prefer random intergers at http://www.random.org

That is hilarious!! :D Though if I were to be from the bunch that got a D.....I protest to the teacher to toss the exams one more time :p

While a TA at Indiana University in the mid-70's, I used this method to grade the papers for 3 of the 4 study sections of my professor's large class. Another TA (obviously the teacher's pet) had only the one section and used a different grading methodology. At the conclusion of the semester, we compared notes and experiences, and it was obvious that the Stair Toss Grading System was a much more reliable predictor of future educational and career performance. I am glad to see that research continues in this field of applied statistical analysis and that it continues to support its utility.

Throwing them down the stairs isn't much fun. I prefer to use a dart board. Bulls eye is an A, high numbers are in the B range, and Es are those that miss the board altogether. At least I get some exercise and sharpen my own dart throwing skills.

here at UBC we use the same system: its callewd the buchanan tower marking system. Johan!!! i think you borrowed this from me!

I have thought about making an initial pass through the written answers for the exams that end in the ever-compelling epitaph, "Out of time........," or "This exam was too long........" Also look out for the one or two that, instead of spending time answering one of the many questions they skipped, engage in a tirade against your test or pedagogy.

Give those exams an A since they are most likely to complain and create headaches. The rest are appropriately dealt with through the stair technique.

I prefer the old method that appears in out law text for dividing a fox carcass when there is a dispute of ownership before the courts.
Have students submit a closed bid- how much an A is worth to them, the student with the highest bid must pay that amount for the A, the students then with lower bids must pay the lower amount for the subsequently lower grades.
This encourages fairness, the student who values the A the most will make the highest closed bid, without knowing the bid of their classmates they show the true cost-benefit analysis of the A, and they then will get that grade for how much they think it's worth.
It increases the wages of desperately under paid teachers and it teaches students the important rules of Capitalism, well and the rules of fox carcass division....

The exams appear to have been tossed en masse. This would create a patent unfairness in the system, as papers turned in first and thus on the bottom of the stack would hit first, and the sheets turned in last would have the longest ride (unless the entire pile were to flip upon contact with the first step).

Two groups finish their exam quickly: the very smart and the very stupid. But some intelligent people check over their paper 2, 3 even 4 times to ensure it is perfect. Being at the top of the stack, they will therefore receive a D with the Figure 4 curve.

This is all to suggest that the professor who gives a damn will fling the exams one at a time, thus negating the blessing or curse of finishing too quickly, and eliminating position in the stack as an unfair determinant.

And if a paper flies over the rail? "Incomplete."

I have my Civil Procedure exam tomorrow. I'm going to use a really big font. 36-point, at least. And if possible, I'll print it on card stock, so there is no possibility of bending or crumpling.

The methods described are interesting but become obsolete with tenure.

When responding to queries in lecture, "I see that there IS such a thing as a stupid question" may flow from your lips as its source is most certaily the ambrosia that is your mind.

Including: "Flunk Now And Avoid The Rush"
at the top of exams will not only reduce your workload but will force those attempting to reach higher than their grasp to fall, shamefully to the bottom of the ladder where they belong.

Ah, I love it up here.

You incompetent grade inflating hack!!

Your spread across the curve indicates the toss was performed at the wrist. That's the mark of a rank amateur. The wrist is kept straight and in line with the forearm, with the toss being executed with the elbow at a 45 degree angle.

If the curve distribution needs re-examination, down 6-12 Schlitz Malt Liquor beers (The Bull), and then re-execute the elbow toss.

I am a retired attorney. When I was in law school, I always suspected that exams were graded this way. Now I know for sure!

