...is a Sample Summary and Response In his article "Making the Grade," Kurt Wiesenfeld presents a problem regarding the ethical value of grades in modern society. A physics professor, Wiesenfeld opens the article by making the "rookie error" of being in his "office the day after final grades were posted." (paragraph 1) Several students then attempt to influence him to change their grades for the class. What concerns Wiesenfeld is that many of his more recent students consider a grade to be a negotiable commodity rather than accept the grade as an accurate representation of efforts and performance and how much they learned. The author indicates that part of this problem is "a society saturated with surface values" but that the students are responsible for the real problem: taking their academic work seriously. (paragraph 8) The reason is that the rest of society will have to take the work "seriously later, when the stakes are much higher." (paragraph 9) Wiesenfeld also points out a problem of quality control as he refers to a colleague who pointed out that it would be possible for a physics major to get a degree without ever answering a single exam question completely. This is possible by achieving enough partial credit and completing extra credit assignments and getting a break on the final class grade. The author uses examples from his field (science and engineering) to demonstrate the real consequences of the grade problem: a light tower collapsing and killing a worker because...
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...–––Grade Marking: Briefing for students What is grade marking? Southampton Solent University is introducing a new system of marking your assignments called grade marking. This means that for most of your assessments, you’ll get a grade (e.g. B2) rather than a number (e.g. 65) when your work is returned to you. The exception is assessment where you can either be right or wrong, such as some multiple choice tests, where you will still be given a mark. Why is grade marking being introduced? Although marks are currently given on a scale of 0-100, research has shown that most tutors only mark between 35-75%, and that actually, marks are only reliable to 2-3%. Therefore having fewer marking points, spread more widely, will mean that marking will be fairer, and that your best and worst marks will be better represented in your final degree mark. Grades also match exactly with the Generic Grading Criteria that you use in your assessments. If you get a B2 in one assignment, you can use the grading criteria to show you what you need to improve on to get a B1 or an A4 in your next assignment. Overall, we think, and research has shown, that grade marking is better for both staff and students. What do I have to do? You don’t have to do anything. All your assessments from now on will be returned to you with a grade, apart from exams and some assignments that have clear right or wrong answers which will still be in numbers. Staff in the faculty offices will change...
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...1) Think about a time when you were assigned a project that would take a long time to complete. What was your first reaction? My first reaction was how I am going to plan everything out and what dues dates do I have. 2) How did you feel the last time you received a grade on an assessment that was lower than you normally earn? I felt very bad because I know I am better than a bad grade so I get determined to get a better grade next time. 3) Think about a time when a friend or family member was feeling down about a poor grade or performance. What was your reaction? Did you say anything to him or her? What did you say? I told them that there is always a next time where you can do better and to not worry about the past because there’s always better times ahead. 4) Think of the last time you entered a new experience (1st time in a class, a new job, 1st year in a leadership role, etc.). Describe your thoughts. Would you consider yourself more anxious (fearful) than excited (nervous but energetic) or vice versa? I was very nervous but excited my first time I took part in something new. You have no idea what to expect but the anticipation of something great keeps your hopes up. 5) Suppose a teacher asks for a volunteer to lead a team project. You have the skills and some experience with the task at hand. Would you volunteer? Why or why not? I would volunteer because it is the right thing to do. It is an experience that you might never get to experience...
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...needed electives for 7th and 8th grade and didn’t think I could suffer through anything else. I took Spanish 2 because I wanted another year with my favorite teacher. See, I’ve never really minded teachers. I always got along with them just fine. At the same time, I never really felt like I could relate to any of them either. They were friendly and they taught just fine. They just never really tried to level with their students. I feel like because of that, my grades weren’t exactly what they could’ve, should’ve, been. I never saw a reason to do the work. If my teacher didn’t care enough about me to ask why things weren’t getting done, then why should I do them? There was no real reason besides a grade. The motivation just wasn’t high enough to make me care. Then, I started taking a class with Mrs. Davis as my teacher. When I didn’t do the work, she asked why. She cared. She wanted to know me more than the other teachers seemed to. She wanted to see more than just another face in a desk everyday. She wanted that with all her students. She still does. So, I explained things to her. She listened. She paid attention. She remembered and always asked for a follow up. She still does. For the first time since I started school, one of my teachers really seemed to see something other than another face and another grade. I was important. I’d never felt like a teacher found me important. So I started doing the work. I started wanting to make the grade. I started caring about what other...
