In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Robert J. MacG. Dawson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> If you are prepared to accept that students can attend classes and
>cram for their final without getting *any* marks directly for those
>activities, or that a three-hour final can carry more marks than
>attendance at three hours of lectures, then I don't see from what
>general principle it follows that assignments must carry more than (say)
>10% of the course marks - or indeed, any.
I agree that there's no absolute requirement that the percent of mark
for a course component match the amount of effort expended on it.
However, there are several reasons why this is desirable:
o While wise students will study for the joy of it, or for the eventual
practical benefit, not all students are wise, so we paternalistically
motivate them with grades to do what they ought to do anyway.
Making grades proportional to effort clearly makes sense for this.
o We may try to make up assignments and tests so that the best way
to prepare for the test is to do the assignments, but we may not
completely succeed, or at least students may not believe that we
have. In this situation, students are faced with the choice of
learning more by doing the assignment, or getting better marks by
instead studying for the test. This isn't exactly unfair, any more
that it's unfair that students have to balance doing volunteer work
for charities with studying for a test. But it's good to avoid
this conflict if possible.
o Marking assignments is an opportunity for the student to get detailed
feedback on their work of a sort that they won't get from a test.
(Assuming their marked well.) Similarly, it provides the instructor
with feedback on how well the students are doing that is of a different
sort than what is obtained from a test. One could in theory get all
this without actually assigning any grades, but in practice that seems
unlikely.
Of course, if widespread copying of assignments occurs, these
advantages are lost.
Radford Neal
.
.
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