<p>My foreign language class is graded mostly on participation and short essays. In the beginning of the semester, the professor was fair towards everyone, i.e. if you made several grammar errors, and another student made similar mistakes, then the two of you received roughly the same grade.</p>
<p>However, as the semester passed, she began to differentiate who had a stronger background in the language and who didn't. So now for essays, a strong student who made 3-4 errors would get a B, whereas if a student who struggled to keep up made 3-4 errors, he would get an A. (roughly estimating)</p>
<p>To put it simply, is this kind of biased policy fair? It demands more from the top students, and it gives lenience towards the struggling ones. Now I need to practically make zero errors to get an A, and let me just say writing a foreign language paper is not that easy to begin with. :/</p>
<p>I wouldn’t say it’s totally fair from the way you put it but it could be that the kids who are struggling have talked to the prof about how they are struggling. In my book if they did that it would be fair. Have you talked to the prof at all?</p>
<p>It’s called differentiation. Life isn’t fair, so get over that idea. If you are capable of more, you should be pushed more. A less capable student is being pushed at their level. If anything, in a lot of ways it’s more fair. Would you have wanted to compete with Einstein, or be judged and graded for what YOU could do? If a professor has a small enough class, they can take the time to really assess each student on their individual progress. The prof is expecting more progress from you than you are showing, whereas the struggling student is moving along, so being rewarded for that. Think about why some workers are offered raises, and others not, even though the original workload might be identical…it’s what each worker does to excel that puts one in line for the raise before the other…</p>
<p>@teachandmom hmm good point. The convergence theorem, as one might put it</p>
<p>@Humanoid - Yeah, I talked to the professor a week ago and she said she demands more from some students. I guess in a way this guarantees everyone “gets” something out of the class, as opposed to an easy A :p</p>
<p>I’ve seen people sign up for intro classes for language they’re practically fluent in, entirely for an easy A, so it would be unfair in a way to not hold them to a higher standard, if not prevent them from enrolling. Doesn’t sound like this applies to you, but that might be why.</p>