UGA Prof Lets Students Choose Own Grades for "Stress Reduction"

[Blackjack200]

Alternatives?

Expand the number of M1 seats and let in more people that have high MCATs.

 

[fskimospy]

Alternatives?

Cognitive testing, evaluation of prior work artifacts, etc.

 

[IronWing]

Expand the number of M1 seats and let in more people that have high MCATs.

Wouldn't that drive students and programs to focus on MCAT performance, e.i. teach to the test? Expanding the number of seats seems necessary regardless of admissions criteria.

 

[IronWing]

Cognitive testing, evaluation of prior work artifacts, etc.

Is there analysis showing that either of these methods are more predictive of performance than GPA? A case for switching to a more time consuming selection method would have to be pretty strong for schools/employers to make the investment.

 

[agent00f]

Holy balls. Apparently this is real. I couldn't believe it, but I've also post the web archived version from the UGA site itself:

https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=9551
https://web.archive.org/web/20170807163817/http://people.terry.uga.edu/rwatson/mist4610/

That such policies are even entertainable in today's world -- pretty crazy

It's basically a tradeoff between the value of critical evaluation and whatever some student can get out of supposed lower stress.

There's clearly no correct general answer to this if the goal is pedagogical since a grade doesn't teach much per se.

However it's pretty obvious that shit students would want to take advantage of it more.

 

[fskimospy]

Is there analysis showing that either of these methods are more predictive of performance than GPA? A case for switching to a more time consuming selection method would have to be pretty strong for schools/employers to make the investment.

Yes, I will have to look them up but from what I remember the evidence suggests they are much, much more predictive.

 

[snoopy7548]

At least this is only limited to one class. Seems like this professor is doing students a major disservice, namely these two items:

• If in a group meeting, you feel stressed by your group's dynamics, you should leave the meeting immediately and need offer no explanation to the group members. Furthermore, you can request to discontinue all further group work and your grade will be based totally on non-group work.
• Only positive comments about presentations will be given in class. Comments designed to improve future presentations will be communicated by email.

Good luck with those in an actual job. You can't just walk away from stressful situations and always expect positive face-to-face comments.

 

[agent00f]

I feel like most people are defending using GPA as a selection criteria because that's the way it's always been done. If it's actually strongly related to job performance then there should be a lot of research out there that shows it's one of the best ways of predicting future employee performance. From what I've read the research either shows no relationship or shows one that's far weaker than lots of other ways you could evaluate people.

If someone wants to show research with a strong correlation that explains a lot of the variance between applicants I'd love to see it.

That's mostly because GPA from different places/circumstances aren't comparable.

To a lesser extent it's because work performance has little to do with performing work of the complexity taught in school, nor terribly much the diligence that GPA mostly measures. That's why no high-minded evaluation will ever measure well.

 

[brycejones]

Wouldn't that drive students and programs to focus on MCAT performance, e.i. teach to the test? Expanding the number of seats seems necessary regardless of admissions criteria.

If they just teach to the test then I would assume that would sow up in lower performance once they are actually in the program. Part of the answer could be tying MCAT performance back to the schools and following the success of students from those schools through programs and making that information easily accessible. If the graduates of a given 4 year program score highly on the MCAT but suck once they are in medical school the data should be able to show that and be used as part of the evaluation process for admissions as well as helping students steer themselves to schools that prepare them to be successful in medical school.

 

[Creig]

This is simply the natural progression from everybody getting a "participation" ribbon.

 

[interchange]

My beef with this is not so much because I believe grades and GPA are particularly useful indicators of performance. I actually like a largely pass fail system or anything that prioritizes learning itself as the valued outcome.

But this policy doesn't do that. It prioritizes excusing performance based on "stress". Not that stress isn't real nor unfairly distributed. It's just that success in the outside world is defined by engaging in stress and tolerating it in order to find a better outcome.

And, in fact, the course is graded. It allows them to not do group work if they don't play nice with others and choose their own grade if they don't like the one assigned. Instead of removing an overvalued reward, it heightens the reward without any requirement of personal growth.

I wonder what kind of people are the result of constantly being given external rewards for lack of personal accomplishment and having given validation for the idea that when things don't go the way they want, it's ok because they were treated unfairly, and by the way here's your reward anyway?

Let's not make more dear leaders.

 

[Zorba]

Hence pass/fail or class rank. With pass/fail you're simply recognizing the GPA system is not useful and with class rank you would be providing an explicit statement of relative ability. Depending on what college and professors someone had a 2.5 at one college could be a 3.5 at another and if anything in my experience the fancier the school's name the easier the grading. Unless hiring managers are accounting for this, which they are very likely not, GPA is not providing useful hiring information.

Don't take my word for it, Google also considers it to be a near-worthless criterion:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/20/b...=0&smid=tw-nytimesbusiness&partner=socialflow

I could've passed every engineering class I took with little effort. Instead I put in a ton of effort and really learned everything so I could graduate with a very high GPA. I find for engineers, GPA is a very important metric. The part that might get you is many very high GPA people aren't great at the practical side or human interactions. But most people with a 2.7 also are significantly behind in knowledge and abilities than someone over a 3.3.

Now, I will agree that the difference between a 3.5 at one school and a 3.8 at another school probably isn't that important of a metric. The difference between a 2.8 and 3.8 is. But it shouldn't be the only thing you concern when hiring someone.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

Sounds like social justice warriors in the making by the way. Don't agree with another person's opinion in a group project? REVOLT! They are WRONG, and YOU are RIGHT! So who needs them? Leave them, don't compromise or come to agreements in life - Do YOUR thing and you will be a SUPER DUPER STAR and u wil git and A-Plus-Plus with a STAR on it and a participation trophy.

