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Sad thing is that people will see this as:
"YET another example of the entitlement generation, durr hurrrr"
Just giving a 0 does nothing for the education process and overall just demotivates a student further.I have read a few studies regarding that.Just another sensationalist article that is trying to get hits based on the need of people to lecture and look down on other people.Hell lets even forget about the merits(or non merits) of giving out a 0 for a moment and lets think of this this way:
Imagine if the article was called:"employee breaks employers policy, gets fired"
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I don't understand the issue with giving a zero for an incomplete assignment. The grade reflects how accurate/correct the given assignment is and if there's nothing correct or no information at all then a zero seems appropriate.
The argument that a zero de motivates students is so silly, were talking about high school physics here not grade school with recess. In Alberta, physics 30 is completed by less than 20% of the graduating students. Obviously nobody is taking his class for the fun of it, they chose to be there so motivation is irrelevant, inflating their marks does them absolutely no good because you either know the material or you dont. As a BOSc in Physics at the UofC, i finished physics in highschool with a 92 and i found that there exists a large gap between high school physics and uni physics.
I'm actually quite surprised by this whole thing, it took me a few minutes to realize that this is in my home province, which has been rated as having the some of the most difficult high school math classes across north america in the past few years.
I think if you expect kids to do well in the real world then you have to be willing to tell them the blunt truth, and covering it up is only a delay for their inevitable failure.
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On June 05 2012 15:49 windsupernova wrote:
Sad thing is that people will see this as:
"YET another example of the entitlement generation, durr hurrrr"
Just giving a 0 does nothing for the education process and overall just demotivates a student further.I have read a few studies regarding that.Just another sensationalist article that is trying to get hits based on the need of people to lecture and look down on other people.Hell lets even forget about the merits(or non merits) of giving out a 0 for a moment and lets think of this this way:
Imagine if the article was called:"employee breaks employers policy, gets fired"
I don't think many people are arguing that he should be fired. It's because that he's been teaching for 30+ years and has the pension because of it, that he is willing to go through with this. He has stated that he expects to be fired. However, he is doing this to raise the overall point of zeros.
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That was a pretty normal thing to do in my school. There was no question that a failure to turn in work would mean a failed grade unless you somehow made up for it which was to the teacher's discretion.
However, there might be more behind this. He might have done something else and this is just a pretense.
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The fact that alternatives were offered to students and not taken means that the students who at the end still had zeros deserved what they got.
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On June 05 2012 15:02 Xapti wrote:Show nested quote +On June 05 2012 14:50 FabledIntegral wrote:
Most jobs in the world value your degree because it shows your work ethic, not what you learned. Of course, there are exceptions, such as engineering, people going into premed, etc. but the vast majority of fields don't care about anything, or possibly just a very basic understanding. Good marks show good work ethic, generally speaking. Or it's the best indicator they can get. News to me. I'm not saying they don't care about the degree, but moreso that it's due to hard work, or their mark. Do you have a good source of information to confirm this?Most employers I know care about official education (for knowledge purposes) and experience, usually the experience part and even throw away official education (but obviously you can't get experience without some starter jobs which do look at official education and/or experience) I know lots of schools that don't grade much on attendance, you think they'd be good workers since they do their homework (assuming they did), or no? What about attitude? Usually those two things attendance and attitude get put into like 5-10% of a grade (if at all, I suppose). Do you think that doesn't matter? I would assert that it's not the school's job to grade those things much, because the school is for teaching, not for grading someone for workforce competency. Most people I know who deal with employers, including college teachers and students have told me that employers don't care too much about grades, this seems to be in contradiction with what you're saying.
Well, nearly every economics textbook that goes into signaling (as well as class that teaches signaling) uses grades as the primary example. How many times have you heard that you only use 10% at most of what you learn in college at your job? That's because the purpose is to show work ethic - it's a signal on how hard you try to achieve those grades. Someone who gets mostly A's, all else equal, tried harder than someone who got a B. While far from a perfect method, when an employer doesn't really have anything to base your work ethic on, it's the best available source of information to them. In classes, at least, it's taught that that IS the primary purpose of school - a signal to your employers, not necessarily to learn.
