About Final Grades

[A. Trevor]

My dear concerned students,

From the beginning of the course, I made it clear where the points
that made up your grade would come from. The scores were a
combination of classroom participation, attendance, Google groups
participation, in-class assignments, homework, several steps involved
in the individual paper as well as first and final drafts of the indy
paper, various stages of the group paper, including your role on the
team and a first and final draft, and finally an extra five points
just for showing me your final organized notes and such.

In the past, I graded holistically (primarily based on paper scores
and my overall impression of their effort and improvement) and
students indicated that they preferred a more structured grading
system. This term I tried to make it as mathematical as possible so
in the end it would leave little room for misinterpretation. I fully
understand that grading this type of work is by its nature very
holistic (other than attendance) but I always rounded up when
calculating and tried to give people extra points here and there
whenever I could. I almost never looked at the names when doing
grades and in the end there was a pretty close bell curve for
everyone’s grades. I know that it seemed that I graded strictly, but
it is my impression that Thammasat is a respected center of higher
education and I believe that standards need to be upheld in order to
maintain this reputation (An effort needed by faculty, students, and
staff).

I have received emails from both students and parents asking me for
the opportunity to earn extra points; requests that I have refused
simply because that would not be fair to the other students who could
not try for those points and because it was clear from the beginning
how to earn points towards the final grade. Some of you have
seemingly reasonable arguments, wondering why you couldn't get a
certain grade when this or that paper scored very well. To that I
simply say that your score was the accumulation of many factors, not
just one paper, which is how my former students wished the grading
could be done and to which I received no complaints as I explained it
during this term’s course.

I am sorry I cannot please everyone; that is simply not the way the
educational system works. I am sorry you all did not get the grades
you thought deserved (for the most part) because you were nice people
who tried fairly hard. Those who received higher grades simply did
better on ALL of the criteria necessary for accumulating points.
Perhaps under my old grading system you would have scored higher, but
that was not the standard we used throughout the semester.

I hope you took something away from the class; as I told you in class,
when you have graduated, the information you have learned is much more
valuable than grades on a piece of paper, as trite as that may sound
at the moment.

Best of luck to you and again sorry that I cannot change your grade; I
would only be fair to review almost everyone else’s' grades in the
class and that would simply not be fair to those that didn’t get such
an opportunity, nor would such a thing be practical.

Aloha,

Mr. Ranges

[Bo Young Kim]

Dear, Sir

 

First of all, thank you for your kind explanation

now, I can understand why I got that grade

 

As you told me,,

I hope I could use the valuable things in the future,

 

Good night and God bless you _^-^

 

Best regards,

Bo Young

 

[Prim]

You know what? Though I used to think that you graded us hardly and
sometimes confusingly, I think you're right that I get a lot from your
class and I know it's necessary for studying in Master Degree. Just
want to tell you, thank you for teaching us AJ.Trevor :)