Hi Everyone,
The grade weighting exercise was an interesting experience. About
half-way through in answering a question I mentioned that the final
grade, of course, would be subject to our college's mandatory curve.
This changed everything. Suddenly the weighting deliberations
shifted from a peer evaluation (team maintenance) weight of around
70% to a weight of around 15%.
It turns out that with fixed grade ranges, a heavy peer-evaluation
weighting could yield grades far exceeding 100 points giving a large
proportion of the class an "A". Once it was clear that I would be
forced to grade on a curve instead of fixed grade ranges, the
students saw what they considered an easy shot at an A evaporate, and
the discussion moved on then with the knowledge that the grade would
truly be a "fair" one based on their actual performance.
FYI, the final weights were peer evaluation 20%, individual
performance 30% and team performance 50%.
In the future, I will discuss the curve right at the start of class
so we don't have this misunderstanding! Live and learn...
Because it was somewhat misleading without the curve, I'm going to
remove the spreadsheet from my Web site. You can still access it at:
http://web.njit.edu/~bieber/CIS677F04/grade-weights.xls
Note that it is "protected" in Excel, but without a password, so you
can turn the protection off and modify any part of it.
If I can figure out how to incorporate a curve on the spreadsheet, I
will add this.
Cheers,
Michael
>Hi Everyone,
>
>I put together a spreadsheet that (I believe) lets students see the
>impact of different grade weights (appendix C from [Michaelsen,
>Knight & Fink 2004] allows students to negotiate these) on Larry
>Michaelsen's grading scheme that awards points to peer
>evaluation/team management in the final course grade (appendix B,
>option 1)...
>
>Thanks,
>
>Michael
--
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Michael Bieber, Associate Professor
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Information Systems Department (http://is.njit.edu/)
College of Computing Sciences, New Jersey Institute of Technology
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University Heights, Newark, New Jersey 07102-1982 USA
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