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Hi Everyone,
I hope what follows is an appropriate question
for this list. If not, please excuse me, and also please excuse me for
cross-posting this question on the physhare list.
A bit of background: this question
grows out of a consideration of students for graduation honors. Sometimes
a teacher will say something like, "this student has the grades but he/she is
not really an honor student." I always think, "why are we giving high
grades to anyone but our most successful students?" Perhaps our
vision of the attributes of student success are fuzzy, and we are rewarding
something else with high grades. Before we worry
about the nature of our tests and grading procedures, maybe we should be clearer
about what it is, exactly, that we are trying to measure.
So, the question: what are the attributes of
student success in our physics classes? After all, our students will do
what they must to please us (I suppose we are lucky that way), so if we are not
asking them to demonstrate the success we hope for, we should be clearer about
what we want and then work toward that. As it happens, concern about this
issue extends nearly everyone on the faculty at my school, and we will be
working on this next year in our copious free time outside of
class.
I would very much like to see this discussion on
the list, but if people prefer to respond off-list I will summarize the
responses for the list. Thank you all for your consideration.
Jeff Weitz
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