Hi, I'm sure you get a plethora of complaints about lab grades but I would like to voice my opinion as well. I started of receiving very low lab grades but I have improved tremendously. I use to lose points due to things like sig figs and not putting units. However now I, as well as the majority of my class, feel as though our AI (Jake) is grading to hash. He is a wonderful person but there are problems with grades. Actually during the first lab he even said that he would grade us very tough. I think this is unfair for many reasons.
The first being that this is many of our first chemistry course. I am not implying that we should get freebees because after all we are in college. I am just saying that this is our first chemistry course and
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We are getting 90's and 100' on the quizzes and worksheets but ore getting 50's, 60's and 70's on our labs. If we understand the material and are putting it to use in lab, then I do not understand why we continuously receive horrible grades.
My third reason is that the grading is inconsistent. It would be a little more understandable if everyone is held to the same standards, but this is not the case. Some of my friends and peers receive 20's and above on all of their labs and our labs are nearly identical. It should be more consistent for everyone. It is EXTREMELY unfair that I work for hours on end trying to perfect my lab and receive a bad score, while a mediocre lab receive a higher score than mine due to the AI not speaking english well or just being more lenient than mine. I have seen this occur multiple times.
I attend as much office hours that my schedule allows for and yet I continue to get pummeled with my AI's grading. We have tried to talk to our AI about it but nothing has changed so I decided to go to you. Friends of mine have even gone above, contacting the head of chemistry express sing their concerns. Again, I do not want you to think I am complaining because I know, and am willing to accept, when I receive a bad grade that is
I believe that to motivate students to do work, practice work needs to be worth more than 10% of a students’ grade. Ideally, I believe the grading scale should be closer to 75% knowledge, and 25% practice. I believe this would help students want to do their work because practice work is worth much more than 10%. If the students do not do any practice work, they can end up with a C, which in many cases is deemed average. Also, those who do their practice work well can use practice assignments to bring up bad test scores. Due to this, more students will do well on their practice work, therefore leading to better scores in tests because students are trying on practice work and they are doing work. Those on the school board may think that 75/25 would be too much weight on practice work, due to this I also think an 80/20 grading scale would be a good option. Seeing as students would still be getting more credit for their homework. The 90/10 grading system needs to be changed for Emma and for all the students at Austin High School in order to benefit them in the future, in both college and their future
The article written by Michael Thomsen addresses the issue: should we as a society continue using a standardized grading system. Thomsen includes many reasons supporting his ultimate conclusion that we should not continue with any system of standardized grades. However, the reasons he uses to support his conclusion are affected by significant ambiguity which weakens the overall argument.
The purpose of the experiment is to determine the ID of an unknown diprotic acid by establishing its pKa values. The first phase is to determine the unknown diprotic acid by titration, which is a technique where a solution of known concentration is used to determine the molecular weight. While the second phase involved seeing how much NaOH needed to standardize diprotic acid.
Students simply do not care about their results on standardized tests. Many students either “Christmas Tree” (pick random answers, named because people sometimes make shapes) or just select one answer and continue with the same answer the entire way down (Tests that count). Student’s only incentive is that they might move on to the next grade, or that they have to pass to graduate. There are a significant number of students who simply drop out of high school. They can either get a GED or find a job that will sustain ...
In today’s society we feel the need to be graded in order to learn. The topic of the grading system has sparked three essays, by three different authors, about the pros and cons of the grading system. First, Jerry Farber, professor at University of California at San Diego, wrote A Young Person’s Guide to the Grading System (333). Next is Steven Vogel, professor at Denison University, who wrote Grades and Money (337). The last two authors in this compilation are Stephen Goode and Timothy W. Maier. They both are journalists for Insight on the News. While each of these authors have their own point of view on the grading system, all three essays talk about how being graded affects learning.
How does the grading system and learning go together? What makes learning something gradable? How can the grading system determines a child 's knowledge based on a test alone? These questions have popped up in educators ' minds for years. These are the thoughts that motivated people like Liz Mandrell, Jerry Farber and Steven Vogel rectify the grading system in their own views. These authors give valid reasons for understanding why students are affected by the grading system.
