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liveinkorea316
Joined: 20 Aug 2010
Location: South Korea
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 Posted: Thu Dec 23, 2010 11:16 pm Post subject: |
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| nathanrutledge wrote: |
Valmer, if I were in the position of a student, my complaint would be that no matter how hard everyone worked, someone was going to fail. What if the entire class learned the material perfectly, and aced every test and homework assignment? The rules of the university require that only so many A/B/C/D/F's be given out. What is the purpose of this?
Obviously, statistically speaking, grades SHOULD follow a curve. But many times they do not. There can be many reasons for this - the class is too easy/hard, a teacher is particularly inspiring/depressing/incompetent, etc.
Personally, I'm a big believer in curving grades. I believe in this because I don't think ANY student should ever get a perfect score, or even an A on a test. If a student scores perfectly, how does that help us evaluate the student? Did they know exactly the amount that was on the test? Was the test too easy for then/could they do much, much more? I think tests should be very open ended and the grades curved in the end.
But here in Korea, the system is very flawed. Definitely, many students don't take their studies seriously, and they cut class and don't do the work needed to get a high score. However, there are certainly a few students whose grades get cut down because they are a fraction of a point lower than the other students, yet the University demands that only so many of a particular grade be given. |
Thing is that in the forced curves above there are NO fails. The lowest grade is a D or C pass. So the student cannot complain that you ruined their life by getting them kicked out of uni. |
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Adios_Corea
Joined: 17 Dec 2010
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| Posted: Fri Dec 24, 2010 12:18 am Post subject: |
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| Morticae wrote: |
No, downward curves are not common these days. Certainly not a fact of life. Seems like an archaic idea, really. I assume most teachers now are attempting a new strategy-- develop coursework that appropriately challenges the students. If you do this, there should be natural breaks. I prefer this method, rather than throwing coursework out the window and assigning them a grade depending on how you "feel" about them.
This is a classroom, not a sporting event. The grade should reflect the students understanding of the materials presented in class. How well or poorly others understood it should have no bearing on you. |
How do you think that term papers and essay exams are scored? Clearly it is a subjective analysis on behalf of the professor to judge how well you understood the material.
Especially when you are grading learners in a language class....what paper deserves a higher score...the short paper with simple, but clear vocabulary, with few grammar mistakes....or the longer paper that uses far more complex vocabulary with the occasional "wrong" word, and more grammatical errors as the student attempted to discuss the topic on a more sophisticated level? Again...if you think that your grades throughout your education were completely objective, then you're way off base.
When I was in uni it was commonplace that a final exam would be 1 single question. We had little blue books to write our essay in. 2 hours to explain a single economic principle taken at random from the course. It is impossible for a professor to read 50 essays and be able to rank them as to whom understood better or worse without bringing at least SOME subjective criteria to the table. |
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jvalmer
Joined: 06 Jun 2003
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| Posted: Fri Dec 24, 2010 1:14 am Post subject: |
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| nathanrutledge wrote: |
| Valmer, if I were in the position of a student, my complaint would be that no matter how hard everyone worked, someone was going to fail. What if the entire class learned the material perfectly, and aced every test and homework assignment? The rules of the university require that only so many A/B/C/D/F's be given out. What is the purpose of this? |
Let's get real here, everybody learning the material perfectly will never happen. There are assignment, quizzes, labs and tests to pass, nobody is going to ace every single thing. And failing isn't the end of the world.
But I admit I may be biased by my engineering background. In the 90's it was a popular major and demand far exceeded the number of alloted spaces. It was simple mathematics, about 25% weeded out in the 1st year and another 25% gone in the 2nd year. The material was hard, although it was a never a situation of curving down, it was always curved up. You would be shocked at some of the real class averages in some 1st year science and engineering courses. We are talking low, really really low. |
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geldedgoat
Joined: 05 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Fri Dec 24, 2010 2:40 am Post subject: Re: Rude emails from students over grade |
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| IlIlNine wrote: |
| geldedgoat wrote: |
You use a curve that forces grades down? Why?
I'm surprised a rude email is the worst you received. |
... but seriously. Take a deep breath before you launch into a tirade about something you don't know the full facts about. |
Calm down; 'why' hardly counts as a tirade.
