Grading
What Does Your Grade Mean to You?
Is it a means to a certain GPA? Is it a ticket into nursing school or university? Does it hold additional value to you? What would you do for an A? Do you see your grade as fair indication of how much you achieved in a certain class?
I encourage you think about these questions and explore your answers.
What Your Grade Means to Me
I see grades as a measure of where a student is in the process of mastering (learning) the course content of Nutrition 62G
Something along the lines of.......
95-100% is True Mastery
85-94 is Real Proficiency
75-84 is Getting There
68-74% is Room for More Potential
In short, your course grade is my assessment of how thoroughly and completely you learned the course content of the Nutrition 62G material.
What Your Grade DOES NOT Means to Me (and shouldn't mean to you)
Your grade is NOT a judgement of who you are as a person, or as a student.
A low grade is NOT indicative of lack of drive, dedication or commitment.
A low grade does NOT mean a student is stupid, dumb, or has no potential. A LOT of factors goes into a student's "performance" on an assessment.
Assessments are Flawed
Here's the thing: Assessment tools are not a perfect way to measure a student's mastery of the material. Far from it.
Exams/tests, quizzes, assignments -- these are all ways an instructor ascertains how well students have mastered a course's learning tasks. Some are better than others. Essay exams are more revealing than multiple choice exams, for example.
And there are alternative methods, like having a conversation with a student and from that, identifying the level of comprehension a student has acquired.
Unfortunately, a teacher like myself who has ~150-200 students combined in single quarter has limited resources--time and energy. With no teacher's assistant, it is impossible for me to give more meaningful assessments that take a lot of time and effort.
So, I am forced to settle for traditional type quizzes in this class: True/false and multiple choice questions.
I try VERY hard to make the quizzes fair, clear and reasonable. They reflect the course content. The good news is you can take each course content quiz twice -- the higher score is the one that is kept.
Do This!
To help reduce that stress and improve the likelihood of getting the grade you want, PLAN to give yourself the time and space you need to do your best work. Don't procrastinate.
If you're a procrastinator, find strategies that have been shown to help people break that tendency. They exist and some might work for you. To get started, you can read 6 great tips for stopping procrastination in this LifeHack article
And use the resources I give you. I offer many.
If you find yourself confused, lost, frustrated, feeling like you want to give up, reach out to me. I might be able to give you concrete ideas for ways you can change the way things are going for you in Nutrition 10.
Points Earned
Welcome to NUTR62G Survey 5
Welcome Quiz (What do you Know?) 5
Orientation Quiz 5
Pronto Participation 5
Discussions 10
5 Course Content Quizzes* 50
Assignment : Action Plan 20
Total Possible Points 100
*6 course content quizzes are given. If you take all 6, the lowest score is dropped
How Coursework is Weighted
Course Grading Scale
97 – 100% = A+
93 – 96 = A
90 – 92 = A-
87 – 89 = B+
83 – 86 = B
80 – 82 = B-
77 – 79 = C+
70 – 76 = C
There is no C-
67 – 69 = D+
63 – 66 = D
60 – 62 = D-
<60 = F
There are "Easy" Points to Earn -- Earn Them!
There are 30 points in this class that are super easy to earn:
The Orientation Quiz (5 points). It will consist of 10 True/False and Multiple choice questions, taken from the information found in the Orientation Module and this syllabus. It will be open from Monday--the first day of the quarter--at 6 am until the following Sunday night at 11:59 pm. You have up to 1 hour to answer 10 questions, and you will have 2 tries to take it. The higher score is kept. Getting 10/10 points is super easy.
Task #1: The Welcome to Nutrition 62G Survey (5 points)
Task #2: The Week-1 Quiz: What Do You Know? (5 points)
Downloading the Pronto App and participating in the first 2 weeks (5 points)
Participating on 2 Asynchronous Discussions (5 points each; 10 points total)
These 30 points do not require academic effort :-)
They account for 30% of your grade. As Woody Allen famously said "80% of success is just showing up!" Well, here, 30% of your grade in this course is "just showing up", basically.
Don't overlook these "easy points" opportunities
Extra credit Points!
You will have an opportunity to earn 5 Extra Credit Points in the last week of the quarter by submitting a written Reflection to a TED talk Since there are only 100 points total in this course, these 5 points can significantly improve your grade.