“Don’t be a grade-inflater! Grades should reflect the distribution of effort and success in the class … If your distribution of grades is skewed toward the high end, it might imply that either an 'A' does not require a high level of achievement in the course or you are demanding too little of your students,” the Boston University College of Arts and Sciences “Information for Faculty Instructors” states.
In the regular grading scale, grades do vary widely because of these four factors: a teacher's conception of achievement, a teacher's sense of equity and rigor a student's effort. The student's knowledge is based on the graded assignments that the student has completed. Getting rid of these standardized testings removes the insecurities that student's have due to low score and many more factors. Abolishing this test can lead to recognition of our grading differences and create a common conception of achievement on our own based on what we need to work on
As a mother of three students and me being a student, it is evident that our current grading system is no longer efficient. The grading system that once might have worked is no longer an effective means of measure in the 21st Century. For us to overlook the thoughts of a new improved way of grading or evaluating students, only restrains our ability to put into place something more current and something more efficient. Something that could perhaps empower our students to perform at greater levels, or something that could perhaps embolden our students to want to learn. Relying on the traditional way of grading, can actually be more harmful than helpful when it comes to empowering our students and calculating or measuring their growth.
I chose to take the classes that I am in now. I could have dropped two of them, CHS Latin IV and AP Calculus, and graduated just fine, but those are two of the classes I actually like this semester. That means that I have three AP courses and a CHS course all in the same semester. Therefore English, as my least favorite subject, took the bottom slot on my to-do list. Given my workload, I never got to the bottom of my to-do list. By the way, I am referring to a physical list I have on my phone, not an imaginary to-do list. The problem I am frustrated with here is that when I do complete work for this class, I do not receive the same grade that it seems everyone else is receiving for the same quality work. The mind map we just did is a prime example. There are still students that have not submitted the assignment and you were trying to tell me mine was late. A student from the alternate class made a mind map with such little information on it I'm surprised they did it at all. The grade of the former is yet to be seen. The latter received full credit. By grading my work with greater scrutiny, or by nitpicking, what do you
One of the issues, which Boyer points out , is that teachers and students have different expectations from college education. She says that the teachers are mainly concerned about students’ comprehension of the material, their attendance and attention while students’ hopes are to get good grades and to be well prepared for exams. It seems that the system of grading pushes students to not care too much about what is being taught from an understanding perspective, but only promotes more concern about grades instead. Some students don't really pay attention unless the instructor mentions an exam or something that will be graded. Furthermore, be...
Thomas R. Guskey, “Grading policies that work against standards…and how to fix them”, NASSP Bulletin, Dec 2000, vol84, n620
One change institutions should make to the grading system is to eliminate all factors that have noting to do with learning outcomes from affecting the students’ grade. According to the article, “Assessment of Learning Outcomes: What’s the difference?” written by Carnegie Mellon University, grades are often based on more than learning outcomes. Instructors usually include factors unrelated to learning outcomes such as attendance to class, participation, improvement and in some cases, grades are boosted a bit due to how hard the student is working.” These factors are
Teachers have always used grades to measure the amount a student has learned. This practice is becoming ineffective. Many students have a wide range of grades, which show that grades may not show what a student really knows. Therefore, the standard grading system should be replaced. Some reasons why grades should be replaced are bad grades can hinder a child’s performance, grades define who a student is in the classroom, and grades are not an effective way to see if students have learned the material. The current grading system should be upgraded and every school should incorporate the plus/minus system in their method of grading.
...o focus solely on that which they are aware of misunderstanding. This saves valuable time for both teacher and student. It also helps employers save money by only hiring those who they know have a history of good work ethics. The arguments against grading systems are bountiful despite the obvious flaws. Test as a grading system in universities should be continued because, although the opposing view brings to light many valid points, discontinuing the current grading system would cause more problem than it would solve.