No to distract from the conversation on two other threads but what do you guys think of grade forgiveness?

When were were in school, if you got a D or an F, you retook the course. If your retake was an A, your A was balanced with the original F and your GPA was a 2.

Some colleges don't do it that way anymore. Your F stays, but once you pass, the 0 is no longer calculated in your GPA. Only the new grade counts in GPA calculations.

And since this is a Baylor board:
Baylor University: Offers "Academic Forgiveness" for up to three courses where the original grade was a C- or below. You don't even have to have failed the course to get grade forgiveness.

I appreciate your perspective and insight.

If a surgeon makes a critical error and kills a patient, does the patient re-animate and the surgeon can try again?

If an engineer makes a design flaw that creates a catastrophe, do the dead rea-animate and he can try a new design?

Grade forgiveness is a bad idea. However, I have less objection to a professor say offering 10 quizzes and dropping the lowest one.

Good point

What a brain dead thread... all for what? DEI/affirmative action?

Danielsjackson114 said:

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Good point

What a brain dead thread... all for what? DEI/affirmative action?

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Answer the question.

Harrison Bergeron said:

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If a surgeon makes a critical error and kills a patient, does the patient re-animate and the surgeon can try again?

If an engineer makes a design flaw that creates a catastrophe, do the dead rea-animate and he can try a new design?

Grade forgiveness is a bad idea. However, I have less objection to a professor say offering 10 quizzes and dropping the lowest one.

---

These are one and done situations that involve life and death. College is very different. Learning by definition isn't a one and done thing. We should learn from each event and use that knowledge to improve the next event. So, let's deal with your last situation.

What exactly, makes grade forgiveness a bad idea? Just so there is no confusion, let's be clear about exactly what happens. Student fails course. Students GPA is 0. Student retakes course and makes an A. Under the old/current system, the students GPA is 2.0. Under the new system, the zero goes away and only the A stands. The students GPA is a 4.0. An A grade means the student mastered the course. Why should the GPA not match the final transcripted grade in the course? Doesn't the A match what the student knows?

My college does grade forgiveness. A lot of potential nursing students try to use it to their advantage. They take my course and get a C. They hem and haw that they need a high GPA to qualify for nursing school admission, but I do not curve grades (that's a very slippery slope in my opinion), so the C stands. They then retake my class in an effort to get an A or a B. Some do. Many don't. They get a C again. My problem isn't with the student trying to improve their GPA. My issue is that there is another way to do this. Keep your A in my course, go take an easy A class, we all know they exist and most of us know which ones they are, and now your C+A equals the same thing you were trying for in retaking my class. Plus, this way gets you three hours closer to graduation. Grade forgiveness means you spent money you didn't need to trying to improve your situation. It also means you weren't really interested in learning something per se. It means you got caught up in a number and that's all you really saw.

And how is it different than dropping the lowest quiz. Depending on how low that quiz was it could change a course grade from a C to a B or a B to an A. This behavior changed the grade and you are okay with it, but you aren't okay with grade forgiveness.

El Oso said:

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Harrison Bergeron said:

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If a surgeon makes a critical error and kills a patient, does the patient re-animate and the surgeon can try again?

If an engineer makes a design flaw that creates a catastrophe, do the dead rea-animate and he can try a new design?

Grade forgiveness is a bad idea. However, I have less objection to a professor say offering 10 quizzes and dropping the lowest one.

---

These are one and done situations that involve life and death. College is very different. Learning by definition isn't a one and done thing. We should learn from each event and use that knowledge to improve the next event. So, let's deal with your last situation.

What exactly, makes grade forgiveness a bad idea? Just so there is no confusion, let's be clear about exactly what happens. Student fails course. Students GPA is 0. Student retakes course and makes an A. Under the old/current system, the students GPA is 2.0. Under the new system, the zero goes away and only the A stands. The students GPA is a 4.0. An A grade means the student mastered the course. Why should the GPA not match the final transcripted grade in the course? Doesn't the A match what the student knows?

My college does grade forgiveness. A lot of potential nursing students try to use it to their advantage. They take my course and get a C. They hem and haw that they need a high GPA to qualify for nursing school admission, but I do not curve grades (that's a very slippery slope in my opinion), so the C stands. They then retake my class in an effort to get an A or a B. Some do. Many don't. They get a C again. My problem isn't with the student trying to improve their GPA. My issue is that there is another way to do this. Keep your A in my course, go take an easy A class, we all know they exist and most of us know which ones they are, and now your C+A equals the same thing you were trying for in retaking my class. Plus, this way gets you three hours closer to graduation. Grade forgiveness means you spent money you didn't need to trying to improve your situation. It also means you weren't really interested in learning something per se. It means you got caught up in a number and that's all you really saw.

And how is it different than dropping the lowest quiz. Depending on how low that quiz was it could change a course grade from a C to a B or a B to an A. This behavior changed the grade and you are okay with it, but you aren't okay with grade forgiveness.

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It is your burden to make the affirmative case why grade forgiveness is superior ...

However, for fun let's have a go.

If your standard is life or death, then let's de-escalate: if someone gets a DUI and causes a crash that paralyzes someone, should they be allowed to re-drive that route and if they make it home safely they're not charged?