Also, maybe it's like that in Canada, but I'd say over 80% of the jobs (and nearly 100% of good jobs) require at least a decent GPA. If you go on the UCI (my school) job website, there isn't a single job that pays over 50k per year that doesn't have a minimum GPA requirement, I believe. I have never heard from a single employer that doesn't care about grades that I have interviewed with, every single one put a fairly heavy emphasis on them. Multiple jobs interviews I attended had minimum GPAs of 3.5 only, and some were only paying ~$45,000, etc. Grades are huge.
http://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/index.php/Kellogg/article/the_surprising_importance_of_grades
http://epa.sagepub.com/content/20/4/299.abstract
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Aren't you supposed to get zeros for not turning in assignments... He even lets them make it up for crying out loud
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On June 06 2012 01:40 FabledIntegral wrote:Show nested quote +On June 05 2012 15:02 Xapti wrote:On June 05 2012 14:50 FabledIntegral wrote:
Most jobs in the world value your degree because it shows your work ethic, not what you learned. Of course, there are exceptions, such as engineering, people going into premed, etc. but the vast majority of fields don't care about anything, or possibly just a very basic understanding. Good marks show good work ethic, generally speaking. Or it's the best indicator they can get. News to me. I'm not saying they don't care about the degree, but moreso that it's due to hard work, or their mark. Do you have a good source of information to confirm this?Most employers I know care about official education (for knowledge purposes) and experience, usually the experience part and even throw away official education (but obviously you can't get experience without some starter jobs which do look at official education and/or experience) I know lots of schools that don't grade much on attendance, you think they'd be good workers since they do their homework (assuming they did), or no? What about attitude? Usually those two things attendance and attitude get put into like 5-10% of a grade (if at all, I suppose). Do you think that doesn't matter? I would assert that it's not the school's job to grade those things much, because the school is for teaching, not for grading someone for workforce competency. Most people I know who deal with employers, including college teachers and students have told me that employers don't care too much about grades, this seems to be in contradiction with what you're saying. Well, nearly every economics textbook that goes into signaling (as well as class that teaches signaling) uses grades as the primary example. How many times have you heard that you only use 10% at most of what you learn in college at your job? That's because the purpose is to show work ethic - it's a signal on how hard you try to achieve those grades. Someone who gets mostly A's, all else equal, tried harder than someone who got a B. While far from a perfect method, when an employer doesn't really have anything to base your work ethic on, it's the best available source of information to them. In classes, at least, it's taught that that IS the primary purpose of school - a signal to your employers, not necessarily to learn. Also, maybe it's like that in Canada, but I'd say over 80% of the jobs (and nearly 100% of good jobs) require at least a decent GPA. If you go on the UCI (my school) job website, there isn't a single job that pays over 50k per year that doesn't have a minimum GPA requirement, I believe. I have never heard from a single employer that doesn't care about grades that I have interviewed with, every single one put a fairly heavy emphasis on them. Multiple jobs interviews I attended had minimum GPAs of 3.5 only, and some were only paying ~$45,000, etc. Grades are huge. http://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/index.php/Kellogg/article/the_surprising_importance_of_gradeshttp://epa.sagepub.com/content/20/4/299.abstract
I'll put in my perspective about interviews. What information does your future employer have about you? Four things: grades, resume, recommendation letters and your interview performance. In no shape or form can the interview reliably conclude that you'll be a hard worker producing results instead of being a deadweight, many things (like your interview personality) can be faked. Thus, your grades become a proxy for your future performance. If you have good grades, there is a higher chance that you're hardworking and capable. If you have abysmal grades, then you're either lazy or stupid, which reduces your chances of getting that job.
Note that I'm talking about good grades here, not passing marks. Just "passing" is somewhat fine if there's no reason to excel, although I'll argue that the system is flawed. However, if you want to enter the best universities and get the best jobs, you need stellar grades. If you don't work hard for it, then you'll most likely be relegated to a shitty job with long hours and poor pay. Obviously exceptions exist, but on average your education level/grades have a huge influence on your future career.
