I posted my grades yesterday. It was an amazing feeling to be done. I collapsed as soon as they were in into a deep mid-morning nap. It was amazing.

12 credits in a single summer session is always difficult. Every year, I love it in the beginning. The energy is amazing! But by the end I am fried. I was wondering how online would work. Usually when I teach in person, I get through about three weeks before I fall fall apart. The last two weeks are difficult but manageable. I would find a quiet corner of the train on the way home every night and quite literally conk out – one year I missed my stop all together. Online, I kept strong through the end of week four this year. I thought, hey this isn’t so bad. Then week five happened. Week five was terrible! I was like a marathon runner who hit the wall. And cranky too. But now it is all over and I feel good. Well except that I don’t…

This year the grades just didn’t make sense. I have been writing about it for the entire mini-semester on this blog (Tests, and Out-Smarted). Grading online is tricky.

I can honestly say this year that students who worked hard (attended office hours, used the forum, and handed in all the assignments) were more likely to get a higher grade than students who knew the material but didn’t do the work. This is a good thing right?

I had a few students who did very well on exams but didn’t do the labs and other assignments. This is normally an F. If you don’t pass the lab, you don’t pass the class. So I don’t feel too bad about giving them a low score. Many of them ended up with Cs – I understand many of these folks will be angry (I have gotten some emails already) but they are lucky I still seem unsure about my grade system online. I feel I could have given a lower score if I felt more certain. I know that many of my labs were annoying but you still have to do the work.

But there were some other students who I knew were struggling with the math and the problem solving. I was working with them. They ended up with a strong grade in the class. They earned that grade by working hard and accomplishing something good. But the lack of connection bothers me. There is a bug in the back of my head which says could they have done this well in a traditional class? They likely looked stuff up on the internet during the exam. In fact, I encouraged at some level. (I worked hard to make the test un-google-able.) Did I fail? What’s that A mean? Will they do well in physics II with a different model? One student said, I never did so well in a science class in my life. WTH?

Here’s the thing, I am sure many of those students who didn’t hand it labs wouldn’t have done so during a traditional semester. And I know by the general amount of errors while grading their exams that they understand what they are doing. They took the test, made some mistakes, and did well. Their low-ish grade is coming from the uncompleted lab grade. I am pretty sure a few of them are ready for physics II and other higher level physics courses.

So why do I feel weird about this? If the students worked hard, learned a bunch, and did better because I let them use the internet and reduced stress, that’s great. Or am I being played? Are people cheating? Sharing answers? I don’t want to be a laughing stock. “Hey, take Wright’s class. He is a push over and its super easy to cheat.” But more than that, I don’t want to pass on unprepared students to the next level and have them get crushed. Especially if I am the guy who has to do the crushing.

I am unsettled.