I think the real test for this would be grad schools and employers. Will a grad school give preference to the student with grade forgiveness on record or not? Will a prospective employer give preference to a student with grade forgiveness or not? If it doesn't matter to either as long as they can see any failures on the transcript, then the change to forgiveness only effects scholarship retention (if any weren't lost with the failure), class rank, cum laude rank, and maybe the student's feelings.

The big problem I see with this and similar is it only moves expectations around unnecessarily. It's something like saying, "Let's make Tuesday the first day of the work week so everyone will feel better about Mondays." All that happens is everyone starts hating Tuesdays more. Now there must be a movement to change the first day of work to Wednesday to help everyone feel better about Tuesdays. No one was helped. Everyone just moves their expectations around to fit the new order of things.

Now if I was a student in the top of my class and got beat out for an honor by someone who had some grade forgiveness while I did not, I might think it mattered more.

EatMoreSalmon said:

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I think the real test for this would be grad schools and employers. Will a grad school give preference to the student with grade forgiveness on record or not? Will a prospective employer give preference to a student with grade forgiveness or not? If it doesn't matter to either as long as they can see any failures on the transcript, then the change to forgiveness only effects scholarship retention (if any weren't lost with the failure), class rank, cum laude rank, and maybe the student's feelings.

The big problem I see with this and similar is it only moves expectations around unnecessarily. It's something like saying, "Let's make Tuesday the first day of the work week so everyone will feel better about Mondays." All that happens is everyone starts hating Tuesdays more. Now there must be a movement to change the first day of work to Wednesday to help everyone feel better about Tuesdays. No one was helped. Everyone just moves their expectations around to fit the new order of things.

Now if I was a student in the top of my class and got beat out for an honor by someone who had some grade forgiveness while I did not, I might think it mattered more.

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It is my understanding, and I know this is how my school does it, the F/D grade stays on the transcript. It never goes away. It just doesn't count toward GPA anymore. Only the higher grade factors into GPA. That said, the F stands until a higher grade is substituted, so I imagine scholarships are lost or they place the student on probation.

So now to your question. If I am looking at the entire transcript, maybe I do only consider the higher grade. I would definitely wonder what happened. Did the student make bad choices? Was there a personal situation that caused the issue? Did the student try and do too much (18 hours that semester instead of 12)? A lot more goes into a grade than just the academic side of a student's life. I don't remember being interviewed as part of my master's acceptance. I was for my doctoral program. If there's an interview, I ask.

Yes, I would support limits to the number of times this can happen. That's probably my biggest issue with it. In theory, a student could go to college twice. It would be expensive as hell. I would cap it. I don't have a number in mind as of right now.

I think I would be mad too, but then again, what's the story behind why forgiveness was needed? If it's because you spent the whole semester drinking, that's clearly unfair. If it's because your mom died and you couldn't handle it, letting you take the class at a later time seems fair to me even though it may hurt me in our competition. If it's because you bit off too much that semester, man I don't know. I had a 30+ hour a week job my entire time at Baylor. That definitely posed some time management problems with studying. My point is the field between students is rarely level, so I'm not sure anyone gains a true advantage here.

Death in the immediate family or disaster at home is why an "incomplete" is taken. I had to do that for two courses in a 21 hour load semester. Was given three weeks to get them completed.

Not really grade forgiveness but had a couple of professors that gave 3 major test a semester and we got to drop one test.

I messed up and decided since it didn't count just to not even study for one of the tests at all and basically took a break, real backfire on the finals since of course that subject matter which I didn't study was on the test and I did not know it as well as the other sections I had studied during class time.

El Oso said:

---

Harrison Bergeron said:

---

If a surgeon makes a critical error and kills a patient, does the patient re-animate and the surgeon can try again?

If an engineer makes a design flaw that creates a catastrophe, do the dead rea-animate and he can try a new design?

Grade forgiveness is a bad idea. However, I have less objection to a professor say offering 10 quizzes and dropping the lowest one.

---

These are one and done situations that involve life and death. College is very different. Learning by definition isn't a one and done thing. We should learn from each event and use that knowledge to improve the next event. So, let's deal with your last situation.

What exactly, makes grade forgiveness a bad idea? Just so there is no confusion, let's be clear about exactly what happens. Student fails course. Students GPA is 0. Student retakes course and makes an A. Under the old/current system, the students GPA is 2.0. Under the new system, the zero goes away and only the A stands. The students GPA is a 4.0. An A grade means the student mastered the course. Why should the GPA not match the final transcripted grade in the course? Doesn't the A match what the student knows?

My college does grade forgiveness. A lot of potential nursing students try to use it to their advantage. They take my course and get a C. They hem and haw that they need a high GPA to qualify for nursing school admission, but I do not curve grades (that's a very slippery slope in my opinion), so the C stands. They then retake my class in an effort to get an A or a B. Some do. Many don't. They get a C again. My problem isn't with the student trying to improve their GPA. My issue is that there is another way to do this. Keep your A in my course, go take an easy A class, we all know they exist and most of us know which ones they are, and now your C+A equals the same thing you were trying for in retaking my class. Plus, this way gets you three hours closer to graduation. Grade forgiveness means you spent money you didn't need to trying to improve your situation. It also means you weren't really interested in learning something per se. It means you got caught up in a number and that's all you really saw.

