What do you think about teachers grading on a curve?

[Street Knowledge]

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grading_on_a_curve

In your opinion ?

 

[Brosef]

It's great for large university classes (e.g. 200-400) because people often fall into a slightly-skewed normal distribution

Other than that

 

[How Sway?]

its a good thing...

 

[wheywhey]

It's horrible. You are not being graded on how well you know the material. You are being graded on how well your classmates know the material. A white woman said her daughter at UC Berkeley got a 93 in calculus and got a B because the Asians in the class were getting a 100s.

http://www.thecoli.com/threads/why-princeton-is-changing-their-grading-policy.240664/

 

[MarcMan]

It encourages a competitive as opposed to a cooperative learning environment. That has its pros and cons.

I'm generally fine with it but I feel a grade non-disclosure policy should be adopted by schools that use it so as to foster an environment conducive to collaboration

 

[badhat]

It's horrible. You are not being graded on how well you know the material. You are being graded on how well your classmates know the material. A white woman said her daughter at UC Berkeley got a 93 in calculus and got a B because the Asians in the class were getting a 100s.

http://www.thecoli.com/threads/why-princeton-is-changing-their-grading-policy.240664/

Berkley's a top 5 school for math. If you're getting a 93 in freshman calc there, it's probably better that you get scared with a B early.

 

[ExodusNirvana]

I think it's a beneficial thing...especially if the exams come after long weekends or spring break

 

[acri1]

It's ok in certain situations but in general I'm not huge on it. Basically because you're getting graded on how well you do in comparison to your classmates rather than how much you actually know the material.

I get that it can be help students pass in some cases, but If the only way to avoid failing 2/3s of the class is to grade on a curb, then IMO that would indicate a problem with the teacher/curriculum end...either the course material is too hard/unreasonable/advanced for the students or the teacher is failing to teach very well.

 

[the cac mamba]

It's horrible. You are not being graded on how well you know the material. You are being graded on how well your classmates know the material. A white woman said her daughter at UC Berkeley got a 93 in calculus and got a B because the Asians in the class were getting a 100s.

http://www.thecoli.com/threads/why-princeton-is-changing-their-grading-policy.240664/

i thought this only worked like, the kid with the highest grade (say 90) equaled a hundred so everyone else got 10 points

you get downgraded? thats horseshyt

 

[acri1]

i thought this only worked like, the kid with the highest grade (say 90) equaled a hundred so everyone else got 10 points

you get downgraded? thats horseshyt

That's now how grading on curves works breh.

It's more like setting up the distribution of grades to that the class average is a 'C' (or whatever you want to set it to). So you might set up the curve so that 15% of the class gets an 'A', 15% gets a 'B', 40% gets a 'C', 15% gets a 'D', and 15% fails.

 

[Lord Brehlinger]

That's now how grading on curves works breh.

It's more like setting up the distribution of grades to that the class average is a 'C' (or whatever you want to set it to). So you might set up the curve so that 15% of the class gets an 'A', 15% gets a 'B', 40% gets a 'C', 15% gets a 'D', and 15% fails.

 

[hoodheronova]

I don't like curves. If the tests are so hard that majority of students fail then they should refigure the tests