Re: Arbitrary Grades?????

[Chris Deacon <cdeacon@kelvin.physics.mun.ca>]

You are perfectly right, of course. A true assessment of a student's
ability to lab work lies in the way that he or she conducts his/herself 
wrt punctuality, use of lab equipment, and so on.

The problem I find with this method of assessment, is that it is very
difficult to do fairly. There will be differences between the various
demonstrators, as well as the fact that a student who you feel deserved an
'A' on week might have a disastrous time the next week and score a 'D'.

I have tried assessing performance, but had to give up, as it became
something else I had to do in the lab, on top of everything else.

If anyone has any record of success with this kind of assessment scheme,
I'd love to know.

Chris


On Sat, 11 Oct 1997, Jerry Hester wrote:

> It seems that few if any are grading labs on the basis I mentioned, at
> least from the responses recieved so far.  Maybe I can clarify the
> question:
>
> Do any of you assign lab grades in which a significant portion of the
> grade is not based on the lab writeup but rather on more subjective
> things like:  How well do students work in cooperative groups, How well
> prepared are they, i.e. have they done the required reading before lab,
> Do they arrive at lab on time rather than 3 minutes late this week and 5
> the next,  How adept are they at using laboratory apparatus, and how
> well they communicate with GTAs and peers?
>
> These things I believe are far more appropriate grading criteria for lab
> than whether they can plug numbers into a calculator by following a
> formula,  or whether they can replicate a formal writeup procedure.
>
> Thanks,
> -- 
> Jerry Hester                      Email:    jhester@mtu.edu
> Dept. of Physics                  Phone:    (906) 487-2273
> Michigan Technological University Fax:      (906) 487-2933
> 1400 Townsend Drive	
> Houghton, Michigan  49931-1295

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