I only ever attacked the concept of grading down with a curve, not the poster.
| jvalmer wrote: |
| How old are you guys complaining about a downward curve? It's a fact of life, or at least was for universities in the past. |
It thankfully is a 'fact of life' that's dying out (along with rapping students' knuckles for incorrect answers). In 95% of classroom situations, grading down is nothing but detrimental to the learning process. And even in those 5% of situations, most of which involve weeding students out, there's better alternatives that don't involve giving a student something less than what he rightly perceives as having earned and negatively affecting his university GPA as a whole. |
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jvalmer
Joined: 06 Jun 2003
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| Posted: Fri Dec 24, 2010 2:56 am Post subject: Re: Rude emails from students over grade |
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| geldedgoat wrote: |
| jvalmer wrote: |
| How old are you guys complaining about a downward curve? It's a fact of life, or at least was for universities in the past. |
It thankfully is a 'fact of life' that's dying out (along with rapping students' knuckles for incorrect answers). In 95% of classroom situations, grading down is nothing but detrimental to the learning process. And even in those 5% of situations, most of which involve weeding students out, there's better alternatives that don't involve giving a student something less than what he rightly perceives as having earned and negatively affecting his university GPA as a whole. |
My god, how coddled are people these days? We are talking about university students, it won't be detrimental to their learning process. Unless the university student is 12 years old, which is rare. |
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Morticae
Joined: 06 May 2010
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| Posted: Fri Dec 24, 2010 4:56 am Post subject: |
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| Adios_Corea wrote: |
| Morticae wrote: |
No, downward curves are not common these days. Certainly not a fact of life. Seems like an archaic idea, really. I assume most teachers now are attempting a new strategy-- develop coursework that appropriately challenges the students. If you do this, there should be natural breaks. I prefer this method, rather than throwing coursework out the window and assigning them a grade depending on how you "feel" about them.
This is a classroom, not a sporting event. The grade should reflect the students understanding of the materials presented in class. How well or poorly others understood it should have no bearing on you. |
How do you think that term papers and essay exams are scored? Clearly it is a subjective analysis on behalf of the professor to judge how well you understood the material.
Especially when you are grading learners in a language class....what paper deserves a higher score...the short paper with simple, but clear vocabulary, with few grammar mistakes....or the longer paper that uses far more complex vocabulary with the occasional "wrong" word, and more grammatical errors as the student attempted to discuss the topic on a more sophisticated level? Again...if you think that your grades throughout your education were completely objective, then you're way off base.
When I was in uni it was commonplace that a final exam would be 1 single question. We had little blue books to write our essay in. 2 hours to explain a single economic principle taken at random from the course. It is impossible for a professor to read 50 essays and be able to rank them as to whom understood better or worse without bringing at least SOME subjective criteria to the table. |
Yes. The professor subjectively graded all of my papers with an A, but I ended up with an overall grade of a B.
Make sense? I guess we have different ideas of that, which is fine. Neither of us will convince the other when it comes to this downward curve debate.
Ah well. Merry Christmas!  |
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earthquakez
Joined: 10 Nov 2010
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| Posted: Fri Dec 24, 2010 5:11 am Post subject: |
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| No, I think this thread should be locked because you and others have a different opinion. There's nothing offensive about your opinion and you make your case - I just think I'll start throwing my internet weight around for whatever reason. |
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zappadelta
Joined: 31 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Fri Dec 24, 2010 5:21 am Post subject: Re: Rude emails from students over grade |
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| geldedgoat wrote: |
| IlIlNine wrote: |
| geldedgoat wrote: |
You use a curve that forces grades down? Why?
I'm surprised a rude email is the worst you received. |
... but seriously. Take a deep breath before you launch into a tirade about something you don't know the full facts about. |
Calm down; 'why' hardly counts as a tirade.
I only ever attacked the concept of grading down with a curve, not the poster.
| jvalmer wrote: |
| How old are you guys complaining about a downward curve? It's a fact of life, or at least was for universities in the past. |
It thankfully is a 'fact of life' that's dying out (along with rapping students' knuckles for incorrect answers). In 95% of classroom situations, grading down is nothing but detrimental to the learning process. And even in those 5% of situations, most of which involve weeding students out, there's better alternatives that don't involve giving a student something less than what he rightly perceives as having earned and negatively affecting his university GPA as a whole. |
But we have to do it (as university instructors). According to university guidelines, a certain % of students (depends on the university, size of class, type of class) have to get C or below. That means that often students score about 80% have to be pushed down to a C+ or C. Do we want to do it? Of course not, in most cases. But we have to. |
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earthquakez
Joined: 10 Nov 2010
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| Posted: Fri Dec 24, 2010 5:35 am Post subject: |
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In that case the OP needs to make it clear to disgruntled students. However, judging from various uni teachers posts on the cafe there seem to be students with the sense of self entitlement that comes from a school system where an answer is right or wrong and you can get 100 percent for having an excellent memory.
