Re: grading schemes

[Hugh Haskell <hhaskell@MINDSPRING.COM>]

At 15:02 -0500 12/20/01, Michael Edmiston wrote:
> I have been speaking against extra credit for years.  Rick Tarara's post is
> exactly congruent with what I experience with students coming into my
> college physics courses from "good" high schools.  Rick expresses my
> sentiments quite well... thanks.
Maybe it isn't just *extra credit* as such, but the quality of the
work required to get the extra credit. If the teacher lets the
students do some piddly busy-work and in so-doing, bring their grade
up to an A, then even the purpose of the extra credit has been lost.
If the extra credit work required is meaningful stuff that will serve
of enhance the students' understanding, then I doubt you'd see what
you are seeing among the college students.

I suspect that the reason I had poor response on my extra-credit
assignments over the years was that they did not tend to be any
easier than the regular work, and I tended to grade it more harshly
than the regular work (basically, no partial credit--either get it at
least substantially correct, or forget it). Students who tried the
extra credit work usually found that if they did the required work a
little better, they would be better off. I suspect that this pretty
much explains why only the grade-grubbers amongst my students were
ever interested in getting any extra-credit work. And why I finally
quite doing it altogether.

Hugh
--

Hugh Haskell
<mailto://haskell@ncssm.edu>
<mailto://hhaskell@mindspring.com>

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