[nabs-l] fun with math class: looking for advice

[Littlefield, Tyler]

Hello all:

Last year in the fall semester, i entered Wentworth and started with 
precalc. The books unfortunately did not arrive in time, so I was forced 
to basically sit around until they showed up. When they finally did, I 
started work, but it turned out that it would need to be extended. The 
first idea would be that it would be extended over Christmas break, but 
it turns out we still didn't have all of the books until some time in 
February, so it had to wait until then.

After a lot of back and forth with a professor who was less than 
helpful, we finally settled on me just teaching myself the last bit of 
content. It is worth noting here that I had taken two tests and the 
general idea was that I'd gotten an a' on both of them. I finally 
finished a few hundred math problems at the end of this semester and 
sent the whole pile of work off to the professor. I also took the math 
final yet again, to insure that that grade was accounted for. More than 
a month and a half later, I finally received a grade and it turns out it 
was a d'. Here is the letter I wrote to appeal that grade:
math grade

Prof. *removed*:

I am writing in order to appeal my grade for math 250 with Prof. Levy 
which I took in the fall semester and received a grade for recently. My 
grade was
a D+, which I do not feel is deserved.

As you may already know, I requested an I' in the course and wanted to 
finish it up on my own because multiple chapters of the book that we 
were using
did not come in time for me to complete the course. I was given time 
over Christmas break, during which I realized that I still did not have 
the correct
chapters; these books did not actually arrive until at least February.

During this time, I was basically left to teach myself trig; I had a 
tutor who is a friend who I asked numerous questions as well as someone 
I worked with
at Wentworth. I invested tremendous time and effort into this class in 
order to teach myself the materials that I would be required to know for 
the final.

I am appealing this grade for a few different reasons. While I do 
understand that I did decide to take this course on and finish it 
myself, I believe I
had the right to expect at least some equal treatment as my peers. I 
never received any feedback on the homework, though I submitted some in 
the fall and
some around the beginning of the spring semester. I also never received 
feedback for any tests with the exception of the first test, where I met 
with Prof.
Levy in order to go over a couple of graphing questions. I also took the 
final at the end of the fall semester as I was told to and never 
received any
feedback on that final as well. I was not ever at any point given a 
chance to review for the final that I took at the end of the spring 
semester, which
essentially left me responsible for knowing the entirety of the course, 
parts of which I have not seen since that class. Finally, there was one 
other test,
which I was not even able to take because it was not provided in an 
accessible form; I am totally unaware of what actually happened with 
that grade or
whether or not it was even counted at all. I was, in short totally and 
completely left to my devices and was unaware of the grade I received 
until I finally
requested it from Bridget while we were meeting.

I am also troubled by Prof. Levy's utter lack of response. It took more 
than a month after the completion of the semester for a grade to be 
posted; it
was only in response to an email I had sent, inquiring about my grade 
that I received notice that he had handed it to you; my request to Prof. 
Levy directly
for my grade was unanswered.

I believe that I went above and beyond in this class in order to teach 
myself the materials that I needed to know; not only did I study by 
myself and use
every resource possible, but I had no formal instruction. I did not, at 
any time during this class have any feedback as to my progress; I was 
left unaware
of my grade, even on tests that had been taken in the fall semester and 
was not told what I could do differently or better, or where I even went 
wrong
in my work. It is now more than a month and a half after the end of the 
semester and I am finally receiving a much lower grade than I believe I 
deserve,
with no explanation or no solutions to being able to fix it. I was 
essentially left to hand in a bundle of work and cross my fingers that 
everything went as I hoped and that my work paid off.

Any help you could offer in a solution to this problem would be greatly 
appreciated. I am troubled at the fact that I received such a low grade 
and would
like to find a way to fix it.

Thank you for your time,

Tyler Littlefield

That letter was sent to the head of the math department here; her 
response was that the professor had left and there was no way to dispute 
my grade. As a result, I would have to take an all-or-nothing test, 
which would demonstrate my knowledge of the contents of the course in 
question. I wasn't overly thrilled about the idea, but I decided to go 
forward with it anyway because I really do not want a d' on my 
transcript for grad school. So, she set a time for a few days in advance 
and expected me to be there. When I asked if the test would be brailled, 
she said that we would take it orally: she would read me the questions 
and I would answer them, then read it back. I told her I could read her 
my solutions, but I wanted the test in braille. She settled on recording 
the test so that I could replay it back and I pushed back yet again, 
telling her that I am required to have the test in braille by law.

At this point, she basically said that it was to much time and she 
wanted to get this over with. I took a trip to the president's office, 
explained the issue and she emailed me the next day, informing me that 
they had decided to braille the test and she was sorry she hadn't let me 
know of that.

This email was sent on June 12. On aug 11 (two days ago), I was informed 
that she hadn't even as of yet converted the test to a document, much 
less had the test sent off. As many of you may be aware, the brailling 
process takes quite a lot of time to braille. The idea was that I would 
take this in the summer, but now I'm going to be taking a test for a 
class that should have been done almost a year ago in the middle of the 
semester, with 16, possibly 20 credits of workload on top of that. This 
is problematic because though I reviewed two months ago, I need time to 
review closer to the time of the test, as some of this material has not 
been of use in calculous.

I contacted the provost's office and was refered to a deen, who I was 
told would get in touch with me. Less than two hours later, the head of 
the math department contacted me by phone to set up a meeting and as of 
yet, I have not heard back from that office.

At this point, I really am unsure what to do. I want to take care of 
this grade, but if they haven't even bothered to braille the test, I'm 
going to be forced to cram and hope I can do well. If anyone has any 
advice or ideas, I'd really appreciate it; I am really sorry for the 
overly long email.
Thanks,

-- 
Take care,
Ty
http://tds-solutions.net
He that will not reason is a bigot; he that cannot reason is a fool; he that dares not reason is a slave.