Grades, the Curve, and Questions

Folks,

If you’re wondering why you got the grade you did, there are a few things to consider:

  1. It’s possible that I was forced by the University Administration to give you  lower grade than you really earned. This unfortunate requirement by our university is, sadly, common across Korea in Universities. It is, in my opinion, unfair although I can understand why it might have become necessary at some point in the past. In any case, regardless of my feelings and regardless of the quality of your work, there are limits to how many As and Bs can be awarded to students in classes of 20 or more students.

    The curve, combined with the inept management of this system, in handling students who drop courses, is the cause of a lot of frustration and anger, and also of painful feelings, every semester. It hurts me to give students lower grades than they have earned, but I cannot do otherwise: the computer doesn’t allow me to enter more than a limited number of As and Bs, and all I can assure you is that I work from the highest grades to the lowest to make sure that the grading is as fair as possible, given the unfair system.

    If you doubt my anger at this system, or my frustration at its unfairness, then please feel free to visit me sometime during semester and we can talk about it. I will turn red in the face very quickly, and probably start shouting at the walls within ten minutes. I hate this system, but there seems to be nothing I can do about it. Maybe as students, you can do something about it?

  2. The University’s definition of “classes of 20 or more students” is also problematic. Students who stop attending but don’t bother to drop a class are counted as a member of the class. This is relevant for my Listening & Speaking class this semester, in which there were only 19 students in the course, but 23 on the class list. While I cannot publish the names of the students who quit attending the course but didn’t bother to drop the course officially, they are the problem in this case. I’m told that there is nothing I can do, and therefore a number of students deserving of As and Bs received Bs and Cs.
  3. It’s possible that you missed some specific homework or other factor. Some students performed extremely well on major course tasks, but participated poorly. Some students participated well but missed a few homework assignments. A and A+ grades are for students who excel in all aspects of the course, managing assignments, participation, performance on exams or essays, and so forth. Indeed, not all completed homework assignments are equal: a checkmark is okay, but a check-plus is better, and a check-plus-plus is the optimal score. Missing small assignments seems like a little thing, but it adds up. Doing small assignments just well enough to receive a check-mark (but not check-plus or check-plus-plus) is simply not competing with others for the chance to receive the limited A and B grades available in the class.
  4. When it comes down to a choice between two people of the same grade for the last A or B available, then all things being equal, class participation, engagement with course topics, and quality of homework are always more important than attendance, exams or essays.
  5. If you stumbled in a major way — not coming to a midterm or final exam, missing more than ten hours of class (which is my limit), didn’t participate once in class, or otherwise, then you should receive an F, plain and simple. If you didn’t, then be grateful! If you ask me to reconsider your grade in that case, you’ll probably receive the F you deserve!

To sum up: I spend hours and hours every semester grading, tracking grades, inputting grades into my system, thinking about participation marks, and thinking about how to improve my system for grading each of my classes. While I think grading and grades are detrimental to education, I take them seriously, I work hard to make sure they are fair, and I spend a lot of time on them. So before you ask me whether you got the grade you deserve, please think over what I’ve written above. Check out this page, too, for more observations on grading.

One last thing: if you got a grade lower than you would like in my class, it doesn’t mean getting the grade you want is impossible with me. A number of students who have gotten Cs, Bs, or even A0s with me have gone on to get A+ in a later class, when they are more used to my teaching methods and ready to work at it. So please don’t give up! You can do it, and I am eager to work with you.

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas (I was grading!) and a marvellous New Year’s! Good luck, and hopefully I’ll see you next semester.

Videos

I’ll add download links for the other videos soon, but here’s the video that was on Youtube, for now…

Assignments and So On…

Folks! Many apologies for not having had a chance to post this till today! Life has been HECTIC!

Okay here are your assignments and due dates:

1. Pardon Me?

(This is the make-up assignment  for the 휴강 on Monday, Nov. 16 because of my conference. I decided to let you choose partners in the class, in case some people don’t show up — it will be fairer for people who might otherwise be stuck without a partner)

Students will meet at our normal classtime, ie. at 2pm in the classroom, bringing along a video cameraor other device capable of recording video. Students will choose one partner. (Student MUST work with only one partner. The only exception is one group of three students is possible IF it is the only group of 3.)

