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Our Syllabus and our grading: how they fit together

Our Syllabus and our grading: how they fit together

The adult learner in a career college course is concerned with (1) obtaining the knowledge and skills to succeed in the career of their choice and (2) receiving clear, attainable guidelines in the form of grades in the course. 

Therefore, I always study the official syllabus of the course to determine how grades are assessed (most ECPI syllabi have specific categories, such as 30% for tests, 20% for discussion boards, etc. )

Then I assess each gradable item in the learning shell (web site, such as LMS/Moodle) and determine which ones are the most important, practical, and valuable. 

Once I have the gradebook set up and worked out, I go over the gradebook with the students. This is always before the end of the first week. 

They can see what they need to do, and they can formulate their own plan to achieve these grades. 

Therefore, the SUBJECT MATTER becomes more important than the grades! In other words, once they know what they have to do, they are not frustrated and mystified, and they can concentrate on learning the material.

So design your course carefully, make the grading structure well known to the students, and then you can deliver your course without an undue amount of stress worrying about grades.

 

The unstated goal of every student is to earn a good grade, as opposed to 'learning'.  I like the idea of showing them how easy it is to make the 'grade', as a means of limiting their focus to that.   However, if the pressure to learn and perform is 'off', do we have any data that suggests that student's performance improves as a result of being learning focused vs grade focused?   I am asking in part because so many students come out of high school, totally focused on the grade.  They know how to play the game and as soon as they have an acceptable grade, they walk out the door.  It's like buying a meal and only finishing half of it because one is not hungry anymore.   They are conditioned for that.  I would love to change the grade focused orientation to one of learning.   And, I think YouTube has started to make that possible.

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