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On June 05 2012 15:49 windsupernova wrote:
Sad thing is that people will see this as:
"YET another example of the entitlement generation, durr hurrrr"
Just giving a 0 does nothing for the education process and overall just demotivates a student further.I have read a few studies regarding that.Just another sensationalist article that is trying to get hits based on the need of people to lecture and look down on other people.Hell lets even forget about the merits(or non merits) of giving out a 0 for a moment and lets think of this this way:
Imagine if the article was called:"employee breaks employers policy, gets fired"
Not penalizing them for failing completely to do the work is just as bad if not worse. It basically sets a standard of "you can just choose not to do this" and you will still only affect your overall slightly. The no 0 policy is just an unbelievably stupid policy and I cannot imagine how anyone could argue for it.
Some very simple math for you all to understand how much this policy encourages apathy.
Lets assume for a moment that you get 4 grades per semester that get averaged out to your final grade (yes I know you get more, I am trying to keep this somewhat simple.)
Example 1 without zero policy)
Student turns in a 100, 75, 85 and fails to turn on assignment in completely resulting in a 0
Average - 65
Because that student only had average scores and failed completely to do 25% of it, they fail that semester. Anytime you fail to do 25% of your total job, you should fail.
Example 2 with zero policy)
Student turns in a 100, 75, 85 and 60 as that is the minimum score.
Average - 80
Now even though that student completely failed to learn 25% of their required material, they still somehow get a B for the semester. Sorry all, that is flatly unacceptable. What allowing zeros does is it Does teach them the value of responsibility.
Now clearly a single 0 among all the grades you get isn't going to make much of a dent. However get a few of them and it starts to become harder to overcome. By raising that number to a guaranteed 60 that significantly reduces the effort a student who is just scraping by has to do to achieve that. We need to be encouraging Excellence, not laziness.
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On June 06 2012 03:40 Dekoth wrote:Show nested quote +On June 05 2012 15:49 windsupernova wrote:
Sad thing is that people will see this as:
"YET another example of the entitlement generation, durr hurrrr"
Just giving a 0 does nothing for the education process and overall just demotivates a student further.I have read a few studies regarding that.Just another sensationalist article that is trying to get hits based on the need of people to lecture and look down on other people.Hell lets even forget about the merits(or non merits) of giving out a 0 for a moment and lets think of this this way:
Imagine if the article was called:"employee breaks employers policy, gets fired"
Not penalizing them for failing completely to do the work is just as bad if not worse. It basically sets a standard of "you can just choose not to do this" and you will still only affect your overall slightly. The no 0 policy is just an unbelievably stupid policy and I cannot imagine how anyone could argue for it. Some very simple math for you all to understand how much this policy encourages apathy. Lets assume for a moment that you get 4 grades per semester that get averaged out to your final grade (yes I know you get more, I am trying to keep this somewhat simple.) Example 1 without zero policy) Student turns in a 100, 75, 85 and fails to turn on assignment in completely resulting in a 0 Average - 65 Because that student only had average scores and failed completely to do 25% of it, they fail that semester. Anytime you fail to do 25% of your total job, you should fail. Example 2 with zero policy) Student turns in a 100, 75, 85 and 60 as that is the minimum score. Average - 80 Now even though that student completely failed to learn 25% of their required material, they still somehow get a B for the semester. Sorry all, that is flatly unacceptable. What allowing zeros does is it Does teach them the value of responsibility. Now clearly a single 0 among all the grades you get isn't going to make much of a dent. However get a few of them and it starts to become harder to overcome. By raising that number to a guaranteed 60 that significantly reduces the effort a student who is just scraping by has to do to achieve that. We need to be encouraging Excellence, not laziness.
It's not 60%, but even dumber. If I read the article correctly, they replaced it with "unfinished", or a blank spot. But the concept is dumb nonetheless. If I hate a certain subtopic, I can just skip it instead of failing it, which instead boosts my average scores? Sounds like a good exploit.
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Pretty sure I got 0's too when didn't hand it HW.
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Instead of giving Incompletes, you should give them 100's. Win-Win.