My children gave my wife and I a cruise for our 40th wedding anniversary. Unfortunately, it begins right after my final exam. I asked my friend Rick Lempert if taking the exams on the cruise would be seen as bad form by my spouse. His response was no. He recommended that I toss the exams off of the back of the ship and see which exams floated longest. (He did not offer an opinion as to whether those exams that sank first should get the As or the Fs, but given your convencing aguments, clearly those that sink first have more "heft" and should get the As.) Rick noted that this procedure has the added benefit of leaving no "paper trail," eliminating the possibility of later appeals by students. He noted that no one could reasonably object to this because it is also true with modern voting machines. Do you agree that a toss off the stern is a reasonable grading method and would you agree that those exams sinking first deserve the As? Also, should I attempt to distinguish between, say Bs and B+s or should I simply grade on a five point scale? (I am planning to take a pair of binoculars to assist me in this task.)

true/false exams on scantrons is the way to go. You can grade a class of 40 in less time than it takes to finish a smoke. (though crafting a good t/f exam could take a lot more time...)

I'll be curious to see how many of your students surreptitiously tape index cards into their bluebooks next semester (to create a more aerodynamic exam)!

I'll be curious to see how many of your students surreptitiously tape index cards into their bluebooks next semester (to create a more aerodynamic exam)!

I'll admit... I have graded papers in a fashion nearly resembling this. The professor I worked for liked to have very long essay exams, and assigned a lot of papers. She then left it up to me to spend hour upon hour grading.

I would take the papers and read part of them quickly and seperate them into about 5 groups based on quality (A, B, C, ect). Then I'd give each section the 'ol toss to determine the final grade (A+, A, A-, ect).

I've found that it's much quicker and just as fair to randomly assign letter grades on the spreadsheet and then write them in red ink on the paper.

It turns out that *no one* that gets a better than expected grade complains. Also, no one that gets a grade within two steps of what they expected complains (i.e. a C instead of a B-). Almost no one complains even if they get even a whole letter grade lower than they expected. Finally, some will complain when they get substantially below what they expected (mostly the very good students and the delusional).

I then allow the students who complain to 'defend' their paper. Most can't. Finally, I have to actually read and grade about half of those and that amounts to fewer than 5% of the total.

It makes me look like a concerned and fair prof while not only reducing my workload by around 90% but giving me a few good laughs at the same time.

You are all so LEFT BRAINED...tosses, darts, ships, aerodynamics (although I have some sympathy for the beer approach). My, oh my, just divine the mark - much easier. It's there in Jung's collective subconcious, just go get it and talk about no paper trails.

Maybe it would be more efficient to turn the exams into paper airplanes. The ones that fly the farthest would be As, the closest Fs, and ect. A roof landing would be marked "Incomplete".

My system is much simpler, more efficient, and much less subjective. First I remove those exams that are blank or clearly, clearly delusional baloney. Those are the F's. The rest get tossed down the stairs.

Face up landers are B's, while face down landers are C's. Landing on a side edge, propped up against any wall or furniture, is a D, and on a top or bottom edge is an A.

I think that's why they call that part of the stairs the "landing."

This is destined to be a classic along the lines of my other favorite Prof. Solove post.

http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2005/10/the_airline_scr.html

That explains why I got an A+ in Animal Law and a C+ in Civil Procedure.

Hah! And my classmates thought I was odd for spraying Teflon over my exam papers! Side note to self: think long and hard before taking Goldman next year.

You Sir, have just cut down on my workload a great deal. : )

the far one would be FAIL

Thanks for presenting this thoughtful study on grading, although it’s a little late for me -- I retired 10 years ago from active teaching. I did use this method during my teaching years, but never with the subtlety proposed in this paper for awarding – and + scores. I was definitely in the “lighter paper gets a higher grade” school of grading, but never tried the “up the stairs” method proposed by one of the paper's “discussants.”

For my grading I used the carpeted stairs at my home, which contributed a stickiness after landing that made the grades more certain. This benefit is not available on the concrete stairs used in the demonstration. I think if the study had been thorough it would have tested the method on a number of different types of stairs, including different riser heights, number of stairs, stair surfaces, and the like to verify the method, but the paper as presented is definitely a good first “step.”

A variation on part of the suggested grading methodology: Stand at top of stairs and toss high in air. Exams that stick to the ceiling get an A.

One year, my curve was unusually low because I left the window open on the landing. That was a tough year to take my course.

When we had an elevator installed in my house, I hired a grader. She lived in a ranch house, so we just used pass-fail. Everyone failed.

