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Originally Posted by Marvelous Marv
This is where either I don't understand you, we're not in agreement, or we're discussing opposite ends of a concept. Or maybe a little of each.
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Permit me to clarify. Grading should be based on performance, and nothing else. The smart student who doesn't perform well as a result of unwillingness to do the work doesn't deserve a good grade. The less intelligent student who does perform well because he or she put in the time and effort to do the work and do well on the work deservs a good grade.
I've had parents come to a conference and say their child deserved a better grade because she knows the material, she just didn't get all the work done, did a poor job on her work portfolio, didn't participate in class discussion, did a poor job on her presentations, and didn't put much effort into her research paper. But she deserves a good grade because she did well on her tests. I point out that it takes A and B and C and D to get a good grade in my classes, so if your child only did A well, she hasn't earned a good grade.
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I have been in higher-level classes where everyone was very bright, and pretty much the entire class mastered the course objectives. However, when test time rolled around, it contained what we used to call "Guess what I'm thinking" questions. These questions even tripped up PhDs on occasion.
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That's a bad test. If everyone in the class mastered the course objectives at a high level, they should all get high grades. I write my tests before beginning instruction for a unit and make sure every item on the test is covered either in assigned reading or lecture and discussion.
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Just so I'm clear--you've mentioned that As in your classes are not terribly common. Have you never experienced a situation in which you had quite a few more of them than normal, just because smart students happened to be clustered in that class?
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Sure. I have two, two-hour humanities classes. The typical class of 25 might produce 2 or 3 A's over the long haul, but any individual class during a given grading period might have 5 or 6 A's or just one, depending upon how the best students are distributed. Some years I get most of the top students and the other humanities teacher gets few, sometimes I get few and he gets a bunch. Most years it's a relatively evenly spread.
I don't grade on a curve, I use an absolute grading system with a slight upwards adjustment based on what the highest score in the class is.