Thanks, folks. Bob: sort of; ideally, if I could remove IQ as a factor and still measure learning (as an advancement in comprehension), I'd like to be able to reward students for their achievement, rather than punish them. Not as a large portion of the overall course grade, but as some small rewarding experience.
For example, their ability to comprehend some topic in social psych might be minimal, and on a test (and as I briefly mentioned, mine are all written - short essay type) they might get a C- grade (or worse), which they experience as punishment. But what if such a student has made significant progress from a lower baseline to get to that C-? I'm generally a tough grader, compared to others at my school, so I get a lot of students whose inability to comprehend has gone unnoticed (they get by with better grades in other courses, and some good students do poorly on the first test, not expecting its complexity). But I don't care to dumb-down my grading system or give points for fluff. I want to try to capture improvements in comprehension that might be happening, but aren't strong enough to overcome IQ deficits that limit the overall performance, and provide some structured reward for those improvements. (Oh, and - better not forget this - I want to do this without any real extra work on my part.) For some (more?) students, these improvements would be due to motivational factors rather than IQ, but I'd be ok giving the same rewards for improved performance to them. (And some just get lucky with score sequences - I don't know what to do with that.) Again, I'm not trying to flatter myself by churning out high grades; I want something small but meaningful as reward for their change in performance, something fair, and formal so I can state up front what it is rather than the informal nudge we sometimes give students who've shown improvement over the semester. Doug said he gives "extra credit to the group that shows the largest average improvement" on group work, though it's minimal, and students seem to misjudge the value of those extra credit points. Something like that is the sort of compromise (to ideal) that I have in mind... but how much is fair, how to quantify it (establish baseline), etc.? --> Mike O. On 8/11/16 1:00 AM, Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) digest wrote: > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Subject: RE: Grading improvement > From: R C Intrieri<rc-intri...@wiu.edu> > Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 11:42:01 -0500 > X-Message-Number: 3 > > Mike O. > Just to clarify are you wanting a measure of learning that is not consistent > with IQ? In other words, you want to parcel out the effect of IQ on > learning? > Did I understand that completely? > Bob I --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@mail-archive.com. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=49178 or send a blank email to leave-49178-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu