Wed, 20 Nov 2019, 20:36 Re: Most Recent Exams

student writes:

> Professor,
> 
> On the subject of this most recent exam, I did not feel that I performed to
> the best of my abilities. I am aware that I likely will not show
> improvement from the previous exam, which is quite troubling to me, and I
> assume that it may be troubling to you as well.
> 
> More to the point, I am aware that you take improvement into account when
> grading and so on, with greater benefit when one improves from their
> previous exam. Does the opposite apply? That is, is curving harsher when
> one fails to improve?
> 
> My appreciation,
> 
> <<name withheld to protect the student who is concerned I will curve him down>>

I have not graded the exams yet, so I do not know how many students were 
discouraged by their performance on the exam today.  At least one, for sure!

It is true that if you demonstrate improvement, it will positively affect
your final grade in the course.  But what if you don't?

So, I will repeat what I said early in the semester.  My procedure for assigning
grades is to first compute each student's average by multiplying each grade by
the weight assigned to that item and then adding up the contributions.  Then
I make an ordered spread sheet of all 168 of you, with the top student at the
first row (top) of the spread sheet.  Then (Part 1), I tentatively assign 
a grade to each student based on where they rank on the spread sheet.  Then 
I go through all 168 students in the class, one student at a time, each student
corresponding to a row on the spread sheet.  I do this with my TAs because 
one or more of my TAs may have some useful information about the particular 
student I am looking at.  I look at the student's performance on each piece 
of graded work (the two midterms, the final exam, the 5 programming labs, etc.)
and I listen to what my TAs have to say about the student, if anything.  
If I see marked improvement as the semester progressed, that has major 
influence on the final grade I assign.

If I see a downward trend in a student's grades, I tend to just assign the
grade I tentatively assigned in Part 1.  One major contradiction to that is 
the final exam.  If a student did very poorly on the final exam, I tend to 
downgrade him/her severely.  My reason is that the final exam covers the entire
semester, and a very poor grade on it means the student is not ready for 319K, 
and I am unwilling to set the student up to fail 319K.  Conversely, if the 
student did very well on the final exam, their final grade will be higher 
than what their average would have suggested.

I hope the above hopes.  Most importantly, this is not the time to be
discouraged and give up.  Probably a few of you do not belong in ECE but
I can probably count them on one hand.  Most of you belong, if you enjoy
what ECE people do.  So, get PL4 done, enjoy Thanksgiving, catch up on sleep,
etc., and come back to school and hit home runs on PL5 and the final exam.


Yale Patt