None of you people who've tried to add to the joke are funny at all.

wow...this is simply awesome...i cant wait for information privacy law with solove next semester that i signed up for

This has gotten me thinking. I have an exam on monday. Do I write more words in less time, less words in more time, less words in less time, or more words in more time. Which method will my professor use?? I can't be sure!

When I interviewed at Stetson many moons ago, there was a staircase with letter grades painted on the steps. As I recall, F was at the top of the stairs and A at the bottom.

I am a recently tenured professor, and I was sent this article by a former student. I am, however, confused by this article: What is this thing that the blogger refers to as "grading"? Should I be familiar with this thing--especially around this time of the year?

Call it the stepwise method.

I've been teaching for 40 years and it is always great to learn new ways of doing things, especially grading papers. Thsi method takes all of the subjectivity and associated anxiety out of grading. Thanks!

The chance of a paper crossing a parallel line brings to mind Buffon's needle problem.

why am I studying for exams again? If I hate studying and professors hate grading, why don't you just teach me the secert handshake already and be done with it?

I'm the Registrar at my university system campus. On behalf of my peers I say, whatever your method, just get the grades to my office by the deadline or you'll end up teaching in that little room next door to the athletic department laundry.

Have a pleasant winter break!

No wonder I always get A's! I turn in late papers, thus putting them at the top of the stack, and thus moving farther down. Thanks!

Really not the least bit funny, given how arbitrary exam grading really is and how important it is to students when it's the ONLY thing you grade a student on. Let's wait to make jokes about it until after you law professors implement a transparent way to grade law school classes that is consistent with educational principles.

No, no, no! You have to use the bell curve and remember that the outliers, high and low, represent the two undesirable extremes of too little writing or frantic overworking. The exact centre steps are where your A papers lurk.

You also get a much better distribution if you go up to the top of a tall building (ten or more stories) and drop the bundle down the centre opening of the stairwell. Of course, one sets one's TAs to gather and grade the results rather than having to slog through all the humdrum work personally.

Excellent post, by the way!

Daniel:

I was first introduced to this grading method as a freshman in college in 1976. Glad to see that it's still around. Much more difficult back then to literaly "bang out" a heavy "A" paper on a manual typewriter. How do we account for grade inflation? Heavier-weight paper or MS Word?

Snowman

PS Method as described in Fig 5 (A+ at the bottom) was used then.

Hey Ryan (above): ever watch the movie Stripes?

Lighten up, Francis.

_I_ was introduced to this method some time in high school [59-63] or college [63-68], but the teachers were much less lazy then: the procedure was described as throwing the papers UP a flight of stairs, not DOWN. better grades were awarded for achieving the higher levels. well, it made sense then, anyway....

:)

The methods differ in somewhat lesser developed countries. One method is to put exams on the table (as there is only one used for both work and grading) and wait for some grease stains to stain the papers. Those that get stained are considered "Painfully transparent" and so warrant a low grade (an actual fail depends on the value of the gift the exam is wrapped around.

A further technique is to grade papers based on the pollution that colects on them when the window in left open (not frequently used after those who performed this method started dying off) and those that were the most polluted were judged "lacking clarity".

A more common method among more rural institutions is to observe the amount of mud that collects on the papers as they are trnsferred to from the examination room to the grading area. Those that remain legible are considered "cogent and displays a good understanding of the field", those on the lower end of the cleanliness scale should be considered "lacking clarity and depth".

A method not to be underestimated is reading the first five lines to street children begging from you and grades being assigned go from the speediest departure receiveing the highest grades and the slowest flight receiving the lowest grade. One disadvantage is that the process leads to grade inflation in the more technical fields.

I just finished up the semester and I'm betting that one of my instructors actually uses this system. It's good to get a behind-the-scenes look at what's going on.

Thanks.

Thanks for the advice! Just a pity you did not come with it sooner. I have already graded them all through my ingenious TOILET BOWL method. It's a more definitive method. In the words of a TV host, "THE SPIN STOPS HERE." Sinking papers get A's and B's; floating papers get C's, and D's. The "FECIED" one's naturally get F's.

