Grading Theory

The time has once again come for professors and students alike to despair on account of the one thing which tends to define them most... grades. Over the years, I've taken quite a few university classes and have seen many grading schemes. I've found that, if I were to teach at any point, there are a few fundamental things that I would want as part of my grading system.

1. A grading system that is simple enough that both students and the instructor can easily see where the points are coming from and where the students stand.

2. A system that will demonstrate students' knowledge of fundamental concepts and reward them for knowledge of more in-depth concepts.

3. A system that has capacity for mercy.

4. A system in which students can know where they stand continuously and which allows for adjustment on assignments of too great of difficulty.

5. A system that encourages, but does not mandate class attendance.

I believe that I have come up with a system that meets all of these objectives as much as possible. This system takes a total grade out of 10,000 points. This value is higher than most professors use. I believe that this is the best value for two reasons. One, in a base-10 system, it is clear exactly what the final percentages in the class will be by reducing the values by 2 orders of magnitude. Two, this higher value for points allows more precision in grading all assignments. All point values are pre-weighted and factor directly into the final value of 10,000 points. This system is broken up into three components: exams, homework, and quizzes. Since I would undoubtedly be teaching engineering classes, other forms of assignments would not be necessary.

Exams

I have come up with both 3-exam and 4-exam schemes. Colleges and departments will often require that there be at least a certain number of midterms, and these are the two most common numbers I've experienced. Both schemes would have exams totalling up to 6,000 points out of total 10,000. This value of 60% of the total grade is also fairly typical of what I've seen. In the 3-exam scheme, there would be 3 exams of 2,000 points each. In the 4-exam scheme, there would be 4 exams of 1,500 points each.

Under the 3-exam scheme, each exam would have 10 multiple choice/short answer questions, each worth 50 points. These questions would be fairly simple, just to see if students have a fundamental knowledge of the concepts at hand and have actually been coming to class and participating. There would also be 3 workout problems of approximately equal difficulty and relevance, each worth 500 points. The 4-exam scheme would be similar, except that each of the multiple choice/short answer questions would be worth 25 points, and the workout problems would not be of equal difficulty. One of the workout problems would be simpler than the other two and would be worth only 250 points. Regardless of the exam scheme, exams would be curved in and of themselves in order adjust for material that was too difficult for an exam situation, in which a student is on an island, per se.

Homework

For homework, there would be 16 assignments of 200 points each. Since there are generally 16 weeks in a semester, it would make sense to have about 1 assignment per week. If I ended up teaching at the University of Washington, or some other school that used the quarter system, this would need to be adjusted. Those reading this who are good with mental math have probably already noticed that 16 assignments at 200 points each adds up to 3,200 points, which doesn't seem to fit very well into my 10,000 point system. Though there would be 3,200 points possible, the total homework grade would be taken out of only 3,000 points, allowing for both mercy and extra credit. Homework assignments would probably consist of 5 problems of 40 points each, or 4 problems of 50 points each, depending on the assignment.

Quizzes

During the course of a semester, there would be at least 10 quizzes worth 100 points each. The primary objective of quizzes would be to encourage students to come to class without mandating that all students be in class every time. These quizzes would be mostly arbitrary in timing, but would probably be given no more than once a week. If more than 10 quizzes are given during a semester, the total would be taken out of only 1,000 points, though not to exceed 100%. Quizzes would be simple and generally straightforward. Students would probably find the multiple choice/short answer exam questions strikingly similar to some of the quiz questions.

As a final note, it should be mentioned that this system is given for a class that has no lab. A different system would have to be employed for classes with a lab.

You're probably now saying, "Whoa dude, you've thought about this way too much for a guy who's not intent on going into academia." And I would say that you are right... I just think I've found a grading system that can meet the needs of professors without sacrificing students like France sacrificed Czechoslovakia to the Germans at the beginning of World War II.