Dropping Lowest Test Grade

[Aster]

In some classes I let the student substitute the final exam grade for the weakest unit grade, if the final is higher. This seems to work better for encouraging students not to simply write a unit off. But I've also been moving away from as many unit exams in favor of other requirements that are easier for me to grade given my teaching load.

My Dad did this with some of his courses. It seemed to me to be a lot of unnecessary work to manage, particularly with large classes. But now that I think about it, my Dad probably programmed in a database macro that automated this. That would be the way to go, particularly to prevent grade swap errors.

[marshwiggle]

In some classes I let the student substitute the final exam grade for the weakest unit grade, if the final is higher. This seems to work better for encouraging students not to simply write a unit off. But I've also been moving away from as many unit exams in favor of other requirements that are easier for me to grade given my teaching load.

My Dad did this with some of his courses. It seemed to me to be a lot of unnecessary work to manage, particularly with large classes. But now that I think about it, my Dad probably programmed in a database macro that automated this. That would be the way to go, particularly to prevent grade swap errors.

My first year physics prof had a program to do this......
in the '70's....
with punched cards

[kiana]

In some classes I let the student substitute the final exam grade for the weakest unit grade, if the final is higher. This seems to work better for encouraging students not to simply write a unit off. But I've also been moving away from as many unit exams in favor of other requirements that are easier for me to grade given my teaching load.

My Dad did this with some of his courses. It seemed to me to be a lot of unnecessary work to manage, particularly with large classes. But now that I think about it, my Dad probably programmed in a database macro that automated this. That would be the way to go, particularly to prevent grade swap errors.

Canvas does this automatically for me. I put a dummy exam in the "tests" category, enter the final exam grade there, and tell it to drop the lowest in the "tests" category.

[the_geneticist]

I think it's a bad idea IF:
the exams count for a majority of the course grade
you have a small number of exams
each exam counts towards a large portion (20% or more) of the total grade
each exam covers very different concepts so skipping means you have a large gap in knowledge
the policy isn't clear or uniform

If you class has 2 midterms & 1 final that count for 80% of your grade (20%, 20%, 40%), you are essentially excusing someone from 1/5 of your course.  In that case, I think it's better practice to give a make up exam.  Or have other assessments (quizzes, worksheets, presentations, etc) so the student has other ways to demonstrate their learning and each exam isn't such a huge portion of the course grade.

[polly_mer]

As Aster wrote, the course must be carefully planned to make dropping the lowest exam be a good idea.  The question, as always, is what pedagogical purpose are you trying to achieve with the course design? 

...
  A colleague suggested using a group rewrite of the test so that people learn the material as they earn back some points

...

A different course worked pretty well to have the first exam really early as the wake-up call

...

A third course worked pretty well to have the final exam be very heavily weighted as cumulative and having the exams during the term be less heavily weighted.


....

All* of these (and various other approaches) implicitly assume that students need some room to adapt as the term goes on, and that a good ending is better than uniform performance during the course.

Does anyone feel that isn't a good idea, (i.e. students should start as strong as they end), and if so, why?


(Even things like having the first test early as a wake up call still uses the timing to give students more of a chance to adapt.)

I have nearly always taught very cumulative classes that are part of building a coherent body of practice for each student.  Even science for teachers was integrated into the K-8 education program as a stepping stone that wasn't standalone and should not be taken out of sequence with the rest of the curriculum.  Thus, an underlying premise is students will start as proficient in the prerequisites and get better at this material as they go. 

The system fails when people are passed on to the next course without having adequate mastery of the prerequisites.  That's why I'm accustomed to the requirement of a C or better to pass, having to retake the course for the first F, and having to file an appeal to retake a D to continue in the program.  I'm accustomed to a weeding procedure to ensure that students are making adequate progress or being bumped from the program (second F in the same course, D without mitigating circumstances like serious illness or other temporary life disruption).

However, I have taken classes and reviewed syllabi in which each unit is essentially standalone in content, even though some of the skills are supposed to build across the term and indeed the whole college career.  Literature courses are a common example.  In that case, while one might expect discussion contributions, writing organization, and possibly even writing mechanics to improve over the course of the term, being factually knowledgable about Theme 1 is probably uncorrelated with being factually knowledgeable about Theme 4 for the content/application exams at the end of each theme unit.

I have also sighed heavily when it turned out that curriculum was poorly planned so that students started very proficient at a given course and gained almost nothing along the way.  When I was involved with assessment at Super Dinky, it turned out we had several Gen Ed courses in which the intro-to-the-course-what-do-you-know-quiz score pretty much indicated the final grade.  People who already knew a good 90% of the material passed the course with flying colors.  People who were under 50% on that first quiz never caught up.  A few majors (criminal justice immediately comes to mind) similarly had several courses in which people who were pretty good going in finished strong while those who truly needed to learn the material tended to not be proficient at the end of the term.

I administered the Force Concepts Inventory at the beginning and end of my Physics 101 course every year.  It was not surprising who grew the most during the semester based on classroom performance.  It was sometimes surprising how very weak some of the students started, even those who had high school physics or started their college careers as engineers and then finished as biology seniors taking Physics 101.