The story here is a plug for a book about how to get good grades, but becomes a discussion about grade inflation.
This fits very nicely into our continuing complaint about the low standards that seem to be part of the Applied Studies degree. The administration likes to reduced standards, so that they can keep their enrollment numbers up. We should stand against it in everyway we can.
Battling grade inflation has to be part of it!
Inside Higher Ed :: Should Professors Be Talking More (or Less) About Grades?
Also look at this link that discusses grade inflation and the way colleges market themeselves.
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2 comments:
I don't like being drawn into these kinds of discussions but I couldn't resist with this particular issue. Faculty don't need help from administrators to produce grade inflation. Since 1991 yearly undergraduate GPAs have inflated from 2.91 to 3.02. The reasons for this are many and you can pick your own favored explanation (ie. student opinion surveys, lazy faculty, assertive students, discipline specific pedagogy, growing research demands, etc.) My own favorite is the 9 point grade scale with "half-grades." There is more than enough blame to go around as well as several departments in COLS with GPAs above those in any of the professional colleges or the BLS program.
Jim Simmons
I would never want to absolve myself from this responsibility. It is clearly less stressful to abdicate and give everyone Bs or As.
Regardless of the grading scale, there are repetitive discussions generated by administrators in institutions all over the country to make sure we keep students in college. How am I to do that, except to make my courses easier?
If the higher-ups continually asked us to raise our standards or not to worry about losing the unprepared students, it would strengthen my backbone.
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