Quote:
Originally posted by MikeCT
Maybe the problem is I am not challenged by the courses I am taking.
Instead of posting a 3rd time....
I think my problem is with the attitude of expecting failure. People asking about partial credit is like they have already given up on learning the material. It's not the actual partial credit given but that there is an attitude that students can fall back on it instead of striving for excellence.
|
In all fairness - kids or adults who ask that question have figured something out that you clearly have not and seriously need to.
They want to know what the goal is.
In every endeavor of your life you must first set a goal to attain. Granted - maybe your goal is a solid 100% and if so - have fun. The rest of us will be happy with upwards of 90% or so, we'll get an "A" too and some fun at the beach too.
Pick your poison.
There is a balance in making a class too hard and too easy. Too hard and you discourage folks from the learning process and too easy and you neglect the learning process. Equilibrium is attainable, kids who ask the question "is there partial credit" may simply want to know if they will get that credit even though they make an addition error or something extremely simple.
In the higher maths it is very easy to make a simple addition error but have the concepts down correctly. Which is more important in that environment?
If a student who clearly understands the concepts but simply makes a random error causing the final answer to be wrong should be failed for that...that I believe discourages the learning process. Now; I do think that partial credit should be less than 50% of the full credit for that problem and if there is more than one of these errors then all bets are off. But that's just my opinion on the whole thing.
If an instructor told me there was no partial credit - I would simply strive not to make those mistakes of course.
While our country might be stronger if we expected perfection we would also be setting ourselves up for disappointment as perfection is not attainable in any subject.