Re-reading emails:

To Brother Stricklan, dictator of all things science:

My first email::

On my grade report, it says that I got 0/5 on a quiz. However, I am not enrolled for your class on the day that the 12th fell on, a Thursday. I find your class challenging enough without the grade book putting me on the wrong class schedule. Therefore, I was hoping this could be remedied before I have a heart attack looking at the grade book.

Thanks for your help,
Cat[herine]

This is my email of exhasperation. I'm frustrated and confused. I'm wondering, why the heck my grade went down 3 points all of a sudden. This stuff happens all the time on I-Learn.. I'm TIRED of it.

This is the response:

Janelle - Would you check this date? I suspect that what Cat is referring to is a grade from a stack of quizzes that have been entered into I-Learn on a date different from the actual day I gave the quiz (but still a quiz that I did give).

Why don’t you just pull the dates off of the quizzes and just put quiz 1, quiz 2, etc. so as to remove any confusion? The date they were given doesn’t really matter. Anyway would you look into this for me so I can report back to Cat?


Cat – I am glad to hear that you find the class challenging. That is one of our objectives for Foundations. I’m not sure which quiz the 0/5 grade was on, you may come look through the quizzes if you like and we can review it. They quizzes are alphabetized so it will be easy to see which quiz group was attributed to the 12th. As you can see from my message to my TA above I suspect that the quiz was identified by the day my TA graded it rather than the day I administered the quiz.

My larger concern is your score on whichever quiz it was. It appears that you may have missed the main idea of that day’s reading. I hope you are doing better with the quizzes as we go along. I would be pleased to visit with you about the quiz and/or your study methods. Please stop in my office so that we can do so. The remedy you request will deal more with doing better on the quizzes rather than revising the date on which they were recorded.

Best
-ds-


My response:


Bro. Stricklan,

On the black board it shows the proper quiz on Wednesday (the 11th) where I got full points and it shows the very next day, Thursday the 12th, that I got 0 points out of a possible 5. Friday you did a name quiz after we discussed the readings in class. Therefore, I have no idea where this five point quiz came from where I scored zero points. That is why I am confused. If that quiz does so exist, I'd definitely like to look it over and see what it was over, and maybe we could discuss it so that I can avoid any confusion in the future and do well on future

Science has always been a weak point for me, so naturally I find this class to be challenging. It is interesting, and you make sure of that, which I definitely appreciate, but now more than ever, going into atoms and such, I'm concerned because that is where my basic understanding stops.

Thanks for your help, though! =]

-Cat[herine]


Bro. Stricklan's last response:

Cat,

Thanks for the information, we will see if we can get this straightened out. Hang in there, that is what this is all about (learning new things). It is that way for all of us every day.

Best
-ds-



I realize my first e-mail was abrupt. If a person knew me better they wouldn't find that so abrasive... Bex would prolly get a visual of me turning blue from a heart attack looking at my grade being lower than I anticipated. So, I definitely at first didn't think it was so bad. I was definitely frustrated because I-Learn sucks major monkey balls. I've had teachers who have had to fix the grade book online cause wrong grades have been entered wrong, so THAT made me frustrated and I see my science grade and I get even more frustrated, cause in my other classes I have to tell my teacher that the grade book is wrong so that I can get my credit back that I worked for. On the quiz I got a zero on, I explained why I didn't read the material, which was because I got an email that was misleading and made me think that the reading wasn't due until the NEXT class and he said that was fine; he would take care of it. Well... he didn't. He said today that it was my responsibility anyway. Even though his email made it sound like it wasn't due for the class coming up, but the one after that one. He says one thing but subtley means another... which is frustrating. Just say what you mean.



Sarai would hate him. Haha!

I understand that the teachers are frustrated by the whole I-Learn thing, but it really sucks for the students who check it routinely who have small panic attacks when they see a zero they didn't anticipate.

But, whatever. I don't care anymore. It isn't worth it. I'm at an 80 instead of an 82 now. Whatever.







I'm going to talk to him Friday after class and explain that I was very stressed and confused and I didn't realize that my words were so rash and harsh and all. I'll apologize.