Seems they need to be reminded that university should be another level altogether. |
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RMNC
Joined: 21 Jul 2010
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| Posted: Fri Dec 24, 2010 1:21 pm Post subject: |
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| I like how some universities don't understand that curving grades lower instead of just leaving them the same actually makes them look worse. That's cute. |
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Adios_Corea
Joined: 17 Dec 2010
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| Posted: Fri Dec 24, 2010 5:32 pm Post subject: |
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| RMNC wrote: |
| I like how some universities don't understand that curving grades lower instead of just leaving them the same actually makes them look worse. That's cute. |
I don't think that the curve is meant to make the school look good or bad...although a school would certainly look 'suspect' if all of their students were getting A's and B's.
We are given a few reasons for the curve...one is that they don't want students getting over-confident in their English abilities. They only want proper A students to get A's so that the B/C students will work harder to improve their English. They also want a variation in the grades because students compete for university funded scholarships, and so if everyone has the same grade it is impossible to judge who deserves the scholarships.....mind you, I am not saying that I agree or disagree with this rationale, it is simply the rationale that is given.
I love how everyone is assuming that the universities have a curve-down policy....they DON'T....they have a curve policy....more often than not I end up curving up and not down, it is only on a rare occasion that I curve down.....if they didn't have the curve far more students would be unhappy with their grade than with the curve in place. For every student that has an 81 turn into a C+, there are 5 students in a different course that have a 79 turn into a B-.
In general, the only courses where I have to curve down are the higher level courses....where it makes sense that they should have to compete for the A's and B's when everyone in the class already speaks decent English.
I really hate all this PC crap where it's not OK for someone to lose. There are winners and losers in the real world, why should we hide this fact in education? Especially at the university level? |
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RMNC
Joined: 21 Jul 2010
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| Posted: Fri Dec 24, 2010 5:51 pm Post subject: |
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| Adios_Corea wrote: |
I don't think that the curve is meant to make the school look good or bad...although a school would certainly look 'suspect' if all of their students were getting A's and B's.
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Not everyone gets an A or a B when you curve the grades, of course. Students with grades lower than the curve stay the same, and shouldn't be further penalized for their performance, at least that's how it's done in the west. I've never heard of a curve lowering someone's grade.
The reason it's done is to allow for the possibility that the teacher, materials, or course program wasn't good enough, therefore the best student in the class could have theoretically gotten a 100% if everything (again, theoretically) was up to snuff, not to place a certain percentage of the students into grade ranges.
If you get an F, then chances are you'll still get an F. The typical grading scale is established, 70-80 is a C, 80-90 is a B, et cetera. If you can't keep them aware that the curve is sliding throughout the term based on their classmate's grades and every assignment and test, then there is no way of knowing if they would have one grade or another. If 85-92% becomes a B all of a sudden, then I'd say it's a pretty messed up system to judge people's performances on objective assignments and tests against each others. It reeks of Korean collectivism, but I won't go there.
We all know this, right? I mean, why is there even an argument? |
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NYC_Gal 2.0
Joined: 10 Dec 2010
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| Posted: Fri Dec 24, 2010 6:31 pm Post subject: |
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| Adios_Corea wrote: |
I really hate all this PC crap where it's not OK for someone to lose. There are winners and losers in the real world, why should we hide this fact in education? Especially at the university level? |
I've had professors that used this true curve method. I loved those classes because I'm fiercely competitive. As long as you post the grades after each test (My uni used the last 4 digits of our social security numbers instead of names, so people wouldn't get embarassed,) the students know how much more they need to study to "win." |
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carleverson
Joined: 04 Dec 2009
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| Posted: Fri Dec 24, 2010 7:45 pm Post subject: |
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| Greekfreak wrote: |
Curve, shmurve. Most schools in Korea want you to pass as many students as possible--it's all about the $$$.
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The sooner you doe-eyed rookie university "instructors" learn this the better. EVERYTHING the university does (include hiring you) is done with the motive of earning as much $$$ as possible. |
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silkhighway
Joined: 24 Oct 2010
Location: Canada
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| Posted: Fri Dec 24, 2010 7:57 pm Post subject: Re: Rude emails from students over grade |
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| jvalmer wrote: |
| How old are you guys complaining about a downward curve? It's a fact of life, or at least was for universities in the past. |
I have never ever heard of this. At virtually every university in Canada, your professor has to give a syllabus the first day of class that clearly outlines the course expectations and any deviation from the academic calendar grading scheme. If a 73 is a B, but on a whim, the department decided to scale and you got down-scaled to a C, you could dispute your grade and you would definitely receive your entitled B.
But back in Korea where things aren't done the same, if as a lecturer you must grade to a scale, I'd suggest being a hard-ass marker. It's much easier to scale up than to scale down. |
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