Allness Case 2.1 (Exam): Professor Smith

ASSIGNMENT INSTRUCTIONS - PROFESSOR SMITH

After understanding how to identify contributing factors and apply correctives as demonstrated in the Allness Sample Case Analysis, now it's your turn to analyze a character. You have selected to analyze Professor Smith.

Re-read the Exams case below, then post your character analysis of Professor Smith as a Reply to this topic. Your analysis should include:

1. a contributing factor (unawareness of abstraction, abstracting different details, evaluating a group, closed to new and different) to Professor Smith's allness behavior

2. an explanation as to how Professor Smith exhibited the contributing factor

3. a corrective (develop a genuine humility, add etc., ask myself “do I have an all-wall") specific to Professor Smith's allness behavior

4. an explanation regarding how Professor Smith could use the corrective when interacting with other characters in the case.

The case is copied below for reference. Remember that you will not see others' responses until you post yours.

Sue walked into Professor Smith’s classroom looking like she just rolled out of bed. She moped over to her seat wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt. Sue, a senior English major and good student, did not have a good morning. She stayed up late finishing a paper, overslept, and nearly missed Professor Smith's Colonial History class that morning.

Similarly, Professor Smith could not contain his foul mood.  During his previous class, students whispered throughout the lecture and then asked questions about material that he just had covered.  Not only did they not pay attention to his lecture but they got angry when he handed back an examination. He did not feel like dealing with difficult students today, especially when they wanted to argue about the exams that he spent hours developing and grading. If the students just paid attention, they would not get bad grades, he thought to himself. 

As he returned the exams, he explained, “If you feel you have a right answer and I marked it wrong, you may explain your answer to receive partial credit.”

Sue raised her hand because even though she only missed one question, she was sure that she had the right answer.  When Professor Smith called on her, she asked, “Could we discuss question 5?”

“Sure. How can I help?”

 “The question is ‘What shape is the Earth?’ I answered that it is ‘flat’ and you marked it wrong.”

“That is the wrong answer.”

“To me, the question did not give enough detail, so I thought you wanted the answer from the colonist’s point of view because this is a Colonial History class.”

“I provided feedback about why you missed points.  Please read those comments and come see me during office hours.”

Having already read the feedback, Sue was angry that they could not finish their discussion.  She slammed her paper down and stormed out of the room. 

Later that day, Sue had another class where the professor returned exams and asked if anyone had questions regarding exam scores.  Sue had a question, but remembering how Professor Smith had embarrassed her the class period before, she decided not to ask it.  She returned her exam and decided that she needed to go for a run immediately following class as running always helped her feel less stressed.