And how is it different than dropping the lowest quiz. Depending on how low that quiz was it could change a course grade from a C to a B or a B to an A. This behavior changed the grade and you are okay with it, but you aren't okay with grade forgiveness.

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What do you teach?

EatMoreSalmon said:

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Death in the immediate family or disaster at home is why an "incomplete" is taken. I had to do that for two courses in a 21 hour load semester. Was given three weeks to get them completed.

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I probably should have picked a better example, but I have seen my example happen. I know of a student who completely withdrew from the world when her dad died in the middle of COVID. Was on pace to make a B in my class and then disappeared. Didn't come to class, didn't answer emails, didn't return calls. I had no choice but to transcript an F when final grades were do since the last three assignments were missed. She showed up in my class again in January. I'm glad grade forgiveness was something she could take advantage of.

I have a ton of students with food insecurity, transportation issues, you name it. They disappear for a lot of reasons and passing grades turn into failing ones in a hurry. Gen Z more than any of the other generations in my career seem to disappear when **** hits the fan. If I don't know before grades are due, the I option doesn't exist. First gen students don't always know how the system works.

Forest Bueller III said:

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Not really grade forgiveness but had a couple of professors that gave 3 major test a semester and we got to drop one test.

I messed up and decided since it didn't count just to not even study for one of the tests at all and basically took a break, real backfire on the finals since of course that subject matter which I didn't study was on the test and I did not know it as well as the other sections I had studied during class time.

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I played similar games at Baylor. I remember one final I calculated exactly what I needed to make an A. It wasn't a big number. I didn't study a lot. I hit my number, but in a way it proves a point I've been trying to make this entire thread. An A doesn't mean I mastered the material. It means I did well on tests. Tests only measure what I know at a specific point in time. They don't always measure if I can apply that knowledge, I'm looking at you multiple choice tests, and that's really the most important thing one can do with knowledge. Sometimes I dumped knowledge after a test. Sometimes I built on it.

D. C. Bear said:

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What do you teach?

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A little bit of everything.

In K-12, I taught everything from 7th grade ELAR to English IV. I developed curriculum for three years, maybe more. I wrote end of course exams for Dallas ISD for three years. For Richardson ISD I wrote a course (College and Career Readiness) one of my kids will take next semester that I wrote 10 years ago. It will be interesting to see how it has evolved since I first wrote it. I kept copies of the original course when I left, so I will be able to see.

I led ELAR departments. I was the mentor for TFA teachers on one campus. I also taught speech depending on demand. State law changed about 10-ish years ago and speech was no longer required for a high school diploma. I left K12 around that time. My classes ranged from inclusion classes to pre-AP. I never taught a 100% SPED class, but I worked right next to a lot of SPED coordinators, teachers aides and paraprofessionals when SPED students were included in a class. I even got assigned a section of ISS one year because the principal couldn't find an ISS teacher so seven of us rotated which period we covered it all year long.

I was an AVID coordinator for a long time, so I worked with everything from elementary school campuses through seniors in high school. I had to be involved in all core subjects because AVID kids have to take at least one pre-AP class each year and that could be difficult to get them qualified for one. Basically, if a school did it, I had to have anywhere from a working knowledge of it to advanced knowledge of it depending on what it was because I had to find a way to get a kid fully AVID qualified. My campus was one tier below demonstration school when I left for college full-time.

In college I have taught everything from developmental writing through literature courses. My youngest student was 13 (dual credit, turned 14 right around Thanksgiving) and my oldest was 85. He came back to get a degree that always eluded him.

Coincidentally, Jason Whitlock hosted several people on his podcast this week to discuss why so many high school senior cannot read.
High School Seniors Cannot Read

Also interesting book called Crimes of the Educators that discussed how the American education system fails its students. Part of what it discusses is the intentional lowering of standards.

I think you should be graded on what your knowledge and mastery is now, not what it was a year or semester ago.

If you get an A in a course now, then you clearly know the material and your GPA should reflect as much. The punishment for failing the first time is paying for the same course twice in both time and monetary payment.

As you can probably tell, the scriptures on foregiveness and mercy are my favorite.

Bestweekeverr said:

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I think you should be graded on what your knowledge and mastery is now, not what it was a year or semester ago.

---

Using this thought:
Midterm exam: student makes a 75. Student is struggling, but learning. Student starts coming to tutoring and attends class regularly now.
Comprehensive final exam: Student makes a 90.

What grade should this student receive in the class?
A) 83 (B) each exam is weighted equally and this is the average.
B)The students should receive an A. The final exam was comprehensive and the student shows A mastery of course material.
C)Other--you tell me

I ask because I use four essays to determine the grade in my ENGL 1301 course. What usually happens is the student starts low and then finishes with two, maybe three really well done essays. Sometimes just one (the last one). It seems under your statement, I should give the student the last grade they received in my course because that is the best they can do using all the knowledge they have gained over the semester. Should I really just use the first three as graded practices? Should I weight each essay at a higher percentage than the one before? Should I just use a straight average? What grade best represents what a student actually learned in the course?

El Oso said:

---

Harrison Bergeron said:

---

If a surgeon makes a critical error and kills a patient, does the patient re-animate and the surgeon can try again?

