[teaching with drupal] OT: grading question

[Bleck, Bradley]

Sometimes you get a bum class and that may be the case here. Because tests are so subjective, and I too give them in my American Lit class, I grade on a curve. I usually go with the highest score, make that 100 percent, and scale backwards from there. If I have an outlier that's way high, I might choose another lower score as the benchmark. If you think you were somehow unfair to them, this is a way to mitigate that. If they are just a bunch of deadbeats, this is more than kind enough.

Bradley Bleck
English Department
Spokane Falls CC
http://bleckblog.org
http://biketoworkspokane.org


-----Original Message-----
From: teaching-bounces at drupaled.net [mailto:teaching-bounces at drupaled.net] On Behalf Of Dan Butcher
Sent: Monday, April 28, 2008 12:31 PM
To: teaching with drupal
Subject: [teaching with drupal] OT: grading question

This has nothing to do with drupal or technology, but I value the
perspectives and experience shared on this list, so I'm going to ask this
anyway.

I just graded finals for my two sections of American Lit, and they were
terrible: over half the students in each section made or a D or F, and out
of 70 students, only 3 made an A. Looking over the tests, it's clear to me
that many didn't study, because they missed really basic questions that I
considered to be give-aways. But failure to study doesn't account for
results this poor. There's one question I identified that was poorly worded
and so had multiple answers; I gave credit for any of the correct options.
So I've tried to correct for anything that I messed up on.

Here's the question: do I let the grades stand? curve the grade, making the
highest score in the two classes a 100? offer extra credit?

Looking forward to learning from your collective wisdom--

Dan
_________________
Dan Butcher
Instructor and Webmaster
Department of English
University of Alabama at Birmingham
dan at danbutcher.com
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