No matter what the official grade system is, I don't want students to pass
my class with the same gaps in understanding with which they entered. So, I
require 70% average on homework and 70% average on groupwork (essentially
attendance) and 70% on the midterm (unlimited retakes) and 70% on the final
(no retakes) and 100% on 28 "skill verification tests", short 4 problem
quizzes on basic skills with unlimited retakes, given during the last ten
minutes of class. If they don't meet the standard in any category, they
don't pass. I've never had a student who met the other criteria fail to
meet the standard on the final in one try.
They are amazed, at first, that I won't let them average the categories
together (achieving a passing average by copying homework so that the
homework scores compensate for failing test scores is a common high school
strategy) but I just explain that success if future math classes depends
on them demonstrating to me that they can get to class regularly, complete
homework regularly and well, and show what they know on short and long
tests.
By the way, I don't grade incomplete work. If it comes in with even one
problem undone, it goes back ungraded and gets turned in as a late paper.
This stops their habit of just not doing the hard ones or the problems they
don't understand and accepting a passing but low grade. (I allow five late
papers to be turned in each semester without explanation. I don't want to
referee their excuses. Occasionally, when someone has a major surgery or
has a traumatic death in the family, I make exceptions, in my office,
privately.)
I've got the management system down so that the grading for my 100 students
is manageable. They get sick of having to retake the skill verifications so
they come prepared to class. They can't move on to the next class until
they've shown me, at least once, they can do each of the skills I think are
essential to move on to the next class e.g. add or subtract fractions, do a
metric conversion, rearrange an equation into slope intercept form, graph a
linear equation, solve an equation with infinite solutions, whatever. Doing
the short tests daily seems to help them cope better with math test
anxiety, they take so many tests, they just get used to it and are pretty
relaxed in the midterm and final.
My pass rate with this system is about the same as it has been with any
other system I've tried -- about 60 to 70%
--Laura
____________________________________________________________________
Laura Bracken bracken@lcsc.edu
Division of Natural Science and Mathematics Office: 208-799-2484
Lewis-Clark State College Fax: 208-799-2064
500 8th Avenue
Lewiston, ID 83501
_____________________________________________________________________
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