Saturday, December 19, 2009 12:28 AM,

To my "former" students in EE 306:

The final exams have been graded and final grades have been posted, as some of 
you already know, based on the recent avalanche of email I am getting.

Your final exam is available for you to look at anytime between now and the 
end of January.  I strongly encourage you to do so for two important reasons:
(1) seeing what you got wrong can be an excellent learning experience, and
(2) if there is an error in grading, you can bring it to my attention and I 
can fix it.

The procedure for looking at your final exam is as follows:

1. Show your UT ID card to my secretary Leticia in her office, 541 ENS, 
anytime during normal business hours.  University privacy regulations require 
that we make sure we are showing your exam only to you.  If she is not there, 
she is probably taking care of some business matter.  
Feel free to wait for her or come back later.  

2. Sign the sheet, indicating when you arrived.

3. Leticia will hand you your exam paper.  You are free to look at it as long 
as you wish, but only  in her office.  You may not take the exam paper from 
her office and you may not write on it.

4. When you are through examining your final exam, return it to her, and sign 
the sheet indicating when you are through with it,

If you feel one or more problems have been improperly graded, tell her that.
She will write this down on a post-it and I will look at it.  If I agree, I 
will change your grade on the exam, and if that results in a change to your 
grade in the course, I will submit a grade change form.  In any case, I will 
send you email on the matter, and we can take it from there.

I should also add that although grading mistakes are very uncommon, they do 
occur, and every time I teach EE 306, I do end up submitting one or two grade 
change forms.  So, if you believe you were graded improperly, you should bring 
it to my attention.  Please do not use this as an invitation to improperly 
grub for points.  I will make every attempt to make sure your exam was graded 
correctly.  

Finally, there is no urgency as to when you look at your exam, as long as it 
is before the end of January.  Stop by at your leisure anytime during the 
month of January.

Second, I recognize that you would like some data to help you evaluate your 
performance compared to your classmates.  I hope you find the following 
useful:

1. Final exam grade distribution:
================================

110+ (84.6%) to 130 (100%):  A  (98 students)

 90+ (69.2%) to 110 (84.6%): B  (85 students) 
 60+ (46.1%) to  90 (69.2%): C  (110 students)
 30+ (23.0%) to  60 (46.1%): D  (75 students)
Below 30:                    F  (22 students)

Median grade: 84 (64.6%)

Given the nature of the exam, I do not believe it is unreasonable to expect a 
student to achieve 70% (i..e, 90 out of 130 total points) to earn a B in the 
course.

2. Final grades:
===============

We start with the averages, computed as defined on the first day of classes.
This represents each student's score based on a total possble of 94%.  The 
remaining 6% is a result of discussions during a meeting on Wednesday with my 
TAs, looking at each student's entire record.  Several factors were 
considered, including the student's performance on the final exam, programs, 
judgments the TAs made based on interaction, etc.

Our initial cut-offs between the letter grades based strictly on the weighted 
averages before we took into account the above factors was as
follows:

A/B: 75 out of 94.
B/C: 60 out of 94.
C/D: 45 out of 94.
D/F: 20 out of 94.

Median average was 59.2 out of 94.

A lot of students found that their grade in the course was raised (many 
substantially) as a result of their performance on the final exam.

With respect to going on to EE 312, I specifically included a Part A on the 
final exam to test whether or not it made sense for a student to go on or to 
repeat EE 306.  I felt that it was reasonable to expect you to achieve at 
least 40 out of 50 on Part A.  Many students, whose averages were below 45 out 
of 94, ended up with C's in the course because of their performance on Part A.  
A C- in the course meant that in my judgment you really did not master enough 
of EE 306 to take EE 312 next semester, and you should retake EE 306.

I hope you got a lot out of EE 306, even though I know it was stressful at 
times.  I hope to see some of you in EE 360N, which (if I am still at
UT) I expect to be teaching Spring, 2011 and Spring, 2013.

I may continue to send you email over the break as things come up, or as 
students ask me questions.  Now that you are "former" students, feel free to 
delete them as you wish. :-)

I look forward to seeing you on campus.  Have a great vacation.  You earned 
it.

Best wishes,
Yale Patt