If an engineer makes a design flaw that creates a catastrophe, do the dead rea-animate and he can try a new design?

Grade forgiveness is a bad idea. However, I have less objection to a professor say offering 10 quizzes and dropping the lowest one.

---

These are one and done situations that involve life and death. College is very different. Learning by definition isn't a one and done thing. We should learn from each event and use that knowledge to improve the next event. So, let's deal with your last situation.

What exactly, makes grade forgiveness a bad idea? Just so there is no confusion, let's be clear about exactly what happens. Student fails course. Students GPA is 0. Student retakes course and makes an A. Under the old/current system, the students GPA is 2.0. Under the new system, the zero goes away and only the A stands. The students GPA is a 4.0. An A grade means the student mastered the course. Why should the GPA not match the final transcripted grade in the course? Doesn't the A match what the student knows?

My college does grade forgiveness. A lot of potential nursing students try to use it to their advantage. They take my course and get a C. They hem and haw that they need a high GPA to qualify for nursing school admission, but I do not curve grades (that's a very slippery slope in my opinion), so the C stands. They then retake my class in an effort to get an A or a B. Some do. Many don't. They get a C again. My problem isn't with the student trying to improve their GPA. My issue is that there is another way to do this. Keep your A in my course, go take an easy A class, we all know they exist and most of us know which ones they are, and now your C+A equals the same thing you were trying for in retaking my class. Plus, this way gets you three hours closer to graduation. Grade forgiveness means you spent money you didn't need to trying to improve your situation. It also means you weren't really interested in learning something per se. It means you got caught up in a number and that's all you really saw.

And how is it different than dropping the lowest quiz. Depending on how low that quiz was it could change a course grade from a C to a B or a B to an A. This behavior changed the grade and you are okay with it, but you aren't okay with grade forgiveness.

---

Your retaking the class example - this penalizes the kid that studied hard and got the A in one take. The kid that failed and then got the A had an entire semester extra of lectures, knew they types of questions coming on the tests. His A is not equivalent to the one take A. Further, the kids really hurt by this are the B students that would never retake a course to get the A.

Your teacher dropping a grade based on quizzes example - here all the students are treated the same and all know the rules at the beginning of the semester. Even the A student can drop that B+ he got on one test and reply with an A. Every A here is exactly the same.

El Oso said:

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Bestweekeverr said:

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I think you should be graded on what your knowledge and mastery is now, not what it was a year or semester ago.

---

Using this thought:
Midterm exam: student makes a 75. Student is struggling, but learning. Student starts coming to tutoring and attends class regularly now.
Comprehensive final exam: Student makes a 90.

What grade should this student receive in the class?
A) 83 (B) each exam is weighted equally and this is the average.
B)The students should receive an A. The final exam was comprehensive and the student shows A mastery of course material.
C)Other--you tell me

I ask because I use four essays to determine the grade in my ENGL 1301 course. What usually happens is the student starts low and then finishes with two, maybe three really well done essays. Sometimes just one (the last one). It seems under your statement, I should give the student the last grade they received in my course because that is the best they can do using all the knowledge they have gained over the semester. Should I really just use the first three as graded practices? Should I weight each essay at a higher percentage than the one before? Should I just use a straight average? What grade best represents what a student actually learned in the course?

---

Kind of depends on what was in the syllabus. Did it include the option of the comprehensive final being the course grade?

Harrison Bergeron said:

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If a surgeon makes a critical error and kills a patient, does the patient re-animate and the surgeon can try again?

If an engineer makes a design flaw that creates a catastrophe, do the dead rea-animate and he can try a new design?

Grade forgiveness is a bad idea. However, I have less objection to a professor say offering 10 quizzes and dropping the lowest one.

---

I thought about your examples, and it occurs to me that most people look first at experience and reputation when choosing a surgeon. Certainly when I had knee replacement surgery, it was important to me that my doctor held the patent to several joints, and was a cited authority in the AMA Journal. I have no idea what his grades in school were.

Same for engineers, and other professionals. Professional experience and reputation are key drivers for clients, no one asks about GPA.

El Oso said:

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Bestweekeverr said:

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I think you should be graded on what your knowledge and mastery is now, not what it was a year or semester ago.

---

Using this thought:
Midterm exam: student makes a 75. Student is struggling, but learning. Student starts coming to tutoring and attends class regularly now.
Comprehensive final exam: Student makes a 90.

What grade should this student receive in the class?
A) 83 (B) each exam is weighted equally and this is the average.
B)The students should receive an A. The final exam was comprehensive and the student shows A mastery of course material.
C)Other--you tell me

I ask because I use four essays to determine the grade in my ENGL 1301 course. What usually happens is the student starts low and then finishes with two, maybe three really well done essays. Sometimes just one (the last one). It seems under your statement, I should give the student the last grade they received in my course because that is the best they can do using all the knowledge they have gained over the semester. Should I really just use the first three as graded practices? Should I weight each essay at a higher percentage than the one before? Should I just use a straight average? What grade best represents what a student actually learned in the course?

---

Easy - the average of the two grades unless the students know the final exam is weighted higher. Certainly, you could structure your class as mid-term 25% and final 75% to make things more equitable.

