When the kid doesn't pass...make passing easier?

STOP!!!!! Read this article before continuing

So your student got a B+ in a rigorous, difficult, challenging environment. This is unacceptable because it is not an A?!?!?! So what's the solution... Fight fight fight and make it easier to get an A. I hope I am not the only one that sees something terribly wrong with this. Please consider the following situations as they relate to this article...

So apparently I have heard that there are too many people failing the PA Driver's License Exam. The solution is that those failing the test got together and fought PennDOT, successfully changing the driver's test requirements to: drive forward 100 ft, put the car in reverse, turn on the windshield wipers, successfully make a right-hand turn. Immediate ramifications are not known.

SAT's have come under fire because so many students are not meeting their college's SAT requirements. Let's get together and make the SAT an easier test. That way, more kids will get higher scores and be qualified to get into the colleges that they want.

The end result from both situations is an "inignoranted"(totally made that word up) population. Okay, so the driver's license one is a little far-fetched, but I'm not sure the SAT example is totally out of line here.

Rigor is what makes the best the best, the not-so best the not-so best, the average the average, and so on....Without rigor we have no means of determining who the best is, we just are certain that everybody can achieve the standard, and nobody has demonstrated greatness. These parents have defined "fairness" as "everyone gets a trophy/everyone gets an A". An A is exactly that, achieved by the best and brightest, some work really hard to arrive there, some do not need to. Not once in this article was it mentioned that parents encouraged their kids to get better...do a little bit more to get that extra 2 percentage points to EARN the A.

It is often confusing about "Who deserves an A", and I think that definition is different between parent, teacher, and student. Parent and student share a similar definition...my kid works really hard so they deserve an A. In an odd counterexample, what if they work really hard and are learning the concept(s) the wrong way? Should these hard workers not be accountable for content knowledge? Teacher definition of an A is essentially the students that show high-level mastery of content. If that is debatable (that 89%), work-ethic is examined...the rationale of which is that if the student is a hard worker, they will eventually achieve high-level mastery.

In conclusion, I feel the need to address my grading practice. In my gradebook, pre-homework/project grade, there were about 10 kids that had an A average. This pre-homework/project grade is fairly indicative of your master of content. In terms of the AP Exam an A pre-HW would indicate a 5, B a 4, C a 3, D a 2, and F a 1. This is something not set in stone however, and with some preparation for the AP Exam through use of a review book(Barron's) can increase your exam score by 1 to 2. After homework and project, your grade reflects the amount of work that you have done, and the quality of product you have produced. This is minimally relevant to taking the AP test, but very necessary for your future development (college/career).

My job as an educator is not to give you an A, it is to prepare you for college. You need to be put through a high level of rigor so that when you get to college, you have been exposed to a rigorous courseload. If we are not rigorous in our teaching practice, we are not preparing you for college. Relaxing our standards would indicate that we are sending you to college less prepared.

Happy Snow Day,
Mr. C

WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So I awoke this morning in awful health...I'll spare you the details. At about 6:45pm, I decided I would check the Wiki and see if anything had gone on today. To my absolute amazement, there were several updates to the Project pages by a number of groups, and I must say, they look awesome!!!!!!

What's really amamzing is the fact that I have not necessarily "demonstrated" any of the skills needed to create a page. A huge compliment to your ability to use a relatively new technology. You guys are awesome, and so are your experimental design projects!!! Keep up the good work.

<---Lucy says good job!!! Really, I am not a crazy dog person, I just wanted to add some multimedia feel and this was a great picture of the dog. Pretty sure she wanted something from me.

With regard to the Chapter 15 Quiz, grades are posted as of yesterday on HAC(Home Access Center). I intend to hand them back to you on Friday. Also on Friday we will discuss the "faux quiz", on Chapter 16. The intention there was to give you something that provided an alternate context to the standard dice rolling exercises we've been doing for homework. Your experimental design projects will be graded over the weekend and entered into HAC at that time. They are going to be on the 2nd marking period. Sadly, your grade on the project will appear as a zero until it is graded, so please be patient. Finally, on the subject of grades, your homework grade is factored in as of Friday as well. The intent of this paragraph was so that I do not spend class time discussing this. Anyone asking in class will be referred to the blog.

Wow, fairly serious post. Here are three great links to some talks given at "TED", a conference of the smartest people in the world sharing their ideas. If you have 20 minutes to spare, that's how long it will take to view one video. I suppose I should say that you should view at your own risk and if you are offended by any of the content found here, it is not required that you watch any of it, or all of it, or some of it. I am simply posting it because I think there are some stat students that would enjoy and find it enlightening.

Juries Fooled By Statistics

No More Boring Data

Do Schools Ruin Creativity

I think most videos can be found here as well (http://www.ted.com/)

-Mr. C

Experimental Design Projects

Hey everybody! I wanted to touch base as far as submission of your Experimental Design projects and answer some general questions that you may have. You are just going to submit your writeup of your project including everything from the scoring rubric found on the Wiki. There will only be project presentations for those students that are doing the Experimental Design project for Graduation Project credit.

There will be three ways to submit your project...
1. Via the Wiki: you can type your writeup onto the wiki itself by editing your group page, or you may upload the document. For directions on how to do that, click here for a short video