Isn't there a legal issue here? I thought that the school records privacy 
act made it illegal to display grades in any way, even if minimally 
identifiable.

Paul

Dennis Roberts said on 1/18/03 2:25 PM:

>after every test ... i update my gradebook and, with last 4 digits of 
>student # ... put these on my door
>in addition, i put the desc stats and, a simple frequency tally
>i see nothing wrong with this AND, it is the only efficient way to 
>communicate to the students about their scores and how the class did ... 
>the operative here is that no one person knows what any other person does
>
>of course, it is not uncommon for several students (maybe friends) to stop 
>by the "door" at the same time ... and, they share with each other ... for 
>good or for bad ... how they did
>
>if you have a 50 item test ... and, the mean is say 38 ... and someone gets 
>a 27 ... THEY know they did poorly and ... THEY usually don't feel that 
>good about it but, i don't see how displaying on my door a simple frequency 
>distribution adds to that feeling
>
>since many instructors (i am not one of them) grade based on your position 
>within the distribution ... then it seems reasonable to put a frequency 
>distribution on display SOMEplace so students have a better idea of just 
>exactly where they stand ... for good or for bad
>
>finally, the more information you can show to the class about the 
>performance on the test ... the better they are able to put all scores into 
>some perspective ... i don't see why we should NOT do this
>
>it is certainly not unethical ... it would be if full student identifiers 
>were displayed but ... that is not the case
.
.
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