<p>How does your logic work when I’m not failing? Say I’m at the end of the grading period, I pretty much got a 96. I do this extra credit and get a few extra point.</p>
<p>Now let say I got a 58 for the end of the grading period. I do the “Extra” work and get a D-. Helpful in this case more so then if I had an A already…</p>
<p>But I’m not sure why you feel this way. I mean I just look at make-up works, turning thing in late, and people asking for a bump-up… And they are actually worse then the extra credit.</p>
<p>@Philovitist: Extra credit doesn’t simulate the situation of testing. It doesn’t show how you work under pressure, how well you can apply difficult concepts on a deadline. It doesn’t ensure that the work was your own work. It doesn’t recreate real-world situations, which is what testing is intended to do.</p>
<p>I mean yes, testing is supposed to show knowledge, but beyond knowledge, it is supposed to show how well you can think. That is the purpose of time limits. Extra Credit doesn’t show any of that.</p>
<p>@Descuff: I don’t care what your grade is. You shouldn’t get extra points for the plethora of reasons I’ve already said. And I’ve already stated my dislike of all things that “bump up” grades; if you took the time to read the thread you’d know.</p>
<p>i don’t think there needs to be a grade-reward for anything. extra credit only inflates grades. doing extra is implicitly a reward in and of itself…we shouldn’t need incentives for it, creates a poor model.</p>
<p>Basically you think that EC/make-up/bump-up/etc are going against what a GPA really should be… based on tests. You didn’t mention classwork (or so I think) and you practically said that your hw doesn’t count. Even though you said GPA should be based purely on tests and homework…</p>
<p>Let me tell you why that wouldn’t work.
1.) Extra Credit would probably only account for like a difference of .1-.6 GPA changes. And GPA are pretty much inflated already.
2.) Most people doesn’t do extra credit for the GPA, they does it so they can improve there report so they don’t upset parents.
3.) Teachers will, no matter how hard you try, positively (or negatively) impact your GPA by showing bias. Instead of being critical on an essay, the teacher decides to loosen up and give everyone a boost.
4.) The vast majority is clearly against that idea.</p>
<p>1.) Regardless of how much of an effect EC has, it is still unfair and an affront to fair grading. And grade inflation varies by school.</p>
<p>2.) If they cannot do well in a class, then they deserve to upset their parents. Tell them to grow a pair and own up to their failure instead of boosting their grades unfairly.</p>
<p>3.) Then that teacher isn’t doing his/her job correctly. Grades should be completely objective assessments of performance: that’s the only way a GPA will have any value.</p>
<p>4.) Most people are mindless sheep. Just because they are against the idea doesn’t mean that I will surrender my viewpoint.</p>
<p>And here’s a summary: no one deserves any points other than those they have earned. And the only way to earn is through testing. HW, classwork, etc. should not be counted. It should be a student’s initiative to do work, or neglect it, and they should take responsibility for their choices. That is all.</p>
<p>Some extra credit can show you know material and others can be gimme points. </p>
<p>Example:
In a grad applied math course I took this past semester, the professor was annoyed that a good portion of kids weren’t coming to class. So what he did to reward those of us who came to class was give us a character of a password every once in a while so we could obtain some form of extra credit for showing up to class later on. Is that fair? Well to continue, when we used the password, we got a extra credit problem set that could add 10% to our final grade. However, the problems were quite complicated so even though we got the opportunity for extra credit, we had to earn it. Doing that problem set even helped me learn some things that made the final easy. </p>
<p>Now I will tell you that extra credit was fair. Those of us with the opportunity got access by going to class and then could only get the points if we knew enough about what was on the problem set. </p>
<p>Of course, however, the problem set covered only part of the classes material, so I might not have known half the material on the exam, but does that mean I didn’t deserve that extra credit? Nonsense. If the extra credit requires solving a problem, that is surely legitimate and fair. I do agree getting extra credit for something that has nothing to do with the class material is bogus, but generally I have seen extra credit opportunities having to do with going the extra mile, not doing something to scrape by.</p>
