Re: Caving in

["Michael N. Monce" <mnmon@conncoll.edu>]

On Tue, 3 Dec 1996, Richard W. Tarara wrote:

> In general, don't curve grades.  Set an absolute grade scale for grades
> (but reserve the right to lower the cut-offs for final grades.)  Adjust the
> course grading through how 'mean or nice' you are with partial credit, with
> the difficulty of questions/problems, and/or by offering 'bonus' questions
> (the ability to score more than 100%) on given quizzes or tests.  If your


	As an aside on this, Sheila Tobias in 'They're not Dumb.." makes a
good case against curve grading on a pedagogical basis.  It seems students
who are in a physics course still take as an example of personal failure
any grade below about a 70, even if the class average is a 65.  See her
book on some of the consequences for physics teaching with curved grades.



				Mike Monce
				Connecticut College