(no subject)
person1: I never understood grading curves. Are they an admission on the part of the prof that they're shitty tenured teachers, or a passive aggressive dig at retarded students?
person2: They are by far a product of the inability to teach. I passed physics with a B without ever getting higher then a D on a test. I clearly do not know much about physics in comparison to someone who had aced that course. College is so fucked up like that. [...]
person1: Yeah. Well, I should clarify that I meant I don't understand it for a college education. In high school, okay. It's compulsory, state paid education. If you don't get 100% of it, fine. You're not going to cause much damage if you can't recite all the capitals of the 50 states. College, though, which is not only completely voluntary, but you're paying for what you get out of it.
I don't see much point in sending a fuckton of people out into the world armed with a college diploma (not that it's worth much anymore, but that aside) based on a curve. Shit's fucked up enough as it is. Pass the course or GTFO.
But yes, better profs would help.
Reading this series of comments on a reddit post ( http://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/86xct/please_note_pic/ ) sparked my indignation, having been on the other side. I agree that in the case of a course where the exams are so horribly written that no one can answer nearly all the questions, given an understanding of the material on the level of the aim of the course. However, that's a failing of the professor, not that of the concept of grading on a curve.
Grading curves exist for a simple reason: Grading systems (90-100 is an A, 80-89 is a B, etc.) are completely arbitrary, and are applied across the board to an entire institution regardless of the content of the course. Further, the actual scale varies between institutions--in my high school, the only thing that counted as an A was 98-100, A- was 95-97, etc. Anything below 80 was in the D-F range, and considered a failing grade. I don't even remember what the scale was at Clarkson, because it was completely irrelevant for one very important reason: A good teacher knows what level of ability and understanding of the material deserves a given grade in the course. If a course contains material such that understanding something under 98% of it might still be good enough to deserve an A, that's up to the teacher's discretion.
There are ways to fudge test design to fit into institution grading schemes, sure. One way is to point-weight certain sections of the test more heavily, assuming the material is easily classified into sections that are "more important" than others. That's not really applicable to all subject matter, though. Another thing you can do is to ask less questions about insignificant aspects, but again, that assumes there are identifiably "unimportant" items in the material.
A more elegant solution is to write a well-balanced test with good questions that provides the students with an opportunity to demonstrate that they understand the material, while also, where possible, catering to different learning and testing styles. Once the test is written, and you feel that it's properly weighted to the desired understanding of the material, then you can decide how much of that represents an "A", a "B", etc. In the general chemistry course I TA'd for, the exams were written such that there were multiple kinds of questions. First, generally a couple large, open-ended questions that required some work on the students' part, whether it be working through a series of thermodynamic equations, or figuring out what sort of chemical reaction would be required to achieve the final product, etc. "Story problems" if you will. Then there'd be a page or two of smaller questions that were generally one-number, one-structure, or one-formula answers. Finally, there'd generally be a page or so of multiple choice questions. I think the test design did a good job of giving the students an opportunity to demonstrate a solid understanding of the material through the open-ended questions, while not completely crippling the students who have problems thinking outside the box in a test environment, with the more straightforward, simpler later questions. Were all of those tests ideally weighted so that anything under exactly 90% was considered not good enough for an "A"? Hell no. Were some of them? Sure. Some of them were probably easier than that even, because by the nature of the material, some topics are difficult to understand while others are very straightforward, particularly for different kinds of students.
So, to address "person2" above, you earned a B in that physics class because (extrapolating roughly from my college's grading scheme), understanding ~60-70% of the material is considered a good, but not great, level to take away from the course. Is that because the class and exams were poorly designed? I don't know, I didn't take it. But thinking back to my freshman physics course, which was graded on a similar curve despite having a great (untenured, by the way) professor, the sheer amount of material that's thrown at you in a course like that is a lot to take in. In order for 80-90% to be a B, the professor would either have to choose not to expose you to a lot of topics that it's generally considered later on that you have seen somewhere along the line, or choose not to test you on them, and tell you up front that you will not be tested on them, so you don't waste time studying them. Who, then, would bother learning those things?
"person1"'s point is completely irrelevant. Education is not a service industry. Professors are not there to "serve you" your grade, and any argument about how grading should be handled in a classroom that brings in the fact that the students are paying for it is completely bogus and offensive to the entire point of education. There is a sense of entitlement that many students bring to a classroom today that comes as a direct result of that kind of thinking--"For $40,000 a year, I damn well better be getting an A." No. For $40,000 a year, you're paying for the opportunity to learn material that will further your career and, hopefully, yourself on a personal level. This whole idea makes me angry, and I'm not going to dignify it any further.
So, back to the very first question: "Are [grading curves] an admission on the part of the prof that they're shitty tenured teachers, or a passive aggressive dig at retarded students?" The answer is neither. Grading curves are an admission that a standardized grading scheme that is designed wholly independently of the material to which it is being applied does not adequately measure the outcome of students' time spent in the course. They serve to map actual performance on real material to an arbitrary scale, and they will continue to be used (by good and bad teachers alike) until the education system gets away from this silly idea that a single numerical scale can be applied to all types of learning, from math to art to music to creative writing.