<p>I really like the way my English teacher does extra credit. All assignments are worth 5 points max. And you can only raise your grade by no more than 5% of your current grade. So if you had an 80 in the class, 5% of 80 is 4, so extra credit could only boost your grade by 4 percentage points.</p>
<p>point 2: Some people put in the extra effort to make sure they don’t get a bad grade. I don’t see how can it really be unfair…
If ec are unfair tell me, then who is the ones being treated unfairly?</p>
<p>@EveningSwan Interesting but I would hate to be on the lower end of the spectrum of grades. If I was a teacher, I would let kids do an approved project or something that shows a good understanding of the material. If kids will work to better understand things, I think they deserve a boost in their grades. </p>
<p>By the way, I also know there are lots of people that are very smart but stress on tests so they are bad test takers and don’t perform great at times. However, these people know their stuff better than most, so the idea of testing alone showing who knows the content the best is very silly. I think grades shouldn’t be all testing for this reason.</p>
<p>OK, so last year in Bio I needed a couple points to bump me up to an A, and my teacher offered an extra credit project (gasp!) and we had to write a paper on global warming and our opinions on it, and a poster. So I did it, and got an A in his class (which I will say I deserved, I worked pretty hard in Biology, so it’s not as if I was dumb and did nothing) and the project actually helped me learn more about climate change and all that good stuff, so I gained knowledge and I think those were some well-deserved extra credit points as I spent a good 4+ hours on the project and learned a lot too. I don’t see anything wrong with that.</p>
<p>You’re making really broad generalizations about extra credit. </p>
<p>And about tests. When I think “assessments that recreate real-world situations” the a 50 question exam isn’t exactly the first idea that comes to mind.</p>
<p>“Grades should be completely objective assessments of performance”</p>
<p>This doesn’t seem possible unless every test is all multiple-choice (or fill-in-the-blank or similar, in which only one answer is possible). And as I’ve said before, I don’t think encouraging people to remember absurd things to do well on a test and then forget them has any merit. These things certainly don’t show how well anyone can think.
While multiple-choice tests are useful, I think it’s important to assess people in other ways, especially through essays and papers, whether they’re on a test or not. And the evaluation of these will end up being primarily subjective, even with a specific rubric. </p>
<p>“Tell them to grow a pair and own up to their failure instead of boosting their grades unfairly.”</p>
<p>People’s failures aren’t always entirely their own fault. Plenty of kids deal with learning disabilities, abusive families, the need to work/babysit after school to support their family instead of studying, etc. I think you make too many assumptions about people with the same intelligence levels having the same kind of opportunities to do well.
But grade inflation and extra credit don’t help these kids at all, so I agree with you there.</p>
<p>And we’re forgetting the real function of extra credit: it reliably motivates students to learn more. It keeps them from giving up near the end of term by allowing them to jump back up. It keeps students from becoming cynical about school in the first place.</p>
<p>I’m not sure what school you go to, but motivating students is half the battle for teachers in most schools. The idea of getting rid of extra credit reeks of social darwinist elitism (it benefits the bright/motivated while further worsening the situation for the dumb/misguided) and lacks common sense.</p>
<p>When it comes to schooling, it’s about educating students, not survival of the fittest. It’s about getting as many kids ready for life as possible, not regulating GPAs.</p>
<p>^ make it mandatory then. that’ll motivate them.</p>
<p>and again, the reward-method is double-edged. In the real life, there’s often no incentives for doing extra/something more, but sometimes that has to be done. Rewarding in school could both make students aware of this or dull them to the point where they only do something if they see a reward. personally, i see the merits of both, but I’d rather do away with it, especially in AP classes.</p>
<p>“It’s about getting as many kids ready for life as possible, not regulating GPAs.”</p>
<p>I agree, but if the GPA system does well it should give you a pretty accurate representation of what a student has learned. Someone with a low GPA is less likely to be ready for higher education or a job, so they should be given help so they can learn more. But a lot of the time, their GPA is just inflated so everyone can pretend they’ve done their jobs correctly and the kid doesn’t need help.</p>