Tossing out the mid-term and awarding an A based only on the final exam is a disservice to all students.

If you have a mid-term, that exam will be more comprehensive as to the first half of the course than the Final which must test everything. A student that got an A on both exams has a greater mastery of the course than the student that only got an A on the final.

D. C. Bear said:

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El Oso said:

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Bestweekeverr said:

---

I think you should be graded on what your knowledge and mastery is now, not what it was a year or semester ago.

---

Using this thought:
Midterm exam: student makes a 75. Student is struggling, but learning. Student starts coming to tutoring and attends class regularly now.
Comprehensive final exam: Student makes a 90.

What grade should this student receive in the class?
A) 83 (B) each exam is weighted equally and this is the average.
B)The students should receive an A. The final exam was comprehensive and the student shows A mastery of course material.
C)Other--you tell me

I ask because I use four essays to determine the grade in my ENGL 1301 course. What usually happens is the student starts low and then finishes with two, maybe three really well done essays. Sometimes just one (the last one). It seems under your statement, I should give the student the last grade they received in my course because that is the best they can do using all the knowledge they have gained over the semester. Should I really just use the first three as graded practices? Should I weight each essay at a higher percentage than the one before? Should I just use a straight average? What grade best represents what a student actually learned in the course?

---

Kind of depends on what was in the syllabus. Did it include the option of the comprehensive final being the course grade?

---

No. The exams are weighted the same. Although if you want, you could say this is how you would do it, which would be answer choice C. My point is there are lots of ways this grade could be calculated. Which one is most accurate? I the goal is what you know at the end, and the end was comprehensive, then why shouldn't this student receive an A. This is where they are when they leave the course. It's not always where you start. It's where you finish and what you can do with that knowledge.

GrowlTowel said:

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A student that got an A on both exams has a greater mastery of the course than the student that only got an A on the final.

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That's not true. The student who got an A on both has consistent mastery. They both are at an A at the end when it comes to knowledge. Learning is a roller coaster. It goes up and down. Some people can stay up the whole time. Other can't, but if they end with the exact same knowledge, what does any of that matter if the final grade should reflect what the student currently knows?

El Oso said:

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D. C. Bear said:

---

El Oso said:

---

Bestweekeverr said:

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I think you should be graded on what your knowledge and mastery is now, not what it was a year or semester ago.

---

Using this thought:
Midterm exam: student makes a 75. Student is struggling, but learning. Student starts coming to tutoring and attends class regularly now.
Comprehensive final exam: Student makes a 90.

What grade should this student receive in the class?
A) 83 (B) each exam is weighted equally and this is the average.
B)The students should receive an A. The final exam was comprehensive and the student shows A mastery of course material.
C)Other--you tell me

I ask because I use four essays to determine the grade in my ENGL 1301 course. What usually happens is the student starts low and then finishes with two, maybe three really well done essays. Sometimes just one (the last one). It seems under your statement, I should give the student the last grade they received in my course because that is the best they can do using all the knowledge they have gained over the semester. Should I really just use the first three as graded practices? Should I weight each essay at a higher percentage than the one before? Should I just use a straight average? What grade best represents what a student actually learned in the course?

---

Kind of depends on what was in the syllabus. Did it include the option of the comprehensive final being the course grade?

---

No. The exams are weighted the same. Although if you want, you could say this is how you would do it, which would be answer choice C. My point is there are lots of ways this grade could be calculated. Which one is most accurate? I the goal is what you know at the end, and the end was comprehensive, then why shouldn't this student receive an A. This is where they are when they leave the course. It's not always where you start. It's where you finish and what you can do with that knowledge.

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To me, it starts with the syllabus. Some professors are so fricking lazy they don't even write out how the grade will be determined, from the experience of my daughter's degree path (granted that was some years ago but I am not confident that faculty have generally been improving), while some lay out exactly how much each test, assignment, project etc. counts towards the grade. If the rules are laid out for students before the semester starts, then you are locked in to those rules, because diligent students will have noted those rules and work by them.

If you have one of those 'grade how I feel' *******s, may God have mercy.

GrowlTowel said:

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El Oso said:

---

Harrison Bergeron said:

---

If a surgeon makes a critical error and kills a patient, does the patient re-animate and the surgeon can try again?

If an engineer makes a design flaw that creates a catastrophe, do the dead rea-animate and he can try a new design?

Grade forgiveness is a bad idea. However, I have less objection to a professor say offering 10 quizzes and dropping the lowest one.

---

These are one and done situations that involve life and death. College is very different. Learning by definition isn't a one and done thing. We should learn from each event and use that knowledge to improve the next event. So, let's deal with your last situation.

What exactly, makes grade forgiveness a bad idea? Just so there is no confusion, let's be clear about exactly what happens. Student fails course. Students GPA is 0. Student retakes course and makes an A. Under the old/current system, the students GPA is 2.0. Under the new system, the zero goes away and only the A stands. The students GPA is a 4.0. An A grade means the student mastered the course. Why should the GPA not match the final transcripted grade in the course? Doesn't the A match what the student knows?

