Grading
"I have attempted this course twice before and I have either failed or withdrawn; it had gotten to a point where I thought I might never be able to pass this course, and it is a requirement for me to graduate, so it was a huge weight on me. [Mrs. P] made this course easy for me to understand, and I finally realized that maybe it was not that I was bad at math, and would never be able to understand it, but that I was approaching it incorrectly."
-Aimee, Fall 2021
My Grading Practice
Course grades are an attempt to measure what you have learned this semester related to our key learning goals. Learning is a process that involves collaboration, struggle, and mistakes that culminates in a performance; therefore, some of the grade is based on low-stakes opportunities that value teamwork, communication, and risk-taking. Other parts of the grade are based on formal assessments of your achievement of the learning goals for the course.
Most of the assignments on Canvas are automatically graded. However, some quizzes and all of the homework assignments require instructor grading. I will grade many but not all of these assignments. The ungraded assignments will count as practice work and will not affect your grade. You will not know in advance which assignments will be graded so please do your best on each task. But you will have opportunities to revise work after receiving feedback. For more on revisions, please see the course policies.
How Grades Will Be Weighted
Interactive Reading & Quizzes: 20%
Module Checkpoints: 20%
Unit Checkpoints: 20%
Labs & Other: 20%
Unit Projects: 20%
The grading scale will be as follows:
A = 90% and above,
B = 80-89%,
C = 70-79%,
D = 60-69%,
F = 50-59%.
Minimum Grading
Did you notice that the range for an F stops at 50%? That isn't a typo. That's because we are using a grading scale called "minimum grading" where the lowest grade on any assignment is 50%. Why? Because it is a more accurate and fair measure of your learning.
Why is it more accurate? All of the grades have an equal range of 10%; rather than having the "F" range take up half the grading scale.
Why is it more fair? Having so much of the grading scale bent towards failure means that a single low grade will pull down your grade more than a single good grade can bring it up. With the minimum grading scale, both high and low grades have an equal effect on your final score. You will still need to do well on assignments to earn a higher grade. But, a single missing assignment won't have an undue negative weight on your grade.
Minimum grading doesn't mean that you don't have to do anything in the class. You will still need to complete the work to earn a passing grade.
Why Minimum Grading? Mrs. P's Reflection on Grading
I recently read an article titled The Case Against Zeros in Grading. As a mathematician, it is clear to me that getting a zero on an assignment can really hurt your grade. After reading the article, I realized just how detrimental zeros are and I was inspired to eliminate zeros from the grade book all together. If you're interested, you can watch this 8-minute video that explains just how problematic zeros are. I know this way of thinking about grades might be new to you - hey, it's new to me too! But we are going to try it out this semester because I think it is what's best for students.