C Minuses

[zuzu_]

So my CC is most likely adopting a new grading scale. We used to have one that just letters and plusses, but we are now getting minuses. Overall, I'm OK with it, except what about C minus? It will be a 1.67, so that doesn't seem like "passing." The biggest thing my English department will decide is if a C minus in dev ed will get you into Comp 1, and if a C minus in Comp 1 will get you into Comp 2. I'm leaning towards "NO." But C minus seems like such a cruel grade. My instincts are to try to rig up my course grading scheme so people either get Cs or D plusses.

[Parasaurolophus]

D has always been the cutoff for counting a class as a prereq, where I've been. (As in: D doesn't count, but C- does.)

Our C- here (former CC, now a university) is 60-62%.

[aside]

We were in a similar situation, already having a "C or better to move to the next level" policy when the university added plus and minus grades.  For us, the advancement policy remained in effect, and a C- would not allow the student to advance.  Because the adoption of plus and minus grades was optional for the faculty, I opted not to use them.

[EdnaMode]

On my campus, we have plus/minus grades, except for C- and D- (there is a C+ but not a D+) mainly because of the comments already made about meeting prerequisite requirements. 70 is the lowest C. D's will allow you to go forward in some courses, but not in core major courses in engineering, and our cutoff for D grades is 65%.

[kiana]

It would depend on whether your C- became the bottom of the current C range or lowered the range, wouldn't it?

[kaysixteen]

60 is a C minus?  What's an F?  60 percent comprehension hardly seems adequate for a grade that high...?

[Caracal]

It would depend on whether your C- became the bottom of the current C range or lowered the range, wouldn't it?

Odd, I didn't know you could have pluses without minuses. Of course, until I started teaching at my current school I'd never heard of not having pluses and minuses. I'm not sure I really understand the rationale for not using them. Isn't it better for grades to reflect more information about how a student did? No pluses and minuses ends up meaning that a large percentage of my grades are Bs. There's really a lot of variation in the B grade. I think of B+ as "pretty good," B as "just ok" and B- as "crummy, but not quite C crummy." I also don't like the sharp cutoffs. I used to be able to say to the student who was grumpy about their B+, "hey I know it seems like a big difference, but really that 0.4 is not going to matter much by the time you graduate, but now I just have to say "sorry, tough luck, gotta put the boundary somewhere."

Anyway, if I understand correctly, your department previously used to assign anything between 70 and 77 as a C and now 70-72 is now going to be a C-? Unless you also want to tighten up standards, I can't really see the rationale for not counting a C- as passing for the purposes of the prerequisite.

[Parasaurolophus]

60 is a C minus?  What's an F?  60 percent comprehension hardly seems adequate for a grade that high...?

F = 0-49%. Getting more than half the material right wouldn't seem appropriate for a failing grade. Not getting more than half correct, however, does.

[mbelvadi]

I just have to ask, where else in "real life" does getting things only 50% right count as success? I'm going to the usual cliche here - do you want to see a doctor, accountant, or lawyer who only gets 50% of their job for you right? I'm a believer in the concept of "mastery learning" and I wouldn't call anything less than 70% as being even close to having "mastered" the material in the course. If I were "King of Higher Ed" I'd make 80% the cutoff for passing, but political realities...

[Parasaurolophus]

My experience with "professionals" suggests that 50% right is pretty close to what I'd get if I left them to it and didn't intervene or supervise at all. And yes, that includes lawyers, accountants, social workers, benefits case workers, professors, journalists, and even some medical professionals.

Most people out there seem to do their jobs somewhere in the C range. Often that's good enough for most purposes (although not usually mine).

But yes, it's sad and troubling.

[Hibush]

60 is a C minus?  What's an F?  60 percent comprehension hardly seems adequate for a grade that high...?

This comment and the similar ones below it depend on the assumption that the instructor writes an assessment that perfectly captures comprehension of some defined and objective set of material covered in class. I know of nothing that comes close to meeting that assumption.