My college does grade forgiveness. A lot of potential nursing students try to use it to their advantage. They take my course and get a C. They hem and haw that they need a high GPA to qualify for nursing school admission, but I do not curve grades (that's a very slippery slope in my opinion), so the C stands. They then retake my class in an effort to get an A or a B. Some do. Many don't. They get a C again. My problem isn't with the student trying to improve their GPA. My issue is that there is another way to do this. Keep your A in my course, go take an easy A class, we all know they exist and most of us know which ones they are, and now your C+A equals the same thing you were trying for in retaking my class. Plus, this way gets you three hours closer to graduation. Grade forgiveness means you spent money you didn't need to trying to improve your situation. It also means you weren't really interested in learning something per se. It means you got caught up in a number and that's all you really saw.

And how is it different than dropping the lowest quiz. Depending on how low that quiz was it could change a course grade from a C to a B or a B to an A. This behavior changed the grade and you are okay with it, but you aren't okay with grade forgiveness.

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Your retaking the class example - this penalizes the kid that studied hard and got the A in one take. The kid that failed and then got the A had an entire semester extra of lectures, knew they types of questions coming on the tests. His A is not equivalent to the one take A. Further, the kids really hurt by this are the B students that would never retake a course to get the A.

Your teacher dropping a grade based on quizzes example - here all the students are treated the same and all know the rules at the beginning of the semester. Even the A student can drop that B+ he got on one test and reply with an A. Every A here is exactly the same.

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I fail to see how the first kid was penalized. He still has his A does he not? It doesn't disappear. He keeps it and moves on. He also saved some money because he got it done in one try. He wins (since learning seems to be about winners and losers to you).
You also highlight another problem of the grading system. Professors reusing tests so kid B knows what is coming. That's not on the student. That's on the professors. If a student retakes my class, they still have to write a cause-and-effect essay, and if they use the one they used last time, they get a zero. That's self-plagiarism and I have a strict plagiarism policy. Also, as I have argued on this thread, multiple choice tests do not measure learning. They measure memorization. Learning and memorization mean very different things. I memorized a lot of Spanish words for tests. I know very little Spanish. My Baylor grades in Spanish say I should be fluent.
Fair and equitable are two different terms. You like to focus on fair, and that is your right. I think education should focus on equity. But that's probably because I have a kid at the top of the mountain and one who can get there but only with accommodations. You'd like my overachiever. He's never made anything less than an A. But he struggles actually being able to do stuff with all that stuff he's learned. My solid C kid is probably a lot smarter. He may not know as much, but he knows how to use everything he does know, and often in creative ways I would have never thought of.

What is missing form the discussion is a more fundamental understanding of the purpose of pedagogy. A simpleton view is that the sole goal is to master a particular subject. The more accurate, holistic understanding is that while subject mastery is important, much of the process is the process: students learning how to learn, take notes, study, conceptualize, and synthesize information, etc., to be able to respond to a test. These are the skills that are much more important than particular facts memorized in a particular class. By enabling students to retake tests, it really removes the most important part of the process and makes it only about rote memorization.

El Oso said:

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GrowlTowel said:

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A student that got an A on both exams has a greater mastery of the course than the student that only got an A on the final.

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That's not true. The student who got an A on both has consistent mastery. They both are at an A at the end when it comes to knowledge. Learning is a roller coaster. It goes up and down. Some people can stay up the whole time. Other can't, but if they end with the exact same knowledge, what does any of that matter if the final grade should reflect what the student currently knows?

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It is actually 100% true unless you are purposely giving a reduced exam at the mid-term.

If you taught 50% of material and give an exam that takes up to the 90 minutes of exam time to finish - you tested more in depth on that first 50% of material than a final exam could possible cover during its 90 minutes of exam time. Further, as you already know that you tested the first half of the semester, you naturally ask more questions about the second half material during the final exam.

Let me ask you this then, if the Final is the only thing that matters to you - why are you bothering to test at the mid-term?

Grades reflect more than knowledge - dedication, effort, ability all factor into a grade.

El Oso said:

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GrowlTowel said:

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El Oso said:

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Harrison Bergeron said:

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If a surgeon makes a critical error and kills a patient, does the patient re-animate and the surgeon can try again?

If an engineer makes a design flaw that creates a catastrophe, do the dead rea-animate and he can try a new design?

Grade forgiveness is a bad idea. However, I have less objection to a professor say offering 10 quizzes and dropping the lowest one.

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These are one and done situations that involve life and death. College is very different. Learning by definition isn't a one and done thing. We should learn from each event and use that knowledge to improve the next event. So, let's deal with your last situation.

What exactly, makes grade forgiveness a bad idea? Just so there is no confusion, let's be clear about exactly what happens. Student fails course. Students GPA is 0. Student retakes course and makes an A. Under the old/current system, the students GPA is 2.0. Under the new system, the zero goes away and only the A stands. The students GPA is a 4.0. An A grade means the student mastered the course. Why should the GPA not match the final transcripted grade in the course? Doesn't the A match what the student knows?

