Prof says he'll grade students on a curve, so they organize a boycott of the exams and all get As

boing
140

I agree they are gaming the system, and I agree that it is not in their best interest to skip an evaluation, it is a very important component of the learning cycle.
One could argue that grading on a curve is a gamed system to start with, in this sense, and in this sense only, gaming the system to prove how ridicuolous it is, seems to me a worthwhile effort since the point is not to get an A, but to demonstrate that that A is meaningless in a system where you’re graded on a curve.

If that is the intent of theses students, and I believe it its, then I don’t think that they are trying to avoid the work. It seems to me that they are trying to make sure that measuring if they’ve learnt enough to accredit them in their studies is tied to their individual effort and proficiency as students.

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141

I’m kind of torn, but I think I’m coming down on the side of the students, partly because grading on a curve is bullshit, but mainly because they’ve displayed an impressive degree of solidarity, which is something civilisation could use a fuckload more of if it’s to survive the obscene and insane greed manifested in the global elite’s relentless class war against most of humanity and the biosphere.

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142

why_not_both.gif

Seriously. Making it free means you CAN have both. The subtlety is that without the financial sword of Damocles hanging over them, both students and educators are free to teach/learn, rather than being focused merely on gradation rates. So, the price slackers pay is in wasted time and failed courses, until they get booted for non-performance.

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143

It depends whether you think the exam is part of learning. Maybe the students attended the class because they enjoyed it, were curious, or even thought it might be useful later. I found my undergraduate studies really hard to get through because it was all geared towards learning for an exam. Once I got beyond that and into research, it all got more interesting and I’ve found learning much more enjoyable.

I would also guess that most of those student did study for the exam, because if one person walks in and sits down, they all have to.

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144

Same for me. To be graded on a curve you need a grade. They should have gone in, wrote there names on the exam and left the rest blank scoring a zero.
As computer science students they should know that NULL is not equal to ZERO.

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145

This happens everywhere now. At the university my husband works here in Christchurch, New Zealand they ran an education campaign to try to get students to not stare at their phones while walking. My husband has his work keys on a educational keyring about it.

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146

no class but class ware

147

I am surprised that this “grading on a curve” BS is not banned yet. The students have my full support here.

For those that don’t realize what this is about - grading on a curve takes the best result of the exam (whatever that may be) and then distributes the marks to the rest of the class using either a bell curve or something approximating it working on the assumption that the exam results have to be normally distributed (in the sense of a Gaussian distribution).

Unfortunately, this is terribly flawed on two fronts. First, there is no reason why the exam results should be normally distributed - that would apply if you took a random sample of the population as your class and administered the exam there. However, the students in the class are not a random sample! (for all sorts of reasons - course choices, admission policies, gender/race balance, etc.). So this assumption doesn’t apply (statistics 101).

The second - and much worse - issue is that “grading on a curve” doesn’t evaluate the student ability at all. If you are in a class of 100 and 80 get a better score than you, you will end up with a terrible (possibly failing) mark because you “fit” into the last 20%. However, your performance was possibly only very slightly (e.g. by a point or two) worse than of those 80 in front of you. No matter, the curve grading will force you to fail the course because it forces the distribution of marks regardless of how the students have actually performed on the test - there are only so many good, average and failing marks “available”, so someone has to get the failing marks too. Basically it is impossible for everyone to pass such test from the get go, whether you pass or not doesn’t depend on what you know but on how many better performers you happen to sit in the exam with.

An even worse absurdity happens if everyone achieves the same score on the test - now the ordering is arbitrary and how do you distribute the grades using that curve? Who gets to pass with a distinction and who fails?

This is the same nonsense as the various “stack ranking” schemes some companies use - rank the employees and fire the bottom 10%. Again, it doesn’t evaluate any individual capability, only ranks/orders them according to some artificial criteria.

Exams and assessment in general are not supposed to create leaderboards but to evaluate what the individual students have learned and also to provide them with feedback on it. That’s why these “grading on a curve” schemes are so flawed - they completely miss this point, they only the students using some arbitrary criteria which have nothing to do with their actual ability.

(background - former university teacher with a course in university pedagogy under his belt …)

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148

Because my taxes will be paying for it, although I realize that argument is likely to carry little water here.

149

None at all, from where I sit.

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150

Ah. You’re one of those special galteen snowflakes who gets no assistance for anything. You inspect your car yourself for safety before you drive it only on roads you built yourself. You generate your own electricity, and create your own potable water. You grow your own food so can be sure it is disease free. You also delivered yourself from your mothers womb, and cured your own cancer. You provide your own national defence, policing and justice systems, and fire service. You know when bad weather is coming because you maintain your own meteorological service, and import goods you need and want from overseas on ships you built yourself and on which you’re the captain and crew. And educated yourself to do all those things starting from a blank sheet of paper and first principles to derive all the knowledge you need completely on your own.

All of it. All by yourself. With no help from anyone. For any of it.

So; yeah. I can see why you’d resent paying it forward, since no one paid anything forward to you.

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151

I did my phd at an R1 school and the students were all about the grade. Complained about missing 2 points on an assignment.

Then I adjuncted at a liberal arts school and had much less grade complaining.
Now I’m full time at a community college and they rarely complain about grades.

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152

There are tons of studies that show that the more educated you are the less likely you are to commit crimes or become addicted to drugs. https://www.google.com/search?q=more+education+less+crime
Giving everyone a free college education would result in fewer prisoners who are payed for through our taxes (not to mention they would also earn more which means they would be paying more taxes as well) (Of course I realize that college is not for everyone. )

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153

There isn’t a “wrong” or a “right” answer to the prisoner’s dilemma. It’s not that kind of game.

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154

All right, all right, I’ll get off your lawn already.

I did not make that claim.

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155

I strongly suspect that this is not a causal pair but instead the relationship is due to a third factor; something like the difference between a cooperative and adversarial mindset. That is, don’t expect crime to go down.

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156

I attended a grad school program where people openly discussed how their own undergrads couldn’t get in, not because they were unprepared, but because their grades looked low. Then I was a TA and got to see the weirdly strict grading policies (one student failed an exam because they had to miss it for emergency surgery, no opportunity to make it up) and it made sense. That was typical of the department culuture. I quit after a year and a half.

The grading formula I’ve see that really made the most serious effort to be fair was for an undergrad class. It involved fourth powers and exponential functions (you can find it if you google Howard Georgi grading formula).

157

I’m pretty sure that would defy a lot of research. Same goes for how many children a woman is likely to bear — inversely proportionate to education. It’s not the act of being educated that does it, it’s the lifestyle and wealth it tends to afford, versus those who are not educated. More opportunities, higher-paying jobs. It’s obviously not universal, but things do tend to lean this way.

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158

Offer vocational qualifications in the deal. You want to learn how to be a carpenter or electrician? That’s free too, just go to a vocational college rather than an academic one.

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159

You’re confusing price with value, which is an error when talking about a tax-funded public good in a liberal democracy. But if it makes you feel better you can imagine that your extra-special tax dollars are going to “one of the good ones.”

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