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On June 06 2012 03:40 Dekoth wrote:Show nested quote +On June 05 2012 15:49 windsupernova wrote:
Sad thing is that people will see this as:
"YET another example of the entitlement generation, durr hurrrr"
Just giving a 0 does nothing for the education process and overall just demotivates a student further.I have read a few studies regarding that.Just another sensationalist article that is trying to get hits based on the need of people to lecture and look down on other people.Hell lets even forget about the merits(or non merits) of giving out a 0 for a moment and lets think of this this way:
Imagine if the article was called:"employee breaks employers policy, gets fired"
Not penalizing them for failing completely to do the work is just as bad if not worse. It basically sets a standard of "you can just choose not to do this" and you will still only affect your overall slightly. The no 0 policy is just an unbelievably stupid policy and I cannot imagine how anyone could argue for it. Some very simple math for you all to understand how much this policy encourages apathy. Lets assume for a moment that you get 4 grades per semester that get averaged out to your final grade (yes I know you get more, I am trying to keep this somewhat simple.) Example 1 without zero policy) Student turns in a 100, 75, 85 and fails to turn on assignment in completely resulting in a 0 Average - 65 Because that student only had average scores and failed completely to do 25% of it, they fail that semester. Anytime you fail to do 25% of your total job, you should fail. Example 2 with zero policy) Student turns in a 100, 75, 85 and 60 as that is the minimum score. Average - 80 Now even though that student completely failed to learn 25% of their required material, they still somehow get a B for the semester. Sorry all, that is flatly unacceptable. What allowing zeros does is it Does teach them the value of responsibility. Now clearly a single 0 among all the grades you get isn't going to make much of a dent. However get a few of them and it starts to become harder to overcome. By raising that number to a guaranteed 60 that significantly reduces the effort a student who is just scraping by has to do to achieve that. We need to be encouraging Excellence, not laziness.
Grades aren't infallible indications of what a student has or has not learned. That must be considered.
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Come on western civilization.....we gotta do better. Fuck.
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On June 06 2012 04:44 Gnosis wrote:Show nested quote +On June 06 2012 03:40 Dekoth wrote:On June 05 2012 15:49 windsupernova wrote:
Sad thing is that people will see this as:
"YET another example of the entitlement generation, durr hurrrr"
Just giving a 0 does nothing for the education process and overall just demotivates a student further.I have read a few studies regarding that.Just another sensationalist article that is trying to get hits based on the need of people to lecture and look down on other people.Hell lets even forget about the merits(or non merits) of giving out a 0 for a moment and lets think of this this way:
Imagine if the article was called:"employee breaks employers policy, gets fired"
Not penalizing them for failing completely to do the work is just as bad if not worse. It basically sets a standard of "you can just choose not to do this" and you will still only affect your overall slightly. The no 0 policy is just an unbelievably stupid policy and I cannot imagine how anyone could argue for it. Some very simple math for you all to understand how much this policy encourages apathy. Lets assume for a moment that you get 4 grades per semester that get averaged out to your final grade (yes I know you get more, I am trying to keep this somewhat simple.) Example 1 without zero policy) Student turns in a 100, 75, 85 and fails to turn on assignment in completely resulting in a 0 Average - 65 Because that student only had average scores and failed completely to do 25% of it, they fail that semester. Anytime you fail to do 25% of your total job, you should fail. Example 2 with zero policy) Student turns in a 100, 75, 85 and 60 as that is the minimum score. Average - 80 Now even though that student completely failed to learn 25% of their required material, they still somehow get a B for the semester. Sorry all, that is flatly unacceptable. What allowing zeros does is it Does teach them the value of responsibility. Now clearly a single 0 among all the grades you get isn't going to make much of a dent. However get a few of them and it starts to become harder to overcome. By raising that number to a guaranteed 60 that significantly reduces the effort a student who is just scraping by has to do to achieve that. We need to be encouraging Excellence, not laziness. Grades aren't infallible indications of what a student has or has not learned. That must be considered.
Do you have an infallible solution that can be widely implemented without spending billions, or trillions of dollars?