My college does grade forgiveness. A lot of potential nursing students try to use it to their advantage. They take my course and get a C. They hem and haw that they need a high GPA to qualify for nursing school admission, but I do not curve grades (that's a very slippery slope in my opinion), so the C stands. They then retake my class in an effort to get an A or a B. Some do. Many don't. They get a C again. My problem isn't with the student trying to improve their GPA. My issue is that there is another way to do this. Keep your A in my course, go take an easy A class, we all know they exist and most of us know which ones they are, and now your C+A equals the same thing you were trying for in retaking my class. Plus, this way gets you three hours closer to graduation. Grade forgiveness means you spent money you didn't need to trying to improve your situation. It also means you weren't really interested in learning something per se. It means you got caught up in a number and that's all you really saw.

And how is it different than dropping the lowest quiz. Depending on how low that quiz was it could change a course grade from a C to a B or a B to an A. This behavior changed the grade and you are okay with it, but you aren't okay with grade forgiveness.

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Your retaking the class example - this penalizes the kid that studied hard and got the A in one take. The kid that failed and then got the A had an entire semester extra of lectures, knew they types of questions coming on the tests. His A is not equivalent to the one take A. Further, the kids really hurt by this are the B students that would never retake a course to get the A.

Your teacher dropping a grade based on quizzes example - here all the students are treated the same and all know the rules at the beginning of the semester. Even the A student can drop that B+ he got on one test and reply with an A. Every A here is exactly the same.

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I fail to see how the first kid was penalized. He still has his A does he not? It doesn't disappear. He keeps it and moves on. He also saved some money because he got it done in one try. He wins (since learning seems to be about winners and losers to you).
You also highlight another problem of the grading system. Professors reusing tests so kid B knows what is coming. That's not on the student. That's on the professors. If a student retakes my class, they still have to write a cause-and-effect essay, and if they use the one they used last time, they get a zero. That's self-plagiarism and I have a strict plagiarism policy. Also, as I have argued on this thread, multiple choice tests do not measure learning. They measure memorization. Learning and memorization mean very different things. I memorized a lot of Spanish words for tests. I know very little Spanish. My Baylor grades in Spanish say I should be fluent.
Fair and equitable are two different terms. You like to focus on fair, and that is your right. I think education should focus on equity. But that's probably because I have a kid at the top of the mountain and one who can get there but only with accommodations. You'd like my overachiever. He's never made anything less than an A. But he struggles actually being able to do stuff with all that stuff he's learned. My solid C kid is probably a lot smarter. He may not know as much, but he knows how to use everything he does know, and often in creative ways I would have never thought of.

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The normal student is penalized because he actually studied, lerned, and aced the course. Regardless if the professor uses the same test - it is still the same material and the flunkie now knows what the professor tests and how the professor tests it. These As are not the same but the normal student must stand next to the flunkie as if they are equals.

This is why (at least in my day) medical schools and law schools calculated your GPA based on the average of the retaken course. The University may erase a grade but graduate schools do not.

It is also why I always hated Baylor's "B+" Sure it felt great to get a 3.333 on your Baylor GPA, but graduate schools did not recognize the extra 0.333 and reduced it to 3.0. Professors were less inclined to bump you up to an A if you had an 88 or 89 in their course.

GrowlTowel said:

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El Oso said:

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GrowlTowel said:

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A student that got an A on both exams has a greater mastery of the course than the student that only got an A on the final.

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That's not true. The student who got an A on both has consistent mastery. They both are at an A at the end when it comes to knowledge. Learning is a roller coaster. It goes up and down. Some people can stay up the whole time. Other can't, but if they end with the exact same knowledge, what does any of that matter if the final grade should reflect what the student currently knows?

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It is actually 100% true unless you are purposely giving a reduced exam at the mid-term.

If you taught 50% of material and give an exam that takes up to the 90 minutes of exam time to finish - you tested more in depth on that first 50% of material than a final exam could possible cover during its 90 minutes of exam time. Further, as you already know that you tested the first half of the semester, you naturally ask more questions about the second half material during the final exam.

Let me ask you this then, if the Final is the only thing that matters to you - why are you bothering to test at the mid-term?

Grades reflect more than knowledge - dedication, effort, ability all factor into a grade.

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You're compartmentalizing. That's not how high level learning works. Normally, material builds over the semester. Let's use math as an example. At the midpoint, a student should know X number of skills. But as in my example, the student only knew 75% of those skills. But math builds on what came first. So if a student got a 75% on the midterm, they can't get an A on the final unless they have actually mastered the earlier content. The midterm only graded the first half of the course. At the end, the student showed mastery. Ergo, the A on the final.

The midterm is a check in. And it holds valuable information. At this point, we knew the student was okay, but could do a lot better. And they learned they needed to improve. That grade still demonstrates dedication (they didn't drop the course, they didn't maintain the status quo, they improved). It clearly shows effort (they improved). It clearly shows ability (they now have mastered all the skills--you can't build on a skill at a mastery level until you have mastered it. The A at the end shows course mastery).

If grades mean so much, and we all know they do in academia, how can we make sure they are an accurate measure of what the student knows at the end of the course? It's because we'd rather make learning a competition than an engaging experience.

El Oso said:

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GrowlTowel said:

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El Oso said:

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GrowlTowel said:

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A student that got an A on both exams has a greater mastery of the course than the student that only got an A on the final.

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That's not true. The student who got an A on both has consistent mastery. They both are at an A at the end when it comes to knowledge. Learning is a roller coaster. It goes up and down. Some people can stay up the whole time. Other can't, but if they end with the exact same knowledge, what does any of that matter if the final grade should reflect what the student currently knows?

