Comments (4)

4 COMMENTS

Comments

4:13 AM
February 9, 2010
Trinity 10

It's a problem endemic to every Mode of Inquiry from Curriculum 2000, though we tend to view it as humanities students taking easy NS's and QS's.

Most students don't trend toward easy A's because they're lazy, they rightly do so because fulfilling a requirement they expect never to use ought not ruin their GPA. The massive demand for EvAnth 93 and Chem 83 and CompSci 82 is inevitable when the alternative is stepping out of your comfort zone to ruin your GPA. John Q. Lit Major will rarely, if ever, take Chem 21 with a few hundred pre-meds to fill a requirement; he will be punished for being intellectually curious.

The problem isn't the QS Mode of Inquiry, it's the administration's determined position that its students are lazy. Let us take our Curriculum 2000 requirements Pass/Fail, and people will take substantive classes in droves. We WANT to learn, that's why we're here.

~Danny Lewin

4:21 PM
February 9, 2010
t-11

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: let's re-examine the proposal for weighted class rank. This involves standardizing each class after the semester has ended by assigning points based on a student's grade relative to the class average. Thus, a student getting an A- in a C-average class will get more points than one getting an A+ in an A- averaged class. You don't change the student's GPA at all, but this new system determines class rank. Thus, students will have to choose between taking an easy class to increase GPA while lowering class rank or taking a harder class at the risk of a lower GPA. Either way, it will encourage students to take harder classes and engage more.

9:34 PM
February 9, 2010
the truth

Wow. That is a great idea.

4:53 PM
February 11, 2010
Michael Gustafson

t-11: There are a few issues with that system that would need to be worked out - for example, what to do with students who withdraw in the last week. The class in question would therefore be in the "hard" category, but by virtue of eliminating folks presumably in the lower GPA range, the "weight" changes. That's pretty unfair to the folks who stuck it out.

What would happen with independent studies or similar very-small-scale experiences? I've heard arguments in favor of tossing those grades entirely for class rank since they are purely at the discretion of the instructor and not representative of a comparison between students -I'm just not sure I agree.

When proposals have been made to rectify perceived flaws in the class ranking system, they've generally introduced a whole new level of complexity that can make for an even more troubling system...