Failing students who are close to passing?

[Orodruin]

Thats why we have grades!

This is just uninformed. The main value of the degree comes from the passing requirements.

 

[itallcomestoenergy]

I strongly disagree, this is a dangerous thing to do and I would argue that a good teacher will not do this. When a student takes an exam, the teacher should not have to read between the lines to interpret the student's solutions. This risks introducing a bias in favour of passing students that actually did not understand. I make it very clear to my students that they should explain their reasoning in their solutions because there is no other way that I can unambiguously determine that they have actually understood.

The exam is a test of the student's knowledge and it is up to the student to unambiguously show that this knowledge is sufficient for a passing grade.

A good teacher also knows about psychology. And remember; I've been nothing more than a high school teacher giving drive for further education. If you want to talk about curriculum and sound, I am more than willing to do that. Is the exam for example math based, with fixed answers, or is the exam a project based situation. In my subjects there are 'many ways to Rome'.

 

[itallcomestoenergy]

This is just uninformed. The main value of the degree comes from the passing requirements.

Again; project based vs fixed answers.

 

[vela]

It depends on the subject and years of schooling

I have no idea what this is supposed to mean. It's so vague it's meaningless.

 

[itallcomestoenergy]

I have no idea what this is supposed to mean. It's so vague it's meaningless.

How old is the student? What kind of subject? Whats the students further education plan? Approach to the exam?

As I mentioned in this thread; fixed based answers are easy to put grades on. Easy math/% of correct answers

 

[itallcomestoenergy]

I have no idea what this is supposed to mean. It's so vague it's meaningless.

Isnt this a fourm? Let people talk before you, as a education adviser, share meaningless interruptions. If you want to know what I mean, ask a question and not a statement

 

[vela]

Unless it is absolutely straightforward that what comes next requires a level of mastery of the prior, I think there is in many cases an argument for leniency.

Your point raises the question of whether this sort of structural problem with the curriculum should be addressed by individual instructors when assigning grades. I think this topic would have to be spun off into a separate thread.

 

[vela]

How old is the student? What kind of subject? Whats the students further education plan? Approach to the exam?

As I mentioned in this thread; fixed based answers are easy to put grades on. Easy math/% of correct answers

I think most of us here are assuming that the class is designed with assessment methods that are appropriate for the students' age and for the subject. The question is, are you going to ignore what these assessments tell you and pass the student who didn't meet the requirements of the course, requirements that you set?

If your argument is that the assessments leave significant wiggle room, then you're just sidestepping the point of the original post. If there's enough wiggle room, the student arguably passed passed the course, and there's really no issue here.

 

[symbolipoint]

It's very quite easy to fail students who has an F. But,however how do teachers deal with students who are close to passing? What if the student has a 67% as their grade? Do you bump their grade to a 70% or you let them make up work?

Which way depends on some things. Is course prerequisite for something else? If so what, and how does course relate? Is course grading done on a strict competence pre-assigned grading scale? If so, then not much room for bending a grade one way or the other. Teacher or professor needs to decide if some leniency is tolerable or not. There are sometimes other ways to give certain kinds of students more chances - depends on the conditions there.