What underlies the bell-curve ? Is the only assumption that performance as
determined by some indicator will be normally distributed? Eugene's
comments about the institutional pressure to make students' population
performance normally distributed, regardless of what students have achieved
towards the classroom objectives, makes me wonder.
Why a curve then? Is there also an underlying motive for grade
distribution? Are we fostering competition in our classrooms by grading on
the curve? Do we believe that we will have better institutions of higher
education because we grade on the curve?
The reason I ask is this: One of my courses deals in systems thinking and
modeling as related to several kinds of systems - financial, ecological,
etc... In the exercises we complete in class, sometimes run as simulations,
students may participate by either cooperating or competing with each
other. Students' proclivity to compete often militates against the
collaboration necessary to achieve sustainability of the system they are
participating in.
For example, one of the simulations we run is called "Fishbanks", which
models the performance of a renewable resource - a fisheries. Students are
asked to team together to run companies with fishing fleets, and maximize
their assets by the end of the simulation. Very, very few teams think
about cooperating with other teams to keep the simulation running forever,
a move that would ultimately maximize their potential. Instead, as any
team becomes more competitive, other groups respond in turn. It most often
occurs that student groups begin to compete fiercely with each other, to
the inevitable and complete depletion of the resource. Few people question
their competitive "instincts" until a subsequent discussion that includes
alternative participation.
We, ourselves, often do not think twice about competition in higher
education and what it contributes to the greater systems of activity in
which we participate. Related are the two web sites I posted earlier in
response to Jay's call:
http://www.without-limits.com/cmp/trailer.html
My question is: Is this what grading on the curve is about?
Bill Barowy, Associate Professor
Technology in Education
Lesley College, 31 Everett Street, Cambridge, MA 02138-2790
Phone: 617-349-8168 / Fax: 617-349-8169
http://www.lesley.edu/faculty/wbarowy/Barowy.html
_______________________
"One of life's quiet excitements is to stand somewhat apart from yourself
and watch yourself softly become the author of something beautiful."
[Norman Maclean in "A river runs through it."]