To college students at a large public university there are few things more irritating than required Friday morning lectures, 20-minute walks to class, and the feeling of being a number rather than a person. Despite all of these annoyances, ask any student and they will likely tell you that teaching assistants (TAs) holding authority over their grades trumps them all.
Before I make my argument, let me first explain that I do not have a problem with the use of TAs. Teaching assistants are usually graduate students who are in school for the specific subject they are also helping to teach in the undergraduate classes. In addition, they lead discussion sections outside of lecture. It is fully understandable that at any big public university where a professor lectures to a class of 200 students, the idea of that professor individually grading everyone’s work is unrealistic. As is the case with any large bureaucracy, to accomplish everything on time, work has to be divided up among a handful of subordinate individuals. I also do not have a problem with TAs grading strictly. TAs are supposed to grade work with the same scrutiny that a professor would. If TAs gave every one of their students excellent grades, it would not teach the students how to improve upon their mistakes and would not be an accurate representation of how hard they worked to accomplish their goals. However, while the TA system of grading is good, it has one major flaw.
The problem with the TA system is the inevitable inconsistencies in grading. When looking at an assignment, test or paper, TAs are given a set of guidelines to help them accurately gauge what grade the student deserves. Despite this outline, TAs are not impartial computers, and they tend to grade more strictly or forgiving than their peers. The number of TAs in a class can vary from one to half a dozen. Thus, inherently, there are often many different points of view when grading a paper from one TA to the next.
The reason why this is a large issue is because we live in a statistics-based society where your numbers define you. When applying to a major, graduate school or a scholarship, both the student’s grade point average and how they did in specific classes are often closely assessed and scrutinized. Students are judged based upon their scores, and unfortunately, a bad grade can make a seismic difference in their future. We have all gone through the experience of having unfair or strict teachers grading us, and unfortunately, this is just a part of life. However, there is a simple solution to make the TA system of grading more perfect and one that every university should adopt.
The use of grading curves is a system that colleges are quite accustomed to. There are classes in which the average test grade is an F. As a result, curves are used to even out the playing field in a fair way by taking into account the entire class’ scores and raising grades accordingly. My proposal is this: Have TAs grade the way they are normally accustomed to, and at the end of the semester calculate the average score in all of the discussion sections. Whichever average is highest, curve up the rest of the discussion sections so their average becomes the same. This could end up hardly affecting any of the grades, or it may have a slight impact. Whatever the outcome, this would eliminate any discrepancies of students achieving higher grades because their TA was more lenient and thus make the entire system fair.
Curves are already being used on individual tests and in certain classes to make college more equal for the students. While there is hardly anything a university can do about early Friday morning classes, long walks to lecture and the amount of students at their school, they can substantially level their students’ expectations by eliminating discrepancies in TA grading with curves that give each student an equal academic opportunity. Why not expand this system, which has been proven towork, to one of the more unequal aspects of a large public university such as UW-Madison?
What do you think about grading curves in your classes? Do you think that the current system is fair? Tell us your thoughts! Please send all feedback to opinion@dailycardinal.com, and visit dailycardinal.com.
