Response to Fayes questions about grading experiential components.
One quick comment -- I grade very generously on the portion of my course that
require students to go out and try something they've not done before. If
they take the leap and give it a sincere effort, they're going to do fairly
well. Whatever format they report back in has some specific guidelines to
meet, but I reinforce the "just do it" philosophy by grading high for being
willing to get involved and take a little risk.
Yes, I am expected to end up the semester with a fairly typical grade
distribution. Any of my prior students can tell you that I give extremely
hard exams that really stretch them. They're not used to this balance and
truly panic over exam scores often being lower than they're used to seeing,
but they have to keep a running tally to see that the balance of the course
elements puts them at a grade level they think is reasonable.
Gayle