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...and/or report, the whole process adds heavy workload for teachers in order to make their evaluation fair, comprehensive, and accurate. From the faculty perspective, these are necessary to avoid disagreement from students and parents. A computerized grading system is a highly desirable addition to the educational tool-kit, particularly when it can provide less effort and a more effective and timely outcome. Grading systems are designed to provide incentives for achievement and assist in identifying problem areas of a student. It is the most commonly used means of analyzing student performance, talents and skills. Students’ grades are vital information needed in advancing to the next grade/year level and its accuracy is very important. Many teachers feel that the time they take in recording and computing for the grades of their students is time that could be better spent elsewhere, like preparing lessons, researching or meeting with their students. With the advent of computer technology, more and more schools are taking advantage of a variety of grading...
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...BIOLOGY L104: Microbiological Media: Microbes in the News and your Everyday Life FALL 2013 TR 4:00-6:15pm, PY 101 Instructor: Dr. Nick Konkol Objectives and focus: This course will first provide students with a basic understanding of the structure, metabolism, genetics, and ecology of microbes. This information will then be used to illuminate many of the ways microbes interact with and influence humans in their daily lives. This course will also demonstrate the essential role of microbes in the creation and maintenance of planet Earth itself. Human diseases will be discussed to emphasize the breakdown in otherwise healthy relationships between humans and their microbial benefactors. The general goal of this course is for students to obtain a broad appreciation for the unique opportunities and problems presented by microbes; and how they conform to the general principles of biology. Office Hours: JH221D Monday 11:45 AM - 12:15 PM (notify me by e-mail) Tuesday 2:30 - 3:30 PM Wednesday 11:45 AM - 12:15 PM (notify me by e-mail) Dr. Konkol will reserve the last 15 minutes of each lecture to address any questions or concerns you may have. Contacting the instructor: It is imperative that you keep up with the course material from the outset. You are urged to take advantage of the time available after class and/or office hours to pursue any questions you may have on the material from the course. When contacting Dr. Konkol by...
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...What is a GPA? GPA is an abbreviation for grade point average. It’s a calculated average of the grades that you earn in school. You receive a GPA at the end of each semester based on the grades that you earned. You receive a good GPA by keeping good grades because a GPA is based off of how good your grades are, or how bad they are. The highest GPA you can get is a 4.0 and the lowest is a 0. You actually can get higher than a 4.0 but that’s really hard to get because you have to have extra credit in all of your classes. The highest GPA is a 4.0 but sometimes it can be higher depending on what school you go to. The lowest your GPA can be is a 0, which is really bad, and means that you absolutely no work. If you do no work or anything...
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...Psych 100 Term Paper Psychological factors can be related to many different problems, one problem that had personally affected me was the grades I got my freshman year of college. I started my college career struggling a little bit and often wondered how I could raise my grades and improve my GPA until I was satisfied with the grades I would get. Coming to college I was finally on my own with no one to wake me up, make me do homework, or go to class. These all led to my GPA not being exactly where I wanted it to be along with a number of psychological factors that have all been introduced throughout lecture and the readings. The four different chapters I can relate this problem most too would have to be those on stress, personality, motivation and social psychology. Stress is one of the main leaders for college students and low GPA’s and I believe it had a lot to do with my original GPA from my freshman year. Living here on campus is extremely overwhelming at first for a freshman here at UMass Amherst. There are so many events that you can attend, RSOs that you can join, and other things in town and campus. It is also the first time moving away from home and that can lead to stress because no one is around to remind you about things that you may forget to do. The classes here at UMass were also extremely different from any classes I took at my high school. I was used to smaller classes of about 20-25 students that were all mostly my friends, now I was being thrown into a...
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...This year has been a great year for my studies because I have accomplished what I wanted. One of those accomplishments is how I turned in all my essays on time. The reason for that is I want to get good grades to help get into a good college. A reflection of this is how my grade turned out to be an “A” and I surely believe I deserve this grade as I turned in all my stuff on time and spend a good amount of time on assignments. The only things I would have done differently would be to have someone proofread my paper more and to make more interesting papers. One of these interesting papers was on the topic of human enhancement. I selected this topic because I have been seeing a lot of articles on the subject and also inspired by a game I recently...
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...1524-6345 An Analysis of the Study Time-Grade Association Orlando J. Olivares Department of Psychology Bridgewater State College oolivares@bridgew.edu Abstract Our intuition, and perhaps our experience, suggests that study time should be positively associated with grades. However, the study time-grade association literature has provided inconsistent findings: some researchers have found a positive association, others a negative association, and yet others no association between study time and grades. The present research sought to better understand the nature of the study time-grade association by examining the effects of student, teacher and course characteristics on study time, grades, and the study time-grade association. Results show that study time and grades were inversely associated (r = -.19). Regression analyses indicate that grade inflation was the best predictor of study time; that is, as grade inflation increased study time decreased. Course difficulty was the best predictor of grades; as perceptions of course difficulty increased expected grades decreased. And, course difficulty, grade inflation and student cognitive ability moderated the study time-grade association. Thus, data suggest that the study time-grade association may be spurious. Implications for future research are discussed. Keywords: study time-grade association, spurious, moderators, motivation, facilitating conditions Introduction The study time-grade literature is scant (Rau & Durand, 2000)...
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...Mary Sherry in her article “In Praise of The F Word” argues that using F grade can be important and effective for children to make education as priority for them. The author explains that students who graduated from high school without skills after a while face with problems and feel bad about it. She refers to her experience as a teacher to show that students who feel the necessity of coming back in adult school to get skills felt betrayed by educational system. In a counter argument Sherry introduces some problems such as drugs, divorces and other interactions but she believes that using F grade beside these situations can grab student’s attention and make them concentrate on education. In the following she uses her other experiment as a...
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... ENC1102 Professor: Greer November 3rd 2015 The dropout Most of the time whenever someone is asked what a grade is, the answer will probably have to do with an educational concept. By simple letters and descriptions , conclusions about a student are frequently made. In reality, the concept of a grade is much more complicated. A grade can be a particular quality or rank, any object or person, by its value or intensity. In the poem “Marks”, Linda Pastan, uses a controlling metaphor of life and grades, which dominates the entire poem. With this metaphor, the mother’s performance in her daily chores is compared...
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...Principles of Finance FIN 3403 Sections 1-9 Spring 2013 Instructor Information: Scott Besley Office Hours: MW 2:30 – 4:00 p.m. Office: BSN 3134 Voice: 974-6341 E-mail: sbesley@usf.edu Course web page: http://sbesley.myweb.usf.edu/FIN3403/home.html Course Description: This is an introductory course in managerial finance in which you should attain a clear, basic understanding of the essentials of financial decision making. Emphasis is given to the underlying principles of corporate finance and their effects on the decision-making framework faced by financial managers who are charged with maximizing shareholders’ wealth. In essence the course covers topics related to financing and investment decisions—that is, how to raise funds and where to invest funds. The focus of the course is to provide an understanding of the basic tools and techniques required to make informed decisions about which assets a firm should purchase and how such purchases should be financed. When you finish this course, you should understand (1) the general framework for financial decision making, (2) the role of financial decision making in maximizing the value of a firm, (3) in general, how to determine the value of an asset and whether it should be purchased, (4) what is meant by the risk/return tradeoff and how risk and return affect investment decisions, and (5) how external factors, such as financial markets, affect financial decisions made by the firm. You will find that much of the information...
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...The Pennsylvania State University at Harrisburg Middletown, PA 17057 School of Business Administration ACCT471: Intermediate Accounting I, Sect 001 Fall 2015: Three credit hours Classroom: Olmstead 211C Class Meeting Times: T 6:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m. Instructor: Dr. Susan Havranek email: sfh12@psu.edu (best way to contact me) Office: E356 Olmstead Office Phone: 717-948-6483 Office Hours: M/T 4:30 p.m. to 5:45 p.m. Thursday 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. And by Appointment Course Catalog Description: Theory and practice issues in income concepts and value measurement; GAAP; revenues, costs, assets, liabilities, and equities. Prerequisites: ACCTG211 or ACCTG311 Course Objectives: 1. To apply the conceptual foundation of financial accounting; 2. To apply accounting standards; 3. To evaluate and select among alternative accounting treatments for economic events, and 4. To interpret the results and financial position of an entity. Learning Goals: * Collaborative skills: Students will develop collaborative skills by working together to solve exercises during class. * Communication skills: Students will submit written assignments and exams that should exhibit clear communication as would...
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...CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT, ENGAGEMENT, & MOTIVATION TASK 1 Of the two scenarios presented in Task 1 I focused on scenario 2 in a second grade classroom. A typical second grade classroom will have children ranging in age from 6 to 8. Per the scenario, at the beginning of the year Mr Collet verbally explains his homework policy and gives his students handouts for themselves and their parents with all of the information. Research shows that when families take an active, direct role in their children's education, children get better grades and test scores... (Family Involvement Planning, 1998). After all, students can learn from their peers as well as their instructors. In addition, a warmly sociable environment eases stress, making learning easier. Read more : http://www.ehow.com/info_7897890_strategies-classroom-social-interactions.html students returning from excused or unexcused absences will need to complete make up work. Therefore, it is important that teachers create late work and make up work policies that they can follow consistently and with a minimum of effort. Anything less will result in confusion and further problems. (kelly, 2015) If you do not have a consistent late work policy, your students will notice. Students who turn their work in on time will be upset and those who are consistently late will take advantage of you. The key to an effective late work and make up work policy is your daily enforcement. Once you pick what you want for...
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