I am totally aware that I have been bad at giving you feedback. Which puts me in a vicious cycle: the longer I delay, the more I feel like I need to deliver, which causes me to delay longer.
I apologize. My excuses are lame.
I have decided I am not going to ask you to do any new things (e.g. readings) until I get this fixed. (All the project deadlines stand).
I have this big messy spreadsheet with all the data. What I think I’m going to do is write some scripts that extract the appropriate columns and get this back to you this weekend.
Some things on what to expect:
- In-class – totally subjective.
- I’ve ranked people as "3=Contributor, 2=Partial-Contributor, 1=Non-0=Contributor, and Worse”. Since this is subjective, I acknowledge that its +/- 1 level. Normally, contributor is the level of expectation for a grad class (I didn’t bother distinguishing “valued contributor”, but am aware that there are some of those).
- I kindof factor in if you appear to be missing more than I’d expect. Again, this is subjective. So if you’re not contributing, I may not even be aware that you’re there when you are. (see the course policies)
- I had mentioned that for people uncomfortable contributing in class, contributing on-line was an option. However, there seems to be a correlation: good online contributors are generally good in-class contributors. Also, no one has done significantly more than the required postings, so this is a non-factor this semester.
- Postings (for the first 16 readings, and assignments). As I mentioned in a post, I keep track “notable, acceptable, minimal, none”. Generally, the only thing that matters is that on avergae they are better than minimal. If you’re consistently better (or worse) than acceptable, that might count for something. But to be honest, there are clear dividing lines, and no real boundary cases.
- For the first 4 assignments, there really isn’t that much difference. Everyone pretty much did it.
- For Project 1 (Assignments 4&5), I have lots of raw data, but no real decisions yet. I will get that back to everyone as well. There are things like “how complete was your peer review” in addition to my assessment of the projects. Ironically, the latter thing is where its really subjective, and I am thinking of giving people the benefit of doubt on things.
In terms of how the project 1 grades work:
After collecting all the data, I had 4 summary things: did you do the personal parts (all the expected writeups and reviews) (graded acc, or not); an “A5” grade; a documentation grade (considers all documents – note: having any video was better than having no video); and an A6 grade. These are on a scale of “Bad, OK, Good” (with some plusses and minuses given). Then I tried to pick a grade. Often I couldn’t, so I picked two (and I’ll decide which one when final grading time comes).
If all goes according to plan, I will figure out a way to convert from my spreadsheet to email and you’ll get some email soon.
