Disable "What If" Feature

[lindsay_henry]

As helpful as the "what if" feature can be, many students become obsessed with their grade as they create hypothetical situations that lead to "grade grubbing".  We all know too well the "I needed a 92 on the project to have an A and I was only one point away so is there anything I can do?" situation with a student.  

I propose that teachers have the capability of disabling this feature.

#mhs

Comments from Instructure

Thank you for your thoughts and participation around this request. It is never fun to hear about cheating or ways in which individuals abuse trust. We feel that the intended use of this feature is extremely valuable and continue to hear so from students. At this time we are not planning on removing or disabling “what if” functionality within Canvas.

This has been a good conversation, and the conversation can continue, but we will now close this idea for voting. It will remain in the Canvas Studio space, so there will not be a need for resubmission or re-vote of this idea. It has been considered and we have given an official response, even if it is not the one you were hoping for. Thank You.

[thompsli]

In a previous system without a "what if" option, I had students using the F12 menu to edit the local copy of the webpage that displayed their grades if they really wanted to temporarily/falsely change them. (These were 7th graders, so anyone old enough to be worrying about academic eligibility for sports can probably figure out how to do this.)

You really can't stop people from false reporting in a self-reporting by screenshot situation like that, so you need to either build in a system of trust/honor code and/or have a good way of catching false reporters. (I use self-reporting via screenshot for some things in one of my classes, but I do also go in and check in the actual system a few times early in the term and again once or twice as the term goes on if something looks fishy. I use this when students need to use an external site that doesn't have grade passback to Canvas, and so far they've all been honest. It helps that the assignments are easy and low-stakes so they don't have much incentive to figure out complicated ways to game the system instead of doing the work.)

[elizabeth_seast]

We are finding that students will enter in a "What if" grade and then show it to their parents, schools, online lab facilitators as their actual average. Causing a real problem for online courses. This is why we are requesting the ability to disable the feature.

[scottdennis]

I was about to post the same experience.  Glad you beat me to it. 

[kellaboatner]

Amber, you are so right. I ask my parents about every third week to please

get connected, but only a tiny fraction of them will be bothered. I tell

them that when their child knows that they can see what is happening, it is

the best motivator around. Alas, lazy parents often bring lazy children.

Apple...tree stuff

Kella Randolph

B.S., M. Ed.

North Carolina Virtual Public Schools Online Instructor

EarthEnvSciSec01YL17, EarthEnvSciSec02YL17

kella.randolph@ncpublicschools.gov

My Google Voice (cell phone/text): (984) 212-4129

<kella.randolph@ncpublicschools.gov>

"All email correspondence to and from this address is subject to public

review under the NC Public records Law. As a result, messages may be

monitored by and disclosed to third parties."

On Mon, Dec 11, 2017 at 1:37 PM, amber.batten@ncpublicschools.gov <

[maureen_stanfor]

We definitely need to disable this.  I have had to deal with the issue described in the email.  The misuse is scary and causes a us versus them scenario.

[william_benner]

We either need to be able to disable it or make sure it is abundantly clear that the grade is hypothetical so they don't have the ability to show parents or administrators a hypothetical grade masquerading as a real grade in distance-learning situations.

[fosterl]

We have also seen at least on instance of this, where the student did a what-if, then took a screenshot (carefully framed) and tried to use that as evidence of their grade being different. Sigh.

[thompsli]

Some  other gradebook I used to use had a button you had to press to enter "What If" mode. I think it also changed the background color or some other "look and feel" aspect of the page, but it's been long enough that I don't remember specifics.

In this case, if changing a grade using "what if" changed "total" to "total would be" it would probably do a better job of flagging that this was not a "real" grade.

I maintain that the real way to solve the "student faking their grades" problem is by improving the Observer account role (or designing new account roles for things like coaches around the idea of those roles needing to check grades) so that students are not showing people their grades pages as the main way of checking up on them in the first place.

(If a student was doing this in our system and their parent complained they'd been misled, I'd explain what the feature was for and then remind them about their parent account. Creating a similar account type so that others needing to monitor student progress can do it themselves is going to be a better long-term solution since it's less vulnerable to all of the assorted student hacks to change displayed grades.)

The points-grubbing problem is harder to solve without Canvas supporting less points-based gradebooks in general. While I know some of my students cannot correctly calculate a weighted average well enough to total up their points by hand reliably and figure out how re-doing an assignment would change their grade with "what if", the fact that they'd probably calculate it wrong by hand would not stop them from trying if "what if" were not provided. I'd rather see the points-grubbing issue attacked as part of a larger grading overhaul to make it less points-based and embrace a wider range of grading methodologies.

[jjo12]

While my students were supposed to be blogging in class, I came across a student "what if-ing" This was the first time I had seen that function. I would definitely like to remove that feature for my own classes. 

[scottdennis]

"but for students to be able to do that too." - Ahmen!

[maxwell_simon]

As a student, I feel this is a very useful feature to see what it will take to get to a certain place.  I think that removing the feature could only contribute to the compulsion from students, because it is possible to calculate scores without it, and have done that before for various reasons.

[bbjohn]

Agree that this should be an option.  Also related to this are the fact that students see % - I have previously suggested that we have the options to have only POINTS displayed EVERYWHERE students look.  My classes are based on point range associations with letter grades (e.g. 540 or greater out of 600 possible points = A, 480-539 points = B, etc.) and it is NOT helpful when students even SEE %s in Canvas.  For those who want to use it, fine. But we need more optional features that we can control.  Furthermore, the default check-in-the-box that says "only use graded items to calculate grades" is a problem.  I do not think it should be the default - it should be the other way around and using all graded items to calculate total grades should be the default and the "only use..." be an option.  Currently, even if an instructor laboriously goes to each item in the default gradebook and assigns default grades of 0s for those who did not complete an assignment, that little box check totally can mess up what a student thinks his/her grade status is.  AND, curiously enough, Canvas does not round -- I had to manually correct a 539.5 and a 539.8 to As (as they would qualify in my Example above for As) but Canvas showed them as letter grades of Bs because it evidently truncates not rounds.  Recommend rounding at the Total Points column!

[2299501k]

It would be a lot better if it was disabled.  It' just not necessary.

[fosterl]

Thanks for chiming in,  @maxwell_simon ‌. It's super useful to hear the student perspective!

[wales]

At the end of every semester I get pleading messages asking for a few points to lift from say a B+ to an A-.  I never saw this before Canvas.  Grade grubbing has no place in Higher Education.

[kmeeusen]

While I philosophically agree with you, Peter, grade grubbing has been a fact of life at all levels of formal education since formal education was invented. The only difference with Canvas, is that it makes it easier for students to know exactly how many points to grub for.

And for the record - we, the educators of the world, created this problem by measuring student achievement in finite ways that in turn permit society to judge individuals based on those measurements, which subsequently drive student to compete and in some cases grub for higher achievement scores. But then, this is life - all life -. life is a competition to survive. In human terms, survival is in part based on our degree of success in academic measurements.

Dang it, I rambled off!

Kelley

[domenicadevine]

I think all the tools should be discretionary with on/off switches. The more flexibility we have the better we work we can do in our courses.

[cholling]

I've always wondered about the importance of this function. Maybe I just have a different mindset than what many students today have, but my goal was simply always to do my best. And, if I did my best, then the grade I earned was what I should have earned. If the purpose of the  "what if" score is to see how much I can slough off and still earn my "A", then what's the point of learning? And if the purpose is to see what I "have" to earn to get my A then I'm not trying my best in the first place.

[amber_batten]

Hey Everyone,

I just wanted to clarify that the feature up for voting is an option for teachers to disable the "what-if" feature.  The feature up for vote is not to completely do away with the "what-if" feature.  It is a vote to give teachers the option of whether to allow it in their courses or not - just like the new grade book and Mastery Paths, etc.  So, those that like the "what-if" feature will still have it and those that do not like it, will have the option to disable it.

As many others have mentioned, here at North Carolina Virtual Public School (completely virtual supplemental school serving 7th-12th grade students of NC), our students are using it to "dupe" their parents and even their teachers, lab facilitators at their home school, etc.  We have gotten many support tickets about it.  Apparently we all fell off the turnip truck yesterday.

If I am incorrect and that is not what is up for vote, please let me know.

Thank you,

Amber Batten

[steven_j_livese]

I certainly agree about discouraging grade grubbing; it's annoying and contrary to the spirit of learning.  Caring more about the assessment than understanding the material speaks to the misplaced priorities of our students.  For this reason, I have never liked the assessment system that is founded on 'points'.  Even when Canvas or D2L or any other courseware system allows instructors to use letter grades, the system is driven by the underlying points of the assignment.  In some disciplines, this may be appropriate, but I have never found my assessment skills to be acute enough to distinguish between an 87-point and an 88-point essay.  For that reason, I have always retained an expanded letter grade scale. 

Students who are not happy with their current grade -- particularly at the end of the semester -- often ask if they can submit some kind of extra credit work.  I routinely discourage that, and I don't build the possibility into the syllabus.  My responses to such requests generally take the form of "If you dilute your preparation for the final exam or final project because you use time to prepare some extra credit work, you have gained nothing toward improving your grade."

All of the above is merely a philosophical rumination, because I am in the process of grading my last final exam -- EVER! In two days, I will be emeritus and never have to see another bluebook or essay that begins, "Since the dawn of mankind...."