Because we are so short of faculty, I have a section of 30 honors students in my lecture class along with the 500 regular students. Although the 30 also have a recitation with some additional assignments, five-sixths of their grade is based on the same tests, quizzes, and short essay as the other students.
What grading scheme for each group would maintain equity while creating incentives for each group to put forth the maximum effort (a question in mechanism design)?
The honors kids are on average better students than the regular students, but there is a substantial overlap. I decided to make up the grade scale on each test based solely on the regular students’ performance; I then assign the honors grades based on how the honors students would have done if they were in the regular section. This way, the scale for the regular students isn’t raised by the honors students’ performance. The regular students don’t get discouraged and they exert the desired effort; and the honors students aren’t penalized by being compared only to each other (and thus are not penalized for having enrolled in that section). This might reduce incentives for the lazier honors students to exert the maximum effort, but I couldn’t think of a better scheme that solves all the problems I foresaw.
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Why not grade the regular students relative to themselves and the honor students relative to the honor students? I guess you’d argue that a relatively poor honor student would have a low grade while in reality they are about the same as an average regular student who would get an average grade, but they would also have the benefit of being listed in an honors class.
Alternatively, you could note that you have 30 honors students compared to 500 regular students; averaging the honors students in with the regular students doesn’t move the average more than a couple points for any test with reasonable performance (a test where 500 students get 80% and 30 get 100% still has an average of 81%). You wouldn’t hurt anyone to average in the honors students.
I suppose grading on a scale is a foregone conclusion, then? I don’t recall having college courses that graded on a scale. Then again, virtually all my classes were in the grade-inflated humanities and were relatively small (got away with few big lectures), so what do I know?
As a recent engineering graduate, I’m intimately familiar with the issues regarding grading on a scale. If the honors kids want the halo effect of having honors courses on their transcript, they should be graded like they took an honors course, against other honors students. If a high-achieving student wants to take a regular class (I did many times) it shouldn’t show up as ‘honors’ simply because they take a variety of other, more difficult, courses. Extra assignments on the same material don’t make a class ‘honors’, just more time consuming – that would require faster material progression, more in depth discussions, and insightful assignments that require a more complete understanding of the subject at hand.
I wouldn’t scale the grades, it is such a silly notion to me personally. Just give every student the percentage grade they scored and leave it at that, if the test was far too difficult, you can give free points and/or lower the number that the test it out of. This treats everyone fairly and doesn’t make the flawed assumption that the average grade for the cohort is (or should be) the same as the average grade for any other cohort.
I teach graduate medical classes. We always have some “already MDs” who are taking the classes to get their MS or MPH. We also have employees who are taking classes to try to get their MS. Finally, we have MD-PHD students and PHD students.
I grade them all on the same “high curve” (high because nobody gets a C or D unless they are really low outliers. These are grad students and already selected for top academics). But I lump everyone together in the grading because the point of the class is to get them to know and understand the information presented in the class.
So I’m confused by your post. It’s hard to believe that the main point of your classes is to “encourage” the students. Don’t you teach any actual things that the students need to know? And if so, why can’t you grade them on whether they either know it or they don’t?
Otherwise, it seems to me your grading approach should indicate that the students were actually taking different classes with different expectations for credit.
Extra credit that’s optional for regular that are mandatory for honor student, in both test and project
And in instead of those “choose 2 out of 5″ question, honor student would need to do all 5
How about having the regular students choose between regular grading and honors grading, where honors grading automatically rewards an extra point or two, but they must also compete against the 30 honors kids.
First of all, how does one fairly grade 530 essays?
Second, if one presumes that the honors students can somewhat glide through the regular coursework, I think basing five-sixths of their grade on the regular coursework is reasonable, but the last sixth should include a rigorous assessment of both their performance in the recitation and a quality washing/waxing of the professor’s automobile.
Q:First of all, how does one fairly grade 530 essays?
A: grad students