Grading and Late Policy

in Policies
Policy

Your grade will depend on all aspects of class.

Canvas will not show your final grade. It will not even estimate it.

Grading in this class is challenging. The quality of a project/assignment may depend on factors beyond class topics (e.g., a student’s implementation skills), and project evaluation can be quite subjective. We do not want to assess your artistic skill or your programming abilities (from before the class).

As such, this class is designed to have a large number of small activities which, if you really do them and take them seriously, will lead to you meeting the learning objectives for the class. See the Parts of Class. If you actively participate consistently, I believe you will learn the lessons.

Therefore, grading emphasizes the consistent completion of small things, with less emphasis on the quality of a small number of design exercises or projects.

A way to think about class: I am convinced enough in the design of the class that if you complete all of the pieces of the class (and take them seriously), you will have learned the lessons, and deserve a decent grade (AB).

OK, How will we make up grades at the end…

Most parts of the class are not graded (just check/no-check).

You will receive a letter grade for the Design Exercises. And even many of those will be “ungraded” (check/no check). The grading policy will be explained on each one. Failure to complete an ungraded exercise will be deducted from another assignment. For example exercises 5,6 and 7 might form a group. You’ll receive a grade for exercise 7; we’ll take a deduction if you fail to turn in 5 and 6. The grade is for the exercise “group” - since it’s 3 weeks, it will be worth about 3/14 of your Design Exercises grade. (there are 14 weeks)

For everything else, we will grade it check-no check. We simply don’t have the resources to examine everything carefully, and it is too hard to score everything consistently (it’s very subjective). So, for the “everything else” we’ll basically trust that you did a good job and give you an AB. Then we’ll adjust this based on the penalties and kudos you get from our semi-random sampling.

We may deduct from your final grade if:

  • You miss too many classes
  • You miss too many in-class exercises
  • You do not provide acceptable and timely initial postings to the online discussions (weekly and seek and find)
  • You do not participate in discussions
  • You miss too many surveys (both content and class surveys)

There is no pre-defined notion of “too many” to miss. If you miss one or two of something (for example, missing 1-2 seek and finds or surveys) it’s probably OK. Missing 3 of any one thing, or 2 of multiple things starts to be a problem.

Similarly, we may give you “kudos” if:

  • You write a particularly good discussion posting
  • You make a particularly good contribution to a discussion
  • You provide a particularly insightful answer on a non-anonymous survey
  • You go above and beyond for an ungraded exercise (in class or online)
  • You are consistently active in discussions (looking over the entire semester)

For attendance and in-class exercises, our “score keeping” is imperfect sampling and the honor system.

For turned in assignments, Canvas will keep track of if and when you turn things in. Some automated (but not always automatic) process will give you “full credit.” A course staff member may look at it. If they do, they might mark it as unacceptable (no-check - which is different than not turned in). They might decide that it is particularly good and worthy of a kudo. But, even if your work is totally awesome, there is a chance that it won’t be rewarded for the grade - we won’t try to evaluate everything. But the process should be fair since it is subject to the same random sampling.

You should try to do consistently great work. Not because we’ll be evaluating each bit, but because that’s how you will best learn. Your discussions will help you and your classmates.

At the end of the semester, we’ll count up how many kudos (and penalties) students got. We’ll also scan over discussion traces in bulk to look for consistency.

Details such as where we are going to record things, and how we will provide feedback, will evolve.

How much is “enough” discussion?

Engaging in online discussion (mainly through the weekly discussions and seek and finds) is an important component of learning in class. Conversation should cause you to think about the topics and learn.

Measuring discussion is hard. Quantity - number and/or length - of posts is neither necessary nor sufficient. A lot of “I agree” posts, or a long response that adds little to a conversation, may not be as valuable as a concise message that provides an interesting counterpoint to another student’s thought.

There is also variance over time. Some assignments lead to more meaningful discussions than others. Some groups are chattier than others (this is why we tend to rotate the groups periodically).

So how much is enough? Zero is clearly unacceptable. I would say an average of 4-5 “substantive responses” per week (not counting the 2 initial postings - substantive meaning more than something brief like “I agree” or “good job”) is probably the minimum to show that you are truly engaged.

We might try some peer assessment for discussion evaluation as well.

Late Policy

Most assignments have strict deadlines. The pace of the class is such that if you miss something, you are almost certainly better off focusing your energy on the next thing (so you don’t fall farther behind).

Many of the assignments have strict deadlines because of dependencies. Your discussion postings must be made on time such that your classmates can respond; your designs must be submitted on time so that others can review them; etc.

If a deadline is strict, you may not turn things in if you miss it.

Unless noted, deadlines are on a given day, Madison time. Monday means Monday. 12:01AM Tuesday is not Monday.

Class policy is to enforce the late policies uniformly. It would be unfair to grant exceptions to some students who ask as that penalizes the students who followed the rules.

You may not turn in assignments by email. If you miss a deadline, you’ve missed the deadline.

Specific policies:

  • Seek and Find and Online Discussions: your initial postings are due on the due date (Friday for S&F, Wednesday for Discussions). The discussions remain open for a week so you can discuss with your group. Late initial postings will be penalized.

  • Surveys are due on Monday, with a Tuesday cutoff. There is no penalty for being late. (You might view this as a hard deadline on Tuesday)

  • Design Exercises are due on Friday, each will specify its own late policy.