Re: Concerned about grades

["William J. Larson" <bill_larson@CSI.COM>]

My physics teachers (U of Minn.) tried to get the test means to be 50%
and expected scores all the way from near zero to 100. Their thinking
was that that spread the scores out for maximal discrimination between
performance. I remember one test being thrown out because the mean
was too high (maybe 75% - I forget.) This was 20 years ago.

Cheers,
Bill Larson
Geneva, Switzerland
----- Original Message -----
From: Lemmerhirt, Fred <FLemmerhirt@MAIL.WCC.CC.IL.US>
To: <PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu>
Sent: 2000 March 16 4:05 AM
Subject: Concerned about grades


> Long ago (1964-69), as an undergraduate student and graduate teaching
> assistant, I was accustomed to exam averages and corresponding grading
> scales in physics courses being rather low.  So I was not surprised that
> during my first few years of teaching on my own I settled on a grading
scale
> with "cutoffs" that were somewhat lower than students were used to in some
> of their other courses.  My explanation to students has always been that
> there is very little "padding" on my exams, and that someone who might get
> 30% or so on a multiple-choice exam in another course without "opening the
> book" would probably get something closer to zero on a physics exam.
>
> I get to know my students' level of understanding and achievement fairly
> well, independent of exams, and I usually feel that the grading scale I
use
> assigns appropriate grades to most students.  So, working in relative
> isolation, I have been generally satisfied with the grades I submit. But
now
> that I am able to look at many course syllabi on physics department web
> pages at a wide variety of colleges and universities, I find that the
great
> majority of published grading scales use cutoffs substantially above those
> of my own scale.  (Specifically, my C/D dividing line is usually around
55%,
> while I find the D/F line is most commonly 60%.)
>
> In working with community college transfer students, one of my goals is
that
> their physics experience, including the way they are evaluated, should be
> roughly equivalent to what they would have encountered at the schools to
> which they transfer.  So I am wondering if any of you have philosophies on
> this aspect of grading that you are willing to share.  How concerned
should
> I be about this?
>
> ______________________________________
> Fred Lemmerhirt
> Waubonsee Community College
> Sugar Grove, Illinois
> flemmerhirt@mail.wcc.cc.il.us <mailto:flemmerhirt@mail.wcc.cc.il.us>
> http://chat.wcc.cc.il.us/~flemmerh/physics.html
> <http://chat.wcc.cc.il.us/~flemmerh/physics.html>