[Edit] There's one more aspect to this that I can't ignore in good conscience. Another reason a course may be graded on a curve, particularly in the case of freshman-level introductory courses, is to meet quotas defined by the department. This is not a good reason, and completely defeats the purpose, but it happens. Many departments expect, based on historical data and desired matriculation statistics, that a freshman chemistry course with 700 students in it should contain ~10% As, ~20% Bs, 35% Cs, 20% Ds, and 15% Fs, and force the professor to conform to within a few percent of the desired figures. This case still doesn't match either of the two "options" presented by person1 above, though--this is a failing on behalf of the department, not the professor.
person2: They are by far a product of the inability to teach. I passed physics with a B without ever getting higher then a D on a test. I clearly do not know much about physics in comparison to someone who had aced that course. College is so fucked up like that. [...]
person1: Yeah. Well, I should clarify that I meant I don't understand it for a college education. In high school, okay. It's compulsory, state paid education. If you don't get 100% of it, fine. You're not going to cause much damage if you can't recite all the capitals of the 50 states. College, though, which is not only completely voluntary, but you're paying for what you get out of it.
I don't see much point in sending a fuckton of people out into the world armed with a college diploma (not that it's worth much anymore, but that aside) based on a curve. Shit's fucked up enough as it is. Pass the course or GTFO.
But yes, better profs would help.
Reading this series of comments on a reddit post ( http://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/86xct/please_note_pic/ ) sparked my indignation, having been on the other side. I agree that in the case of a course where the exams are so horribly written that no one can answer nearly all the questions, given an understanding of the material on the level of the aim of the course. However, that's a failing of the professor, not that of the concept of grading on a curve.
Grading curves exist for a simple reason: Grading systems (90-100 is an A, 80-89 is a B, etc.) are completely arbitrary, and are applied across the board to an entire institution regardless of the content of the course. Further, the actual scale varies between institutions--in my high school, the only thing that counted as an A was 98-100, A- was 95-97, etc. Anything below 80 was in the D-F range, and considered a failing grade. I don't even remember what the scale was at Clarkson, because it was completely irrelevant for one very important reason: A good teacher knows what level of ability and understanding of the material deserves a given grade in the course. If a course contains material such that understanding something under 98% of it might still be good enough to deserve an A, that's up to the teacher's discretion.
There are ways to fudge test design to fit into institution grading schemes, sure. One way is to point-weight certain sections of the test more heavily, assuming the material is easily classified into sections that are "more important" than others. That's not really applicable to all subject matter, though. Another thing you can do is to ask less questions about insignificant aspects, but again, that assumes there are identifiably "unimportant" items in the material.
A more elegant solution is to write a well-balanced test with good questions that provides the students with an opportunity to demonstrate that they understand the material, while also, where possible, catering to different learning and testing styles. Once the test is written, and you feel that it's properly weighted to the desired understanding of the material, then you can decide how much of that represents an "A", a "B", etc. In the general chemistry course I TA'd for, the exams were written such that there were multiple kinds of questions. First, generally a couple large, open-ended questions that required some work on the students' part, whether it be working through a series of thermodynamic equations, or figuring out what sort of chemical reaction would be required to achieve the final product, etc. "Story problems" if you will. Then there'd be a page or two of smaller questions that were generally one-number, one-structure, or one-formula answers. Finally, there'd generally be a page or so of multiple choice questions. I think the test design did a good job of giving the students an opportunity to demonstrate a solid understanding of the material through the open-ended questions, while not completely crippling the students who have problems thinking outside the box in a test environment, with the more straightforward, simpler later questions. Were all of those tests ideally weighted so that anything under exactly 90% was considered not good enough for an "A"? Hell no. Were some of them? Sure. Some of them were probably easier than that even, because by the nature of the material, some topics are difficult to understand while others are very straightforward, particularly for different kinds of students.
So, to address "person2" above, you earned a B in that physics class because (extrapolating roughly from my college's grading scheme), understanding ~60-70% of the material is considered a good, but not great, level to take away from the course. Is that because the class and exams were poorly designed? I don't know, I didn't take it. But thinking back to my freshman physics course, which was graded on a similar curve despite having a great (untenured, by the way) professor, the sheer amount of material that's thrown at you in a course like that is a lot to take in. In order for 80-90% to be a B, the professor would either have to choose not to expose you to a lot of topics that it's generally considered later on that you have seen somewhere along the line, or choose not to test you on them, and tell you up front that you will not be tested on them, so you don't waste time studying them. Who, then, would bother learning those things?
"person1"'s point is completely irrelevant. Education is not a service industry. Professors are not there to "serve you" your grade, and any argument about how grading should be handled in a classroom that brings in the fact that the students are paying for it is completely bogus and offensive to the entire point of education. There is a sense of entitlement that many students bring to a classroom today that comes as a direct result of that kind of thinking--"For $40,000 a year, I damn well better be getting an A." No. For $40,000 a year, you're paying for the opportunity to learn material that will further your career and, hopefully, yourself on a personal level. This whole idea makes me angry, and I'm not going to dignify it any further.
So, back to the very first question: "Are [grading curves] an admission on the part of the prof that they're shitty tenured teachers, or a passive aggressive dig at retarded students?" The answer is neither. Grading curves are an admission that a standardized grading scheme that is designed wholly independently of the material to which it is being applied does not adequately measure the outcome of students' time spent in the course. They serve to map actual performance on real material to an arbitrary scale, and they will continue to be used (by good and bad teachers alike) until the education system gets away from this silly idea that a single numerical scale can be applied to all types of learning, from math to art to music to creative writing.
[Edit] There's one more aspect to this that I can't ignore in good conscience. Another reason a course may be graded on a curve, particularly in the case of freshman-level introductory courses, is to meet quotas defined by the department. This is not a good reason, and completely defeats the purpose, but it happens. Many departments expect, based on historical data and desired matriculation statistics, that a freshman chemistry course with 700 students in it should contain ~10% As, ~20% Bs, 35% Cs, 20% Ds, and 15% Fs, and force the professor to conform to within a few percent of the desired figures. This case still doesn't match either of the two "options" presented by person1 above, though--this is a failing on behalf of the department, not the professor.