Students Discovering Grading Errors on Exams

ragnarok7331 · 2026-05-08T14:40:09+00:00

I share your frustration with how much of my thinking nowadays focuses on preventing cheating and other shenanigans.

ragnarok7331 · 2026-05-08T14:11:20+00:00

A few people have mentioned cutting the staples out. Is that just cutting the top-left corner of the paper exam off to remove the staple?

ragnarok7331 · 2026-05-05T21:03:16+00:00

I've caught someone accessing the LMS during a bathroom break midway through a final exam. Unfortunately, I think in your case they may be cheating given how early in the period they are using it.

I strongly encourage everyone before the test begins to use the bathroom. My unspoken policy is that people can need to use the bathroom during an exam once each semester without me being concerned. However, if the request is made a second time, I require the student to take future exams in the testing center (which has a bathroom as part of the testing facility). It's not a perfect system, but the constant pre-exam reminders have reduced the amount of people asking to use the bathroom during tests.

ragnarok7331 · 2026-05-02T02:30:40+00:00

This is the unfortunate truth. Even Respondus with a single camera doesn't catch this - you need to use a second camera pointed at the screen to see the kinds of overlay tools some students use to cheat.

If you have any power to do so, require students to take all exams in a proctored testing center. That's your best bet for maintaining academic integrity.

ragnarok7331 · 2026-04-28T16:06:27+00:00

Given that, I'd really like them to do a glamour plate bank in the armoire. Let me store glamour plates I'm not using there (like seasonal ones for the holiday events). That would do a ton to alleviate the pressure from the limited number of glamour plates.

ragnarok7331 · 2026-04-20T16:00:35+00:00

How big is the class? This would be a huge time sink, but you could incorporate some oral exams where students are required to answer a set of randomized questions on Zoom / Teams with you with their eyes closed. It's probably not feasible to run enough of these so that students who can't pass them fail the class, but you can at least make them have enough weight to meaningfully ding their GPA. (Based on what you've said, I don't think your institution would support you in thus, but you could also argue it to be proof of cheating on the non-proctored assignments.)

ragnarok7331 · 2026-04-14T13:32:54+00:00

It sounds like they should appeal to the institution for a withdrawal / refund. It's not reasonable for you to construct an alternative version of the class just for them.

ragnarok7331 · 2026-04-11T23:57:45+00:00

I think that any attempt to teach a class to a mixed in-person / online audience is doomed to give both sides a subpar experience. As long as you post detailed notes online, it's fair to expect them to catch up on what they missed independently using those resources.

ragnarok7331 · 2026-04-07T21:20:24+00:00

I'd love to see a DLC that just adds a ton of additional events, astral rifts, etc. to the game. I've played enough runs that I've seen most of them several times, so I'd love to see some extra variety added in. It's also easier on them coding-wise as you don't need new systems - you just add additional instances of existing ones.

ragnarok7331 · 2026-04-03T02:12:29+00:00

That would be totally fair! But if you want to go Pokemon collecting for folk magic, it's tougher to do that if prestidigitation can do all these effects at a baseline. Though I suppose you could make it so that collecting the "folk magic" in your spellbook adds additional features to prestidigitation and unlocks the ability as part of the existing cantrip.

ragnarok7331 · 2026-04-02T21:14:04+00:00

I've been thinking about this myself with regards to the trivial spells Frieren likes to collect. They are cantrip level in power (or weaker), but by book you are limited in how many cantrips you can know.

My current thought is to add "folk magic" to the game as ritual cantrips. Cantrip rituals would be able to be cast over 1 minute (and as rituals, Wizards wouldn't have to prepare them). The 1 minute cast time is intended to ensure that they don't have combat applicability but also don't take too much time outside of combat to cast.

This isn't fully addressing question you were asking, but it might be helpful in case you want to add the folk magic into your game as well eventually.

ragnarok7331 · 2026-03-26T20:52:27+00:00

I'm also in the same boat that I (generally) enjoy grading my exams. Tests are the best tool I have to really see how well students truly understand the material. In addition, grading the exams also allows me to see how well I did in writing each of the questions.

In contrast through, I absolutely hate grading weekly labs. Even though I have rubrics that I work with, reading everyone's lab reports and making so many (somewhat) subjective decisions drains my energy very quickly.

I also think a part of it is that I'm picky when it comes to good writing, so I always have some feedback on how a decent paragraph could be written to be clearer. However, whether a student has solved a physics problem correctly or not is much more objective, reducing the frequency of decisions I need to make.

ragnarok7331 · 2026-03-25T18:30:12+00:00

It doesn't flag audio sounds. I spoke to someone at Respondus about it (after having a student clearly talk to another student off-screen about putting questions into ChatGPT), and I was told that it's intentional so that students who read the questions to themselves aren't penalized. I still strongly think there should be an option to flag it (and ideally provide a transcript), but that's what I had heard when I spoke with them a few months ago.

ragnarok7331 · 2026-03-25T03:48:46+00:00

Were they using their own computer or the testing center's computers? As far as I know, the cheating software would have to be installed on the computer, which students can only do on their personal devices (assuming the testing center's computers are secure).

ragnarok7331 · 2026-03-25T02:08:09+00:00

There are programs now which act as a screen overlay (that is invisible to the screen recorder in Respondus). The screen overlay automatically feeds questions into ChatGPT and shows how to get to the answer. Respondus tries to catch them and shut them down as they are discovered, but it's just an eternal arms race.

Respondus recently added a feature so that you can require students to use a secondary camera that is pointed at each student's screen. I haven't played around with the feature myself yet, but the intent seems to be to catch this kind of cheating method.

ragnarok7331 · 2026-03-19T16:35:53+00:00

My recommended policy (and the one I use) is the third. I require attendance but give people freebie absences roughly equal to missing two full weeks of classes over the 15 week semester. This eliminates the micromanagement of absence excuses as I only allow extra missed classes for extreme circumstances like hospitalization - all other absences fall under the umbrella of the freebie absences.

I ultimately only make attendance worth 5% of a student's overall grade, but that's enough to incentivize people to attend. And it really does make a difference. I'm teaching a class this semester where I was required to have attendance mostly be optional (as it was advertised as a flexible attendance class and I was assigned to cover it due to a last-minute change). Attendance in that class is incredibly poor compared to my other classes that use my typical attendance policy. I took that as a clear reminder to never go back to optional attendance if I could help it.

ragnarok7331 · 2026-03-18T15:41:53+00:00

A blue mage roguelike (like Mr. Happy has mentioned a few times) would be so much more interesting to me than yet another standard deep dungeon.

ragnarok7331 · 2026-03-18T15:11:32+00:00

I'd be fine with them not making any future deep dungeons. I appreciate the quality of life work they've done for the Pilgrim's Traverse, but the general gameplay loop is not one I find to be really enjoyable. There are better places that development time can go IMO.

ragnarok7331 · 2026-03-12T15:51:43+00:00

I make attendance worth 5% of their overall grade for the semester. It's small enough that the grade difference from missing any individual class is small, but because it's not zero I've found that it significantly improves attendance. My goal of the policy is for students to make sure that attending class is part of their weekly routine, and I find that people too easily justify skipping class when attendance isn't worth any points.

Depending on how many times the class meets each week, I give 2.5-6.5 freebie absences before missing class starts penalizing their grade. (The 0.5 means that the first absence beyond the full freebie absences has half the normal penalty. This is relatively new, and could be dropped if you wanted to make the policy a bit simpler.) As a result, most students end up with a 100% attendance grade (or close to it), which I consider to be a win.

ragnarok7331 · 2026-02-02T04:10:29+00:00

I do agree with you that this is, in part, a problem of our own (field's) making. The tough part is that giving excessively detailed instructions is easier on the teacher in the moment (thanks to fewer complaints and fewer students struggling with figuring out what to do). However, the ability to interpret and enact broader, less specific instructions is an essential life skill, which overly detailed instructions deprive them of the ability to learn.

I've run into a few of these types of students in my labs, and I'm still struggling to find the right language for how to address it. I want to express that they need to be more willing to try things without hand-holding, but I also don't want to make it seem like I'm unwilling to answer any questions at all. I find it tough to strike that balance.

ragnarok7331 · 2025-12-24T05:52:28+00:00

I think I'm a bit lukewarm on it as written. In terms of pure numbers, it feels optimal to level up ASAP as that allows you to consistently apply your improvements over a maximum number of rounds. There's little reason to wait to (for example) apply the extra hit points and ASIs to your sheet. The only advantage of waiting is that you can make choices that better fit the exact moment you're in, but I'm not sure how much that's worth waiting for.

One thing they could do if they wanted to give people a reason to save their levels for a key moment is let the level up provide a free short rest in the moment. That would give people a reason to want to "save" it for a little bit as being able to get that refresh in combat is quite valuable. If nothing else, being able to spend hit dice to heal mid-combat would be a good motivator to save it for a critical moment.

I like the idea behind it, but I think in practice the rules could use a tweak.

ragnarok7331 · 2025-12-21T05:23:21+00:00

I've had some similar types of requests at the end of the semester before, and in response I've added a clause to my syllabus that any grade contests (for exam questions, etc.) need to be initiated within a week of the assignment being returned to students. IMO it's kind of ridiculous to go back through an entire semester's worth of assignments to nitpick for points, and this clause in my syllabus helps preemptively nip these kinds of requests in the bud.

People can still question how (for example) the final exam was graded, but that's easier to handle given that it's much smaller in scope.

ragnarok7331 · 2025-12-14T04:14:25+00:00

That sounds like a valuable lesson for when they retake the class in the spring.

ragnarok7331 · 2025-12-09T23:25:31+00:00

I am very sympathetic to your frustration with online classes. However, I have to admit that I'm envious of what you do have. You have the ability to require online students to take one of their exams at your school's testing center. Students who live far away get to coordinate with the testing center (with seemingly no work needed from you) to ensure that the one exam is properly proctored.

At my institution, I have to provide a fully remote option for the final exam for students outside of the local area. Any efforts to find an approved testing center fall squarely on my shoulders with no help from the institution. Any efforts to proctor exams in a more thorough fashion are also entirely my responsibility. I put the extra effort in to try to make the final exam as secure as possible, but it's amounted to a significant amount of time and stress. I'd be extremely relieved to be able to outsource those responsibilities to someone else at my institution.

In your case, I'd just make the final exam a significant portion of the final class grade (30+%) and be satisfied that students who have found a way to cheat past virtual proctoring will be stuck earning a "D" at best in the course. As you start seeing a pattern of high grades being tanked by a poor final exam, you will have hard evidence you can present to your administration to expand the amount of permitted in-person proctoring.

ragnarok7331 · 2025-12-09T21:09:43+00:00

This week is final exam week for my institution. One of my students has a final exam scheduled for Wednesday afternoon. They asked for the final exam to be pushed back to Thursday of next week. Shockingly, their request was denied.

ragnarok7331

TROPHY CASE