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From: bcn@mit-eddie.UUCP (Clifford Neuman)
Newsgroups: net.cse
Subject: Re: Grades
Message-ID: <1131@mit-eddie.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 6-Jan-84 22:22:31 EST
Article-I.D.: mit-eddi.1131
Posted: Fri Jan  6 22:22:31 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 7-Jan-84 11:27:20 EST
References: <527@nsc.UUCP>
Organization: MIT, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 35

At MIT, a student's Freshman year is pass/fail.  This is done in an
attempt to aid students in transitioning to an environment that is more
difficult than most of them are used to.  I think it also tends to
reduce competition, even in future years when the students are on
grades.  In place of grades, the students get evaluations in the middle,
and at the end of each term.  The evaluation has two parts: the
student's own evaluation of his performance, and the instructor's.
Students are expected to evaluate their own performance, and submit the
evaluation to their instructor, who then makes an evaluation, usually
emphasizing the areas that the student brought up.  It is also possible
for a student to find out how he would have done in a course if he did
receive grades.  I made it a point to do so in order to have some idea
of how I would do in future years.  (I wish they weren't pass/fail, as
that was my best year).

In one course I took (not pass/fail anymore) the grade was based on two
take home exams, and a paper.  When the first exam was handed back, the
professor told the students that if they felt any grade was not
indicative of there understanding of the material that they should speak
to him, and that emphasis in grading could be shifted to the other
assignments.

In another course, exams presented a problem AND a step by step method
to solve the problem.  This made it possible to give problems that were
much harder (well, they would have been if the method were not
included).  Additionally, the exams were open book which took emphasis
off memorization.  I found the exams to be very good and one would
actually learn a fair amount of material just by taking the exam.  For
an exam like this, cramming the night before the test did not do much
good, and it was necessary to have kept up with the material as it was
presented.

Clifford Neuman
BCN@MIT-MC.ARPA
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