Last year I assigned numerical values to everything, big and
little, that the students did, weighting them proportionately. It was
the worst grading experience I've ever had -- the one that felt least
fair, both to myself and my students. I now grade on a curve that
is much too flat to be credible and I worry about it. I'm shirking
my responsibility. It is my issue. I think grading harms students, so
I reward effort as well as ease. I'm not doing my job.
I also write extensive comments on papers. Lots of research indicates
that comments have virtually no effect on students' later writing.
But I want to ANSWER my students. In the past, I've wasted precious vacation
time responding to papers and worrying about grades, but I've gotten
pretty efficient at responding and worrying, which seems to be the
antidote I need to roboticism.
What underlies the bell curve is the assumption that some students
must be winners, some must be losers, and most will be somewhere in
between. I'm no statistician but that does seem to be what the economy
supports. Not a notion supported by the idea of zopeds.
So what's wrong with (some of) us, anyway? Why can't we get on the moving
train?
Judith
t 10:58 AM 12/22/98 -0500, you wrote:
>Eugene's comments on bell-curve grade distributions has intercepted my
>thoughts lately about how our cultural practices and structures militate
>against the development of ecological thinking, in particular, about
>sustainability of resources.
>
>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
>
>http://chronicle.merit.edu/
>
>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."]
>
>
>
Judith Diamondstone (732) 932-7496 Ext. 352
Graduate School of Education
Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey
10 Seminary Place
New Brunswick, NJ 08901-1183
Eternity is in love with the productions of time - Wm Blake