The score on tests and such reflects the instructors relatively subjective idea of what needs to be known and what represents mastery. Because of that human interaction, instructors can write and grade exams in a way that a give level of mastery can result in a score of anywhere from 0 to 100%. 

It is the skill and experience of instructors that calibrates the testing and grading so that the relation between mastery and scores is similar across courses and institutions. There is no fixed objective relationship.

[marshwiggle]

60 is a C minus?  What's an F?  60 percent comprehension hardly seems adequate for a grade that high...?

This comment and the similar ones below it depend on the assumption that the instructor writes an assessment that perfectly captures comprehension of some defined and objective set of material covered in class. I know of nothing that comes close to meeting that assumption.

The score on tests and such reflects the instructors relatively subjective idea of what needs to be known and what represents mastery. Because of that human interaction, instructors can write and grade exams in a way that a give level of mastery can result in a score of anywhere from 0 to 100%. 

It is the skill and experience of instructors that calibrates the testing and grading so that the relation between mastery and scores is similar across courses and institutions. There is no fixed objective relationship.

This is an important point. Especially when a course is unique to an institution, there clearly isn't some "standard" by which performance can be evaluated. For lower-level courses that are typically taught at most institutions, (aka those for which there are typically several popular choices for textbooks), then there is more of a discipline-wide understanding of what kind of performance is expected (particularly since it maters if students transfer) but it's still not cast in stone.

[Biologist_]

60 is a C minus?  What's an F?  60 percent comprehension hardly seems adequate for a grade that high...?

This comment and the similar ones below it depend on the assumption that the instructor writes an assessment that perfectly captures comprehension of some defined and objective set of material covered in class. I know of nothing that comes close to meeting that assumption.

The score on tests and such reflects the instructors relatively subjective idea of what needs to be known and what represents mastery. Because of that human interaction, instructors can write and grade exams in a way that a give level of mastery can result in a score of anywhere from 0 to 100%. 

It is the skill and experience of instructors that calibrates the testing and grading so that the relation between mastery and scores is similar across courses and institutions. There is no fixed objective relationship.

Agreed. It is possible to write a relatively hard or relatively easy exam covering the same material.

I like to write exam questions that make students think on their feet in ways that not all students can do. To make up for that, I modify my grading scale and provide ways for students to make up for missed points on exams.

I still remember a visit from a guy who graduated from my high school a year or two before I did. He came back from college for fall break and told us that he had recently scored something like 40% on one exam and 50% on another, but one exam score was an A and the other was a B. We were amazed since our high-school was subject to a county-wide (or perhaps state-wide) rule that 70% was passing and A grades were 94-100%.

To respond to the original question, the minus grades have the potential to add useful detail in a student's record of course success. If the C- grades fall within the range that was previously a C, then it probably make sense to treat a C- the way a C was previously treated as far as eligibility to continue in a course series. On the other hand, perhaps the new grade provides an opportunity to intervene usefully and provide additional remediation for students who need it. This decision really comes down to the local knowledge and experience of the faculty.

I'm glad that we have plus and minus grades where I am. It eases some of my anxiety in drawing the lines between letter grades at the end of each term.

[pepsi_alum]

Just as a counterpoint, I teach in a department which decided several years ago that a grade of C-minus would no longer fulfill major or minor requirements. The rationale at the time was that a C- didn't suggest a high level of mastery in course content and that we wanted our program's graduates to go into the world with a greater degree of competence in the subject matter. I have mixed feelings about such a rationale, but consistently applied, it's a policy I can live with.

[FishProf]

At FishProf U, you need a C average in the major, ancillaries, and overall to graduate.  We just put in a C- to move on in the major.  So a C- is good enough, but you can't do that too often or you'd fall below the minimum GPA.

Imperfect, but better than counting D- in a prerequisite as good enough.