LOL...because it is easier for a student to visualize the weight of each thing than it is using
your strange numbers...:-)
----- Original Message -----
From: Michael O'Hara <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Friday, February 20, 2009 2:29 pm
Subject: 600 points
To: [log in to unmask]
> ALSBTALK:
>
> Math skills vary widely across the USA population. And, in
> spite
> of a university's or a college's general education or core course
> requirements that invariably include some amount of math education,
> that
> wide variation of math skills routinely existing among our
> students.
> Further, the lower range of math skills always is startling for any
> attentive instructor following the distribution of grades.
>
> To an person trained in economics who has taught the core
> undergraduate courses in economics and thus knows what the business
> students were taught, it always is a surprise that business
> students have
> not and can not doe the very simple algebra of computing what
> (numerically) a student needs to achieve, given what has been
> achieved, if
> that student is to earn the course grade desired by that student.
> Hence,
> my subject line of 600 points.
>
> Why do professors draft contracts with non-base 10 grading
> systems? Why 600 points rather than 1,000 points?
>
> Why is it good to use 250 + 100 + 100 + 50 + 100 = 600
> total
> points rather than use 417 + 167 + 167 + 83 + 167 = 1,000?
>
> Of course, after viewed from the perspective of 1,000 the
> beauty
> of the individual assignment's weighting is such that the professor
> is
> likely to alter the relative weighting in the pursuit of beauty;
> since, of
> course, if beauty equals truth, truth is an excellent pedagogy.
>
> Michael
>
> Professor Michael J. O'Hara, J.D., Ph.D.
> Finance, Banking, & Law Department
> College of Business Administration
> Roskens Hall 502
> University of Nebraska at Omaha
> Omaha NE 68182
> [log in to unmask]
> (402) 554 - 2823 voice fax (402) 554 - 2680
> http://cba.unomaha.edu/faculty/mohara/web/ohara.htm
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