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On June 06 2012 04:44 Gnosis wrote:Show nested quote +On June 06 2012 03:40 Dekoth wrote:On June 05 2012 15:49 windsupernova wrote:
Sad thing is that people will see this as:
"YET another example of the entitlement generation, durr hurrrr"
Just giving a 0 does nothing for the education process and overall just demotivates a student further.I have read a few studies regarding that.Just another sensationalist article that is trying to get hits based on the need of people to lecture and look down on other people.Hell lets even forget about the merits(or non merits) of giving out a 0 for a moment and lets think of this this way:
Imagine if the article was called:"employee breaks employers policy, gets fired"
Not penalizing them for failing completely to do the work is just as bad if not worse. It basically sets a standard of "you can just choose not to do this" and you will still only affect your overall slightly. The no 0 policy is just an unbelievably stupid policy and I cannot imagine how anyone could argue for it. Some very simple math for you all to understand how much this policy encourages apathy. Lets assume for a moment that you get 4 grades per semester that get averaged out to your final grade (yes I know you get more, I am trying to keep this somewhat simple.) Example 1 without zero policy) Student turns in a 100, 75, 85 and fails to turn on assignment in completely resulting in a 0 Average - 65 Because that student only had average scores and failed completely to do 25% of it, they fail that semester. Anytime you fail to do 25% of your total job, you should fail. Example 2 with zero policy) Student turns in a 100, 75, 85 and 60 as that is the minimum score. Average - 80 Now even though that student completely failed to learn 25% of their required material, they still somehow get a B for the semester. Sorry all, that is flatly unacceptable. What allowing zeros does is it Does teach them the value of responsibility. Now clearly a single 0 among all the grades you get isn't going to make much of a dent. However get a few of them and it starts to become harder to overcome. By raising that number to a guaranteed 60 that significantly reduces the effort a student who is just scraping by has to do to achieve that. We need to be encouraging Excellence, not laziness. Grades aren't infallible indications of what a student has or has not learned. That must be considered.
If you have a better solution that doesn't encourage kids to do as little as possible then by all means I am all ears. Otherwise if you have nothing of value to add, please refrain from uninformed statements like that.
As to the person on the 60% bit, I don't know what Canada specifically does but either way it impacts the average. After some research I found out a school here in Georgia does this and the lowest is a 60%, so those were the numbers I used. I have to assume the Canadian system is doing something to the effect of just eliminating the grade from the average calculation completely, which really screws up the numbers and basically makes it work the same as above. Now if they are counting an "incomplete" as part of the average, then that in turn forces it to be a zero. However if they were doing that we wouldn't all be up in arms about this.
No, the current grading system isn't perfect. However right now it is the best system available and not penalizing students for flatly not doing work is not an acceptable option. We got zero's in school and good teachers allowed extra credit and makeup work to help offset those. The system worked just fine as it was. I am sick and tired of this "everyone is a winner" politically correct bullshit. Our students progressively perform worse, our academic system is a joke, our teachers are beyond frustrated and yet they keep trying to make it easier.
It really is a black and white issue. You do the work and you get the appropriate credit for it. If you don't then you don't. If you don't like doing the work and think you are smarter than everyone else that is fine. I know lots of people who were smarter than everyone else and they serve me lunch regularly.
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Canada1884 Posts
On June 06 2012 01:40 FabledIntegral wrote:Show nested quote +On June 05 2012 15:02 Xapti wrote:On June 05 2012 14:50 FabledIntegral wrote:
Most jobs in the world value your degree because it shows your work ethic, not what you learned. Of course, there are exceptions, such as engineering, people going into premed, etc. but the vast majority of fields don't care about anything, or possibly just a very basic understanding. Good marks show good work ethic, generally speaking. Or it's the best indicator they can get. News to me. I'm not saying they don't care about the degree, but moreso that it's due to hard work, or their mark. Do you have a good source of information to confirm this?Most employers I know care about official education (for knowledge purposes) and experience, usually the experience part and even throw away official education (but obviously you can't get experience without some starter jobs which do look at official education and/or experience) I know lots of schools that don't grade much on attendance, you think they'd be good workers since they do their homework (assuming they did), or no? What about attitude? Usually those two things attendance and attitude get put into like 5-10% of a grade (if at all, I suppose). Do you think that doesn't matter? I would assert that it's not the school's job to grade those things much, because the school is for teaching, not for grading someone for workforce competency. Most people I know who deal with employers, including college teachers and students have told me that employers don't care too much about grades, this seems to be in contradiction with what you're saying. Well, nearly every economics textbook that goes into signaling (as well as class that teaches signaling) uses grades as the primary example. How many times have you heard that you only use 10% at most of what you learn in college at your job? That's because the purpose is to show work ethic - it's a signal on how hard you try to achieve those grades. Someone who gets mostly A's, all else equal, tried harder than someone who got a B. While far from a perfect method, when an employer doesn't really have anything to base your work ethic on, it's the best available source of information to them. In classes, at least, it's taught that that IS the primary purpose of school - a signal to your employers, not necessarily to learn. Also, maybe it's like that in Canada, but I'd say over 80% of the jobs (and nearly 100% of good jobs) require at least a decent GPA. If you go on the UCI (my school) job website, there isn't a single job that pays over 50k per year that doesn't have a minimum GPA requirement, I believe. I have never heard from a single employer that doesn't care about grades that I have interviewed with, every single one put a fairly heavy emphasis on them. Multiple jobs interviews I attended had minimum GPAs of 3.5 only, and some were only paying ~$45,000, etc. Grades are huge. http://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/index.php/Kellogg/article/the_surprising_importance_of_gradeshttp://epa.sagepub.com/content/20/4/299.abstract
Grades don't matter at all in Canada. If you pass you pass, end of story.
