I don't think the curve is intrinsically bad. I completely understand the reasoning: Professor Dean wants to motivate us to work hard and consume more information than would we would in a class that grades us strictly on content. I can respect this. However, as I mentioned earlier, I feel as if anyone who felt threatened by the curve has dropped by this point. The people who remain in the class are the ones who believe that they had the intellectual power and motivation to "beat" the curve (or who just didn't give a shit about it). That being said, is it a good idea to keep the curve intact?
Shane mentioned that the exam/essays are also unfair. It favors people who are good at test taking and writing. I can agree with this.
I guess my final thought is that implementing a curve in a class full of intelligent people just complicates the learning environment, and ultimately isn't conducive to it.
Thoughts?
One has to recognize that people differ in intelligence for reasons that are not their fault and I understand what you are talking about but at the same time i do not think the bell curve will benefit the class as a whole primarily because it will adjust the grade distribution so the most number of people with C's, so F's and A's are few. Although this may seem good because less people would fail, at the same time if our class is really smart the curve would just bring everyone's grade down.
ReplyDeletei say all the kids that dropped the class get Fs and then the curve starts from there....just saying...
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