Grades in this class are broken down in terms of percentage contribution to your overall grade. We do not use a point system so that we can vary the points for various exercises to match the granularity we need in grading that assignment. Below is the grade breakdown for this course.

* Full credit is given for over 85% correctness of pre, post, and lecture questions. In-class lecture questions are given full credit regardless of correctness. Late assignments on Canvas will lose 15% per day until it reaches a cap of no more than 50% full credit lost. This means you always have an incentive to do work late, even many many days after the due date. 

** Late assignments on Gradescope are accepted on a per case basis. You must contact your instructor for late challenge homework and your lab TA for late lab work. You must also complete all labs to passing quality to receive a grade in this course.

*** You may miss one recitation without penalty.

The above calculation will be done in tandem with a separate one that only includes the exams - you will receive the higher of the two grades. This is to accommodate students who have already mastered, or feel they can master, the material without formal practice and assessment. I do not suggest anyone attempt this approach as I have statistics on how poorly it typically works out.

This class is designed so that passing is very achievable. Most students express that doing all the work is the best way to ensure success. This class has also been known for being difficult to receive an A. Statistically though, we are no different than other STEM courses, in fact we have a higher GPA than most. Historically around 15% of students receive A's, and around 10% fail the course. Below is the grading scale we base grades on. It may be different than you have experienced in the past. This expanded grade range (C's begin at 50%) allows us to differentiate the knowledge gains of the students better and allows for a wider range of difficulty on exam problems. Traditional classes only use 30% of the grading scale. We believe our method is more effective. It means you don't have to get 90%+ on exams to get an A. In fact many A students receive between 80 and 90% on exams and do well on all the other work. On the other end, many students receive 45% on exams but do the rest of their work and still earn a solid passing grade. The curriculum is designed for a wide range of student preparation, ability, and interest. All are welcome and all can succeed and that means different things for different students. Do not judge yourself by others!

Please see Academic Regulations AR 17 and AR 18 for more details on assignment of course grades.

You can calculate your grade in the following way: multiply the percentage earned for a given part by the percentage of the final grade that part is worth. Add these up and the result is your percentage in the class.          

Example  |  Say you receive the following scores for each graded part of the course. Pre/post homework 75%, lecture 90%, challenge homework 70%, reflective writing 100%, lab 75%, midterm one 40%, midterm two 45%, final exam 50%. You would do the following calculation to determine your grade:

(% pre/post received)(% pre/post of total) + (% lecture received)(% lecture of total) + (% chwk received)(% chwk of total) + …..          

So, (0.75)(0.05) + (0.9)(0.05) + (0.7)(0.1) + (1.0)(0.05) +(0.75)(0.1)+ (0.4)(0.15) + (0.45)(0.15) + (0.5)(0.35) = 0.58 or a 58% and a solid C grade overall.

If you would like to calculate what you need on the final then put in a % overall you wish to obtain and algebraically solve backwards for what the score on the final would have to be to achieve that overall percentage.

Canvas should have the most recent grades for Pre/post homework, and your reflective writing assignments.

Canvas will be updated within one week of being graded for labs, challenge homework, and exams.

Lecture grades from learning catalytics will be updated on Canvas after each exam. You can check your L.C. points anytime on learningcatalytics.com.

The onus is on you to review your work from Gradescope and check that our gradebook is correct.

Estimating your grade  |  If you know your midterm scores, and have an educated guess of on your other work, you can work backward to find out what you need on the final. The margin of error in this calculation will be small, especially compared to the uncertainty on the final exam.  It is because of the uncertainty on the final exam that we are hesitant to tell someone their grade before the class is over.  We do believe you know enough to gauge how much you have to study, relative to your other classes.  Quick estimation: average your two midterm exams and you know if you are doing your other work, you probably have a higher grade than that exam average.

One of my professors once told KC when he was in a panic about the gradebook (not available online back then… cough, cough), “There are no emergencies in academia”. Remember we can fix any incorrect grades at anytime, even after the end of the term.