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Russian Federation748 Posts
If you have a better solution that doesn't encourage kids to do as little as possible then by all means I am all ears.
What he just said. The right system is one with grades that actually reflect the student's level. I don't see how to make that clearer.
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On June 06 2012 05:53 killa_robot wrote:Show nested quote +On June 06 2012 01:40 FabledIntegral wrote:On June 05 2012 15:02 Xapti wrote:On June 05 2012 14:50 FabledIntegral wrote:
Most jobs in the world value your degree because it shows your work ethic, not what you learned. Of course, there are exceptions, such as engineering, people going into premed, etc. but the vast majority of fields don't care about anything, or possibly just a very basic understanding. Good marks show good work ethic, generally speaking. Or it's the best indicator they can get. News to me. I'm not saying they don't care about the degree, but moreso that it's due to hard work, or their mark. Do you have a good source of information to confirm this?Most employers I know care about official education (for knowledge purposes) and experience, usually the experience part and even throw away official education (but obviously you can't get experience without some starter jobs which do look at official education and/or experience) I know lots of schools that don't grade much on attendance, you think they'd be good workers since they do their homework (assuming they did), or no? What about attitude? Usually those two things attendance and attitude get put into like 5-10% of a grade (if at all, I suppose). Do you think that doesn't matter? I would assert that it's not the school's job to grade those things much, because the school is for teaching, not for grading someone for workforce competency. Most people I know who deal with employers, including college teachers and students have told me that employers don't care too much about grades, this seems to be in contradiction with what you're saying. Well, nearly every economics textbook that goes into signaling (as well as class that teaches signaling) uses grades as the primary example. How many times have you heard that you only use 10% at most of what you learn in college at your job? That's because the purpose is to show work ethic - it's a signal on how hard you try to achieve those grades. Someone who gets mostly A's, all else equal, tried harder than someone who got a B. While far from a perfect method, when an employer doesn't really have anything to base your work ethic on, it's the best available source of information to them. In classes, at least, it's taught that that IS the primary purpose of school - a signal to your employers, not necessarily to learn. Also, maybe it's like that in Canada, but I'd say over 80% of the jobs (and nearly 100% of good jobs) require at least a decent GPA. If you go on the UCI (my school) job website, there isn't a single job that pays over 50k per year that doesn't have a minimum GPA requirement, I believe. I have never heard from a single employer that doesn't care about grades that I have interviewed with, every single one put a fairly heavy emphasis on them. Multiple jobs interviews I attended had minimum GPAs of 3.5 only, and some were only paying ~$45,000, etc. Grades are huge. http://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/index.php/Kellogg/article/the_surprising_importance_of_gradeshttp://epa.sagepub.com/content/20/4/299.abstract Grades don't matter at all in Canada. If you pass you pass, end of story.
Oh, well it's completely different in the States. That sounds like a poor system to me.
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On June 06 2012 06:06 Kyrillion wrote:Show nested quote +If you have a better solution that doesn't encourage kids to do as little as possible then by all means I am all ears. What he just said. The right system is one with grades that actually reflect the student's level. I don't see how to make that clearer.
The students level of what? You are not acknowledging the hidden curriculum which is an important part of attending school...
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EPT