Thanks again for a back-up method!

\facepalms
To think... I still learn new techniques of summative evaluation. But, I ask, how can this be used in formative or performance evaluations?

I feel humbled by the ingenuity of those before me. I hope I develop a grading method this awe-inspiring when I become a teacher.

Alas, as a present student, how horrifying that my hard work may be treated so preferentially. At least there's the small consolation that some of my bullshit may slip through. :)

Great article! :D

Good advice and clever marketing. I could have graded quite a few papers during the time I was snickering along. Now there is less time. So the solution seems more appealing. As I delay further, I will soon have no choice but to follow the advice. Betty Trott

Brilliant! I snorted diet Coke all over my keyboard, but it was worth it.

I'd tell you my main method of grading essays, but you might not respect me in the morning.

God!
so funny.

I'm SO relieved I waited to finish up my grading. Clearly this will be the easiest way. Of course, it gets a bit more complicated when one assigns portfolios. One has to account for the difference between a large envelope and a binder.

My chest started hurting after laughing too hard. This method clearly reflects how some teachers at my school grade, although I won't mention any names *cough fawcett cough*. Thanks for the laugh, I'll send you a law suit for my cardiac arrest next week.

I'm a UCLA first year law student. I'm studying on Saturday night at 2:30am for my contracts final on monday and I just came across this post. This is the most hilarious thing I have ever seen. It does explain, however, why I get so many A's.

Joseph, if searching blogs is your idea of studying, you have more problems than you think. You better go for heft - or based on your claimed grades, maybe you already have!

Thank you for amusing me during finals.

Hi,
I have always loved that "alternative" humour in life (or as so many other people call it...weird...odd...quote "it's not REALLY funny though is it"?), and spending all my 41yrs saying "you just don't get it...do you?"
From the Goodies when I was little to "Not the Nine 'clock news", Monty Python ....need I go on,
As far as I am concerned, you either get it or you don't and I can honestly say that I haven't laughed so much in ages!!
Have a really "MERRY XMAS"
love,
Ruth
xxx

My daughter, second year law student, sent me this. Obviously she thought it was revealing. However, I clearly remember being graded this way when I was in school. My university pearched on rolling hills. The possibility for grading was endless. There was the "basic stair toss" (up or down), the "does it float?" when tossed off the second story window, the if-it-ends-in-mud-it-fails, the winter "slide downward on snow", the "drunken readings without glasses", the "Oh, am I supposed to do something with these?" innocent newby approach to the "I haven't read a word you wrote all semester why begin now?" veteran approach. After years of reading my student's papers, I have realized that it is simply too painful to find out what (if anything) they have retained or worse, how they have interpreted my lectures. I favor the leave-me-in -bliss-ignorance grading system. I make my mind up immediately at the beginning of the term. If I remember who they are, it's an A. If I have actually seen them more than once...B. If I noticed them sleeping in the back of the room...C. If I have never noticed them anywhere near my classroom, D or F, depending entirely on my mood. I have also found that those who bring me coffee tend to do better. I hope this helps some of you who are actually still actively dealing with student papers.

People, people... to really judge the research quality of the papers they must be tossed down the stairs of the university library.

That can't be how my student papers were graded. I got consistently good marks, so the method must have been: the handsomer the student, the better the marks. When marking papers myself, however, I used a different method, using an algorithm based on a combination of how loud the music was playing, how much beer was left in the fridge, and the proximity of the deadline for handing in the marks.

Why doesn't anyone explain this to new professors? I have wasted so much time with this pile of exams! And how do I get a house with stairs?

MT: You don't need a house with stairs - you can quite effectively do this anywhere at your university - preferably outside as it adds an interesting element to the grading process, namely, wind.

=)

I have used this method for years, and have found it most helpful. Many students have begun handing in their term papers with a clear plastic jacket. My analysis of this phenomenon has uncovered the fact that this makes the paper more aerodynamic, and provides greater lift resulting in more papers making a successful flight to the bottom of the stairs earning more students higher grades. This might be a significant contributing factor to grade inflation. There should be a publishable article in this somewhere.