Students will go out into Yeokgok (or, if you live in Yeokgok, another nearby neighborhood) and interact with everyday Koreans (say, in barber shops, shoe shops, or restaurants) without speaking in Korean, or showing that they understand Korean. Rather, students must rely only on their English communication skills.

In other words, students will use English to communicate with whomever they need to in order to get things done. (Getting a haircut, ordering lunch, trying on some new shoes, etc.) Both partners will speak only in English.

Students will accumulate 15 minutes of themselves interacting with Yeokgok (or other) people in English. Both partners will burn their 15 minutes of footage onto a CD-ROM and hand it in by Wednesday, Nov. 18th. (Don’t bother doing fancy production or effects… just give me the 15 minutes of footage.)

NOTE: The point of this exercise is not to stop foreigners on the street and talk with them. The point is to use English to speak and interact with average Korean people who probably speak a little bit of English but not much.

2. MISSION #2: BLIND DATE

This is the student-created homework mission #2. It involves making a blind date with non-Koreans, specifically with international students studying at CUK (or, if you like, students at another university).

You Must:

You Must Not:

Purposes of this Assignment:

Due Date:

Submit the burned CDs with your interviews/partner-conversations to me in class on Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2009.

#3. The Video Remakes:

I will be uploading the videos today. Please download them and we will discuss them in class (and vote for the best videos) on Monday, Nov. 23rd.

Have a great weekend!

News & Homework!

Hi everyone,

The videos will be available soon, but technical problems are holding up the progress. One group’s video was TOO HUGE to upload, and the other wasn’t on the DVD they gave me.

In the meantime, here is your new homework assignment. You have a week (from today, Oct. 28th) to complete it. So this interview is due on Nov.4th.

Interview a Non-Korean.

In this task, your job is to interview a non-Korean.Your interview can be personal, about issues, about their home country, or about anything else, as long as it does not violate the rules below:

YOU MUST:

  1. You will interview a non-Korean. For this assignment, non-Korean means anyone who is not of Korean heritage. That means that foreign-born Koreans don’t count. (This is not a permanent definition, just the definition for this assignment.)
  2. Do the project alone. You can bring a partner if you like, but each person will perform his or her own interview with a different individual.
  3. Speak only in English during the interview.
  4. Prepare questions on several subjects (ie. 5-6 topics) and let the interviewee choose which one he or she would like to discuss with you.
  5. For each topic you prepare, you must get some information BEFORE visiting the person and getting the interview. If you are interviewing someone from Bangladesh, you should know at least a little about Bangladesh.
  6. You should audio-record the interview.Keep a copy of the recording, in case your professor asks for it at a later time.
  7. You must perform the interview OUTSIDE of campus, with someone who is NOT a university employee.
  8. Make the interview interesting and fun for yourself and the interviewee.
  9. Transcribe the interview in the interview format (ie. using the name of each person speaking, followed by what they said, as used in Interview Magazine) and submit it on the due date.

YOU MUST NOT:

  1. Don’t speak Korean among your group members during the interview.
  2. Don’t ask rude or impolite question, such as personal questions or culturally inappropriate questions. Use the cultural norms of English-language conversation when deciding what is culturally inappropriate.

Self-Evaluation for Midterm

Hi there!

Here’s an example of the self-evaluation paper I expect you to hand in on Monday, October 19th. The example is ridiculous, but the (scary) student touches on all the important points:

  1. what he is learning
  2. what he is doing well
  3. what he is not doing well, or in other words, what he can improve
  4. his plan for improvement and for study during the rest of semester — in class and outside class alike!
  5. the grade he thinks he has earned (so far)

I’ve made it silly for your enjoyment, but it’s actually a pretty good example of a self-evaluation paper… though of course yours will not be so crazy, you should also touch on the five points above.

Okay, here is the example paper:

Listening & Speaking Midterm Self-Evaluation Paper (PDF)