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Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!harpo!eagle!mhuxl!ihnp4!arizona!budd
From: budd@arizona.UUCP (tim budd)
Newsgroups: net.cse
Subject: Grades
Message-ID: <7047@arizona.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 3-Jan-84 11:29:01 EST
Article-I.D.: arizona.7047
Posted: Tue Jan  3 11:29:01 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 4-Jan-84 03:34:45 EST
Organization: CS Dept, U of Arizona, Tucson
Lines: 28


        It is difficult to convince students that they are not in competition
with one another.  I always tell my classes that if they all deserve A's (ie,
they all learn what I think they should learn) they will all get A's.  They
are not in competition with each other.  Nevertheless, I have had troubles.
One semester I announced at the beginning of the class that grades would be
based on an average of three prelims and a final.  When time came to hand out
grades, I agonized over several borderline cases - including some individuals
who had done generally well on all exams but one.  So I recalculated grades
based on dropping the lowest prelim, and found a few (very few) grades shifted.
So then I decided the fairest thing would be to give each student the HIGHEST
of the two grades.

        Well, it then turned out that some students got B's with lower overall
averages than students who got C's.  One of the students stuck in the middle
(with a C) heard of this and came in to complain.  His argument was that I
was not being true to my original word.  My argument was that HE got the grade
he was going to get anyway, he was not in competition with this other student,
and overall (with the exception of one exam) I thought the other student was
better.

        Based on this experience, my policy now is to NOT announce how grades
will be calculated - I want to reserve my right to weight different exams
differently or take extenuating circumstances into account.  Nevertheless,
at any time any student can come to me and ask what their current overall
average is (ie, if I were handing out grades at that time what they would
get).  This gives students the information they want without tying my
hands too tightly.  I'm not sure I like this, but grades seem to be a large
evil anyway and this seems to be the lesser of many many evils.