Thank you so much for finally giving a full description of this grading process. I've heard about it for years, but it was never quite covered in grad. school, and I was sure that I was missing many of the techniques and metrics of evaluation. Sometimes when a windy draft is coming up the stairs, a few papers will flutter, which clearly means I've not made up my mind about those grades.

And I wasted all that time grading... Hmmm... Maybe will try this method next year... Thanks for a good joke! :)

For another exciting and humorous escapade into the professorial grading experience, see "The Agonies of Grading" at 23 Rutgers L.Journal 107 (1991)wherein a fictional, sardonic law prof struggles to make sense out of some stereotyped answers while evaluating tort exams in the wee hours of the night.

Well, this is certainly more sanitary than another method. Some have claimed that they spread papers on the floor and let the dog go to them. If the dog pees on them, they fail; if not, they pass. Anything pooped on . . . well, use your imagination.

Don't forget to staple each exam before The Toss.

Once I forgot, and then had to spend an hour trying to determine which page went with which exam.

I didn't succeed, of course. At the end of the hour I declared failure and told my students that the exams had been accidentally destroyed (after being marked) and then used the modified lottery B method to grade(write each name on a card and flip them like baseball cards in the 60's).

For anyone interested there is a recent dissertation from Administrivia University's, College of Higher and Superior Education comparing the Standardized Lottery grade Awarding Method (SLAM) to the Standardized Toss Down Stair Case grade Awarding Method (STD-SCAM or STanDard-SCAM.) Author Ima Scamster has won wide-spread accolades from her peer education professors and was recently placed in a "fine, Ivy-league insitution." Her dissertation advisor, notes that "She is perfectly positioned to move into the upper-echelon of adminstrators there. She will fit right in."

I prefer grading methods that involve open flame. Very satisfying, and they save on the heating bill.

There is an alternative method for those who are not athletically-inclined (you wouldn't believe the number of repetitive-motion injuries that result from throwing and retrieving exam papers from staircases): Open the exam to any page, and with closed eyes, jab at the page. The first letter you see is the grade. I'm told that all major computer grade-recording systems can accommodate all components of any major alphabet.

Now we need a method for papers that are graded entirely online, since there is no paper copy...

I have been out of law school a couple of years now, but the sting of being on the receiving end of these grading practices has yet to fade.(To this day, I would bet the farm that some of my professors used the Standard SCAM method. My law school had several three story buildings at their disposal, which had many staircases that would have been perfect. I just don't have any proof...yet.)

I am still trying to figure out they managed to cheat me out of my clearly deserved A on a scantron exam, though.

My SO, LotStreetWiz, had an economics professor who claimed not only to use the Stair Toss method of grading but also to let his cats play with the papers and knock a few more of them downstairs before he tabulated the results. Obviously, he believed in using "high grades at the top."

No kidding, but when I was in college, I was visiting my English professor in her office, and I noticed a Oujia Board on her desk. Given the context I bet you can see where I'm going with this... so I ask her, "hey what's the Ouija Board for?", and she says to me, "that's how I figure out my grades!"

I was wondering why my grade was a Q in that class.

Have any of you heard of these methods being applied to admission?

Dad says my grandpa used to grade physics students' papers like this, but never did Grandpa achieve such precision!

I'm halfway through grading middle school history projects and wondered why I didn't use your system.

These methods are all well and good for higher education, but for the high school level, the preferred method is to sit in an over-stuffed recliner and fling the papers upward. Any papers landing directly in the lap, thus making name-reading quite easy, get the A's. The ones landing on the arms of the recliner are B's. Those on the leg lift are obviously C's. All papers on the floor are F's. There are no D's, as too many students try to defend, and thus enhance, their grade in order to obtain the coveted "passing" grade.

The method is too time consuming. I use it only for Mid term exams. For the final you need only reverse order the mid term grades.

If only I could grade my papers like this...

But then I'd have to pick the damn things up again. Poo.

Great post, though. :)

This is why I'm a huge fan of the TMP Center for Primate Grading of Law School Exams. Why should people expend their energy grading these things when Chimps can achieve the same result?

