| -----Original Message-----
| From: Joe Heafner [mailto:heafnerj@CTC.NET]
|
| Hi.
| A theoretical question: Should a student who earns a failing grade on
| every test (including the final exam) have any possibility of passing
| the course even if quizzes, homework assignments, labs, and attendance
| (and any other pertinent factors) are all in good order? I'm leaning
| heavily toward "no" but I'm interested in others' opinions.
|
[***]
Opinion: I usually agree with Rick on these type of issues, but as he said
I'll buck a trend. Generally speaking I'd say I lean towards "no" as well;
with all the well reasoned caveats of Spagna; in particular, you should
follow your weighting scheme of your syllabus.
I think this also depends on where your failing mark is for tests. If you
give hard tests and strictly adhere to something like below 60 or 65% is
failing then I might, just maybe, cut some slack under the circumstances
outlined by Rick Tarara, where the other work is very good.
OTOH if it is very hard to fail your tests, say the failing cut-off is 30 or
35% and HW is folded into the test grade; then I'd say definitely not.