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It is actually 100% true unless you are purposely giving a reduced exam at the mid-term.

If you taught 50% of material and give an exam that takes up to the 90 minutes of exam time to finish - you tested more in depth on that first 50% of material than a final exam could possible cover during its 90 minutes of exam time. Further, as you already know that you tested the first half of the semester, you naturally ask more questions about the second half material during the final exam.

Let me ask you this then, if the Final is the only thing that matters to you - why are you bothering to test at the mid-term?

Grades reflect more than knowledge - dedication, effort, ability all factor into a grade.

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You're compartmentalizing. That's not how high level learning works. Normally, material builds over the semester. Let's use math as an example. At the midpoint, a student should know X number of skills. But as in my example, the student only knew 75% of those skills. But math builds on what came first. So if a student got a 75% on the midterm, they can't get an A on the final unless they have actually mastered the earlier content. The midterm only graded the first half of the course. At the end, the student showed mastery. Ergo, the A on the final.

The midterm is a check in. And it holds valuable information. At this point, we knew the student was okay, but could do a lot better. And they learned they needed to improve. That grade still demonstrates dedication (they didn't drop the course, they didn't maintain the status quo, they improved). It clearly shows effort (they improved). It clearly shows ability (they now have mastered all the skills--you can't build on a skill at a mastery level until you have mastered it. The A at the end shows course mastery).

If grades mean so much, and we all know they do in academia, how can we make sure they are an accurate measure of what the student knows at the end of the course? It's because we'd rather make learning a competition than an engaging experience.

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Posit a better solution.

GrowlTowel said:

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It is also why I always hated Baylor's "B+" Sure it felt great to get a 3.333 on your Baylor GPA, but graduate schools did not recognize the extra 0.333 and reduced it to 3.0. Professors were less inclined to bump you up to an A if you had an 88 or 89 in their course.

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Not only did my grad school recognize Baylor's grading system, it used a much harder version of it.
94-100 was an A
90-93 was an A-
87-89 was a B+
80-86 was a B

I don't remember how the C's went, but I know if you scored a B on something you got an ugly note on that assignment asking you if you were sure grad school was right for you. I didn't get that note, but a friend did.

Harrison Bergeron said:

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Posit a better solution.

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Across several threads, I have posited that P/F and grade forgiveness may be a better solution. There's data to support both, but you reject the data so I don't know what to tell you.

Now you are in the business world, I assume, so you could speak to whether or not college graduates are prepared. We know the data say the ones under the current system do not seem to be right now. These new systems haven't been in place four to six years yet, so we don't know their impact yet. You speculate they won't work. I'm not so sure one way or the other yet.

El Oso said:

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GrowlTowel said:

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A student that got an A on both exams has a greater mastery of the course than the student that only got an A on the final.

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That's not true. The student who got an A on both has consistent mastery. They both are at an A at the end when it comes to knowledge. Learning is a roller coaster. It goes up and down. Some people can stay up the whole time. Other can't, but if they end with the exact same knowledge, what does any of that matter if the final grade should reflect what the student currently knows?

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No matter what else we'd like to think, school grades were not just designed to show mastery of a subject. Part of schooling is socialization and honing good work habits. A student that consistently shows good work and work habits will typically grade higher than one that has crappy work habits. That needs to remain in the equation if education is to complete its full purpose.

Grades also can show who catches on quicker, which could be a good metric for a future employer.

It's not just about the specific subject matter.

El Oso said:

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D. C. Bear said:

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El Oso said:

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Bestweekeverr said:

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I think you should be graded on what your knowledge and mastery is now, not what it was a year or semester ago.

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Using this thought:
Midterm exam: student makes a 75. Student is struggling, but learning. Student starts coming to tutoring and attends class regularly now.
Comprehensive final exam: Student makes a 90.

What grade should this student receive in the class?
A) 83 (B) each exam is weighted equally and this is the average.
B)The students should receive an A. The final exam was comprehensive and the student shows A mastery of course material.
C)Other--you tell me

I ask because I use four essays to determine the grade in my ENGL 1301 course. What usually happens is the student starts low and then finishes with two, maybe three really well done essays. Sometimes just one (the last one). It seems under your statement, I should give the student the last grade they received in my course because that is the best they can do using all the knowledge they have gained over the semester. Should I really just use the first three as graded practices? Should I weight each essay at a higher percentage than the one before? Should I just use a straight average? What grade best represents what a student actually learned in the course?

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Kind of depends on what was in the syllabus. Did it include the option of the comprehensive final being the course grade?

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No. The exams are weighted the same. Although if you want, you could say this is how you would do it, which would be answer choice C. My point is there are lots of ways this grade could be calculated. Which one is most accurate? I the goal is what you know at the end, and the end was comprehensive, then why shouldn't this student receive an A. This is where they are when they leave the course. It's not always where you start. It's where you finish and what you can do with that knowledge.

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Had a Calculus professor who allowed the final exam to be the final grade in the class if you were in class every day. It was helpful.

Given that it's where you finish, would you consider lowering someone's grade beneath what they "earned" at the end if they did worse on the comprehensive final?