Remember: this class is pass/fail.
But, it’s still a reasonable question to ask about grading. There are two different reasons:
- You want to make sure that you are passing (it would be bad to fail a pass/fail class).
- You want feedback so that you can make sure that you are learning stuff.
This posting is about #1: how we will make sure you’re passing. #2 (feedback) is another whole story. The short answer is, we’re experimenting with using peer discussion and practical assignments so you can assess yourself.
The short version of passing: if you do “most” of the assignments, and do at least a minimal job on most of them, and are not “usually very late”, you’ll pass. Other combinations are possible.
Maybe it’s easier to describe it the other way around: if you don’t turn in at least a minimal thing for 75% of the assignments, you might have a problem. If you don’t at least try to do more than the minimal on the assignments (turn in at least a few working programs, participate in at least some discussions), you might have a problem.
Of course, if you are only doing the minimum, you may have a different problem – doing more than the minimum really is a good way to learn this stuff. The bar for passing is really low.
Some details…
You might have noticed that so far, we haven’t “graded” any of the work in the class on Canvas. This will be changing in the coming week or so (there is a grader helping with the class). Once it’s graded, if you turned something in, you will not get a zero. After it’s graded, it’s too late to go back.
We will be keeping more detailed records than we can relay in canvas (which forces us to use a number for everything). For the reading discussions we will keep 3 scores:
- Ontime: 3 (yes), 2 (less than 1 week late), 1 (something turned in very late), 0 nothing
- Submitted: 3 (notable), 2 (acceptable), 1 (unacceptable), 0 nothing turned in
- More than 1 post: 3 (active contributor), 2 (discussion), 1 (made 1 post beyond), 0 nothing turned in
Note: the grader may not be able to reliably distinguish notable from acceptable assignments. So if you get a 2, consider it “at least a 2”. Since we’re not averaging, it won’t make a difference.
We’ll convert this to a Canvas number (we’ll keep ontime separate): 3 or 4 good (reasonable posting, some additional contribution), 2 barely accepable (posting, but no additional contribution), 1 unaccaptable (minimal posting), 0 = nothing.
We’ll have a similar scheme for the programs. For program 0, it’s “did you turn in a runnable program”. For the puzzles, we’ll look for did you turn in something to begin with, did you get a working program by the end, and were you helpful to others.
