Job Discussion Forums

[justme]

I shall make a confession: I have a mean thing I do to my university students, and I wanted to check if it's really mean, or just a little bit mean. I give them fake grades. I mean, they have a few grades that are recorded, but most of them aren't, like for everyday work. But I tell them they lose 10% for every day their work is late, and even on the work that's unrecorded, I give them the points they would have gotten, then subtract points for being late just to make them feel bad. It looks like this:

16/20 (a passing grade-- the 20 is arbitrary too)
- 2 (late)
= 14/20 (a failing grade)

But they don't know that these grades are fake. Sometimes they come to me all angry and upset to argue about their bad grades, and I tell them they will get good grades if they aren't late with their work. I don't tell them the grades are fake. Is that too mean?

[dmb]

Keep up the good work Justme.

[Irish]

[justme]

Thanks for the reassurance. I just started wondering if it was mean because some were really upset about their bad fake grades. And it's summer school. And they're all gonna fail anyway, no matter what I do.

And their bad fake grades are their own fault anyway. I wonder if I ever got fake grades as a student?

[saloma]

When I worked in Canada, we were encouraged to doctor and fake grades. It was a language school, and the system was that at the end of a block, 3 or 4 people from the class would be able to "move up". That meant everyone else had to score below 80 percent, (the passing grade). Usually a few doctored writing assignments would do the trick.

It was a good system, because there were 4 seperate curriculi/curricula(?) so even when they "didn't move up" they studied something completely different. In effect, no one ever "failed".

When adding up the grades at the end, we were encouraged to use pencil, and adjust the grades accordingly.

Just me - if that's the meanest thing you do to yoyur students, you have work to do!!

PS - This is for the girls out there - have you ever noticed the meaner you are to adult male students, the more they want to date you??

[justme]

[Otterman Ollie]

So why dont you get the same response from the girlie students or are they just totally afraid of body hair ?Fake grades I like it doesnt happen anywhere else does it ?