Chem 310 Class Policies - Prof. Bryan Hanson

Class Policies of Prof. Bryan Hanson
For Chemistry 310 Spring 2009

Grading methods, philosophy and scale

In this course your grade is determined by the quality of work you do on exams and quizzes. There will be three midterms worth 100 points each, and a final worth 200 points. Exams as a group will contribute 80% to your grade, the remaining 20% will be the quizzes. Quizzes will be given on most Fridays when there is not an exam. There will be no make ups on quizzes, however, I will drop your two lowest quizzes.

As far as grading particular items goes, I have found that grading in a holistic fashion is very effective for me. I look at a problem on an exam or at your report or whatever, and try to determine if it is B work or C work and so on. This is much more efficient for me than assigning a certain number of points to each little piece of the assignment and then totaling them up.

What are my expectations for each letter grade? There are a number of ways of describing characteristics of students who earn a particular grade, and it is impossible to specify those characteristics perfectly (I could make the descriptions below almost infinitely long). However, here are some brief criteria which will give you an idea of how I look at performance and grades. By the way, nobody's perfect - on a given problem or assignment, a really great student might blow it, or a student who usually struggles might have a flash of insight. So think of these descriptions as representing performance over the long haul.

I consider an "A" student to be one who masters all the concepts and can can apply them readily in routine situations, who knows nearly all the relevant facts, and in addition, can take what they know and use it in an unfamiliar situation. An "A" student not only does the lab report, or answers the questions, but they are able to see how different parts of the assignment and course fit together - they have a grasp of the "big picture" and demonstrate insight which shows on their work. The "A" student will be very good at communicating and arguing their point.

A "B" student will have reasonable mastery of most concepts but be a little shaky on some of them, and perhaps have an occasional significant misunderstanding of a concept. They will know many of the relevant facts. They will have trouble transferring their knowledge to new situations some of the time. Most of the time they will see the big picture of how ideas in the course fit together.

A "C" student will have a number of misconceptions and a weak command of the facts. Their answers will be wrong in some way as much as half the time (which will on average earn a grade in the 70's). Jargon and concepts will frequently be employed inappropriately and arguments (reasoning ability) will not be strong.

A "D" student provides wrong information or answers more than half the time. When they do provide an answer that is partially correct, it often has a great deal of misconceptions embedded within it. Facts are frequently wrong and concepts used incorrectly a large percentage of time. However, a D student does possess at least some useful knowledge of the subject.

An "F" student does not have a significant level of competency in the course. They cannot provide even a modest answer to a very straightforward or simple question and cannot work simpler problems to a correct answer.

Notice that my expectations do not factor in effort. What is rewarded is the demonstration of knowledge and mastery of the course material, along with the associated critical thinking skills. Why is that? From my point of view, effort is exceptionally difficult to measure. It is very subjective. Effort is a very personal matter dealing with one's self view and attitudes and many other factors. While I try to get to know students fairly well, the truth is I don't begin to have enough knowledge about you to measure your effort in an accurate manner. Further, effort is in some sense only loosely connected with performance in a course. We all know people who because of low course standards breezed through a course and got an A without making much of an "effort." As another example, imagine a student with a lot of experience in a subject or high native intelligence, who gets an A without any strain (i.e., effort). The concept of effort is way too fuzzy for me to be comfortable using impressions of it in assigning grades.

As the semester progresses, I enter grades into a spreadsheet. At the end of the semester, when I sit down to assign final grades, I use the following procedure:

1. First, I use the following formula to compute your overall %:

overall % = 100 x [(0.80 x EF) + (0.20 x QF)]

where EF = exam fraction, and QF = quiz fraction (fraction is just % expressed on a 0-1 scale). Overall % is rounded to two digits.

By the way, your grade in this class does not depend in any way on anybody else's grades. No class averages are used in the formula. Also, I don't generally curve individual exams because I find I can vary the difficulty of later exams readily if there is some reason to do so.

2. At this point I consider the scores of the entire class, and I may choose to move some of the grade cutoffs in the table below down one point. I do this using my professional judgment, based upon over two decades of teaching and experience in evaluating over a thousand students. When and if I move cutoffs, all students with a given overall % are treated the same. Thus, if I decide that 89% will be an A-, then all students with an 89% will get an A-. In using my professional judgment, I keep in mind such factors as, but not limited to, the following:

The overall difficulty of the class; how hard I pushed you.
Improvement of the entire class over time, in particular performance on the final.
The relative harshness of exam grading - are the exam grades a good reflection of the class ability, or was I too hard or too easy in my grading?
How well students near the cutoffs reflect my expectations for a particular letter grade, as described earlier.

Once I have considered these factors, I make the final assignment of grades. Here is the grade scale I use with all my classes:

Overall %	Grade
94+	A
90-93	A-
87-89	B+
83-86	B
80-82	B-
77-79	C+
73-76	C
70-72	C-
65-69	D
below 64	F

Attendance Policy

Attendance is up to you; I do not take attendance. However, I believe you will find it to your advantage to be present at every class meeting (and the rest of us will miss you!). If you must miss an exam or lab session due to illness or crisis, please make every effort to notify me in advance. Arrangements can usually be made for sports commitments if you are a team member, but do not abuse this privilege. Operation Life personnel may not be on call during laboratory.

Academic Integrity

The DePauw policy on academic integrity is described here and you should read it as you will be held to its standards in this course. Violations in the form of cheating, plagiarism, submission of the work of others etc. may result in penalties ranging from a lowered grade to course failure. Please also see my particular views on electronic plagiarism which I expect you to be familiar with.

If you have read this far, you get a reward of one extra point on your first exam! Send me an e-mail and put "Chem 310 Extra Exam Point" in the subject line (if you don't use this subject I will likely miss your request!). Requests for the extra point will only be honored if I receive your e-mail by 5:00 pm Friday February 6th 2009.