Professor Solove -- I knew this was how it was done! It always seemed too random to be otherwise... :)

I am enjoying my time here in WI and interviewed for a 2-year federal magistrate clerkship the other day. I will let you know how it turns out (I really hope I get it; I would love to do a federal clerkship).

Happy Holidays!

I think every teacher who uses essay type questions, and has experienced that sick feeling while peering over a stack of ungraded papers has dreamed of using this method.

Every semester I agonize over using a 25 T/F question scantron or an essay type test. And I want to strangle the teacher that convinced me that finals should be "a learning experience".

Thank-you,

JP

Thank you for disclosing this academic secret. I had assumed the puppy method was used, but the stairs method is cleaner. It's the only way I could have managed a B on that bizarre ConLaw exam I was so sure I flunked.

I had one professor who used the random assignment method, with a twist. He managed to give all his students grades better than expected on our unread papers. Then he signed off on our upper-level writing requirement, as added insurance that we would keep our mouths shut.

I demand that this process be performed on an escalator!

I perform my tosses during a Redskin football game.
Somehow, the tosses slope toward A's when the Redskins are winning and toward F's when they are way behind.

This is hilarious. Although, there is nothing funny about getting a D+ or a C-. I still contemplate putting glue in a professor's chair.

So funny- I've shared you method over Here on my blog

Ha! NOW I know why one of my professors last semester said we would NOT get our finals back...it wasn't so we would share them with other students - it was because he used the cruise ship grading mentioned earlier in comments!

All of the work you are doing for finals seem really more difficult than necessary. By the time the midterm rolls around I already know who has potential and who does not. Knowing this, it is a waste of time to read student's papers who have no real potential. ( added bonus you get to decide who has potential) Depending on how poor the potential the lower the grade. The higher the potential the higher the grade. This way I only have to go through the papers once, mark them and then record the grade. Finished, now I can go on to more important things.

In this method it is important to keep the test a bit longer than usual before returning them and helpful if you leave them on the backseat of the car for most of that time so that they get bounced around and look ruffled. The illusion helps the students feel better.

Of course this presupposes that the student who has some actual interest in the studies has more potential. However, if this causes undo stress deciding who actually cares then using the "Who is the better suck up" has the better potential also works.

th nice thing is there is no picking up the papers from the stairs.

Years ago, I taught in a boarding school. I lived on the fourth floor of one of the dormitories in a garret apartment. I didn't have any students on the floor with me... I marked the stairs leading up to the fourth floor with grades; when students came up to visit, they'd ask what the letters on the stairs were... I certainly got them talking... ;-)

I love this so much! I was explaining to some of my students how I would be grading their last essays (I guess the detailed rubric wasn't enough). This deep explanation would have helped a lot because my students didn't seem to believe that's how it was done.

This reminds me of the rabbi, priest and minister joke. One of them (take your pick) throws the coins from the collection plate in the air and whatever lands on one side of a line drawn on the pavement he keeps, the rest he donates to the needy. Religious functionary #2 does the same thing only using a circle rather than a line. Whatever lands in the cirlce goes to charity, out of the circle he keeps. The third guy throws the coins up to heaven and says "What God wants he keeps, I keep all the rest." I think the divine slection methods also works in the case of grading. We toss all papers heavenward. Those that stay in the lofty domain are divine and worthy of an outstanding grade, those that return to the world of mortal men are in no way exceptional and deserving of a C. By the way, this method requires much less effort than the above proposed methods, as it involves the retrieval of fewer papers over a smaller area. Let's hear it for efficiency!

The toss method seems to involve assigning individual grades to specific assignments. I prefer a holistic grading method that I affectionately call the "survivor system." Students who finish the entire course get an A+. Students who finish all but the last week get an A, and so on down to students who finish barely half the course or less, and get an F. At the end of each week of class, the students themselves convene a tribal council at which they vote on which of their colleagues should be dropped from the course that week.

This is also the method commonly used in IT and business consultancy to check whether a report is ready for the client or not. Generally in my experience the methodology is that when at least one sheet reaches the foot the report as a whole has enough content. My partners thought I was joking too. How obliging of you to have posted the corroborating evidence that I am not the only person who has heard of this technique. Many thanks.

So why haven't the professors issued their grades yet?!? This method doesn't seem to be particularly time consuming...

lol)))

My home has no stairs.

I am being hounded by administration to submit grades from last semester and they are threatening to fire me. I have told them why I cannot finish my grading and now they want me to undergo drug-testing. I know someone with a 2-story home but how in the world could I explain grading based on someone else's criteria.

If I lose my job my wife says she is leaving me.

Thanks for ruining my life.

HAHA! great post!

I was just curious if you accept papers on really heavy stone tablets?

Eerie. When I started law school four years ago, there was a rumor that my torts professor used this method exactly. Right down to the tie-breaking for teeterers.

Well, that explains a lot of my college papers. The good ones that I was proud of ended up with C's, and the worst ones that I spent as little effort as possible on got A's.

Wait... that also explains a lot of my high school papers, now that I think about it.

Great post, hilariously scientific.

Thanks for the nice post.

Should +s and -s be given as part of the grades, or just simple A, B, C, D, and F?

After doing an academic year's worth of research on issues in grading (Human Performance Technology project, doing my Masters in Ed Tech), this comes as a refreshing smile just as the project comes to a close. Thank you for the laughs - but I don't think I will include this method in my columns...

Best,
Lissa

very nice, I am sure I have been on the receiving end of this curve now I can rest assured that I will achieve the most efficient use of statistical curving of grades

Great!!! I've never seen such an excellent idea on how to grade students. Think I will do it myself

Any suggestions on how to grade this bunch of essays?

Any suggestions on how to grade this bunch of essays? They're too bulky for the stair method.

Ugh, double post...

Sigh, it's that time of year again....

The post itself is funny...some of the comments actually scare me. o_O

Excuse my paranoia - as a student I know I might be pretty stupid for thinking this, but I hope to God that no teacher actually uses this as a serious grading device.

Surely, students can hardly expect teachers to take their exams any more seriously than the students do! What do you take us for? Masochists?

"extra effort on the part of the grader to retrieve the exam. Therefore, the exam must be penalized for this obvious flaw" ROTFLMAO XD

My mother is a teacher and sees this quite often.

As a professional in the field of educational assessment I object strongly to this information being given away for free. A good consultant would charge at least 1000 dollars a day for explaining this method and would drag it out for a week or more.

I must disagree from this method, according the chaos theory the probability of being accounted in this proportion in less than 1% so I prefer to use this formula:
P=y = A*x^2 + B*x + C
Where A is the mass of the sheet, x the air humidity, B the density of the floor and C is the amount of grease impregnate to the paper. The formula is copyrighted to the TOFEL studio to the math English method of teaching English.

Response from my brother who writes exams for the NRC:

Cute! The technique is known as the "randomized distribution".

It's more accurate if you do one toss from the top of the stairs, one from the bottom, then one straightup in the middle. You then collect the data and enter it into a CONFIDENCE calculation in EXCEL

You end up telling the student "I can tell you that you made a C with 67% Confidence."

Sounds quite systematic, does it not? When the student protests, you simply ask them if they understand the complex statistical calculation used to arrive at your learned conclusion, e.g. how the CONFIDENCE calculation works. They will be invariably mystified, so you simply send them on there way with a knowingly condescending smile...

I have developed a similar tool that can be used to adjust the grades of female respondents to account for routine hormonal fluctuations and seasonal tide schedules. There is another that is used to adjust the grades of male respondents based on their statistical proximity to the last 10 World Series, Stanley Cups and Superbowls. However, there is a significant percentage of anomaly noted when these rules are applied to males at the University of Florida, no doubt due to their overdeveloped "reptile" brain functions.

Obviously you all have overlooked the simplest way to deal with grading - DON'T GIVE ANYTHING TO BE GRADED TO BEGIN WITH!!!

Use the random number generator in excel to assign the grades.

If you are truly concerned about fairness multiply that number by attendence.

OMG! I LMAO! thanks for sharing some great insights with a new professor!