Grade Inflation

[spork]

Inspired by a thread on the soon to be defunct CHE forums:

I'll admit that my undergraduate course grades no longer follow a normal distribution. They tend to be bimodal. I build my courses around a huge number of graded assignments and build in a buffer -- if students do enough assignments they can earn a good grade even if their work doesn't start off as perfect at the beginning of the semester. Or if they scored full marks on everything from the start then they can coast at the end of the semester. Conversely, a student has to really make an effort to get a D or F. The end result is that the mean grade in several of the courses I teach is ~ B+/A-.