Sound a little familiar? Don't like someone speaking at the college that has an opinion that disagrees with you? What do you do? Do you attend and try to get a better understanding of their perspective and try to have a friendly debate of bringing up counter points? Of course not! REVOLT! They shouldn't be allowed to speak! Racist, Sexist, Anti-gay! Oh wait he is gay? Oh well, keep saying it anyways!

 

[interchange]

REVOLT! They shouldn't be allowed to speak! Racist, Sexist, Anti-gay! Oh wait he is gay? Oh well, keep saying it anyways!

Fake news! Witch Hunt! Sad! Covfefe!

Reinforcement of these dynamics works both ways.

 

[agent00f]

Sounds like social justice warriros in the making by the way. Don't agree with another person's opinion in a group project? REVOLT! They are WRONG, and YOU are RIGHT! So who needs them? Leave them, don't compromise or come to agreements in life - Do YOUR thing and you will be a SUPER DUPER STAR and u wil git and A-Plus-Plus with a STAR on it and a participation trophy.

Sound a little familiar? Don't like someone speaking at the college that has an opinion that disagrees with you? What do you do? Do you attend and try to get a better understanding of their perspective and try to have a friendly debate of bringing up counter points? Of course not! REVOLT! They shouldn't be allowed to speak! Racist, Sexist, Anti-gay! Oh wait he is gay? Oh well, keep saying it anyways!

This is simply the natural progression from everybody getting a "participation" ribbon.

Usually these sorts are better at promoting their self-interests.

 

[Zorba]

I feel like most people are defending using GPA as a selection criteria because that's the way it's always been done. If it's actually strongly related to job performance then there should be a lot of research out there that shows it's one of the best ways of predicting future employee performance. From what I've read the research either shows no relationship or shows one that's far weaker than lots of other ways you could evaluate people.

If someone wants to show research with a strong correlation that explains a lot of the variance between applicants I'd love to see it.

Got a link to some of this great research out there about how grades aren't a good indicator of success? I would really like to see what metrics they are using to define success. Many people with high GPAs aren't interested in management (lower salaries), are interested in teaching (lower salaries), get bored more easily (change positions more often). I'd really like to see some research that shows real productivity immediately upon starting a new job between and high and low GPAs in a STEM field.

As for Google, even if their culture and hiring pool wasn't vastly different than the mean, you still couldn't take the research from any one company and apply that to the whole. That would result in massive amounts of sample bias.

Google has the resources and the ability to go find the slackers that got a 2.0 in college because they were up all night programming their own game mods. But there are only so many of those people out there and most people who got a 2.0 in college did so due to being irresponsible or just not getting it. They are also recruit from top universities, to get into those universities you have to have high GPA and test scores in high school. So even if they don't notice a difference in college GPA, they would still be getting the second order effect of high high school GPAs.

 

[Victorian Gray]

Sorry to disappoint everyone but it ain't gonna happen:

"11Alive News contacted UGA, who verified that yes, indeed, this was true. They went on to say that Watson's directive does not meet their academic standards and that he has since taken it down."

http://www.11alive.com/news/local/verify/verify-can-you-pick-your-own-grades-at-uga/462792212

btw, are there a lot of "SJWs" doing business degrees these days?

 

[Moonbeam]

What decent person would want to compete for grades that are based on a curve. If you get an A that translates into value in life and win, it means somebody else loses out. Then you turn around and claim virtue over the losers you created.

 

[agent00f]

What decent person would want to compete for grades that are based on a curve. If you get an A that translates into value in life and win, it means somebody else loses out. Then you turn around and claim virtue over the losers you created.

Exactly, why do anything better than anyone.

 

[Maxima1]

Some colleges are doing away with grades altogether, which I'm pretty fine with. In my experience GPA is at least as strongly influenced by what courses you take, what professors you had, and what school you went to as it does the quality of your work.

If anything I think grades provide some sort of numeric assessment that provides a false sense of certainty. I mean if I showed you two candidates that appeared otherwise identical but one had a higher GPA how confident would you be that they were actually superior? In my opinion, not very.

Yes, many employers use it as a filter, and there is an obvious difference between colleges that employers already know. You have to take SAT/ACT, which is a proxy for IQ, and certain colleges will have stronger candidates with more extracurriculars and stuff. You have a different caliber of student depending on whose getting in.

I wouldn't go as far as this guy but I would support making all classes pass/fail. Or, if you want to go the other way, grade by class rank in every class. The current system is not a useful metric for measuring ability so it's hard to get mad if people ignore it.

Pass/fail is ridiculous What you do is reform the stupidity of extremes between instructors. I've noticed this A LOT. It's okay if standards are different between colleges. I've noticed state can be easier in a lot of cases vs.cc's, then community college (in middle for prep for either state or tougher schools), and then flagship schools the hardest.

 

[Maxima1]

Also, in a lot of cases in regards to online classes, this is essentially already done! In MANY classes, all the answers to the timed tests/quizzes are online. These classes even transfer to UC's and other top-tier colleges.

 

[interchange]

What decent person would want to compete for grades that are based on a curve. If you get an A that translates into value in life and win, it means somebody else loses out. Then you turn around and claim virtue over the losers you created.

Grades do not have to be assigned based purely on performance relative to peers in your specific classroom.

Regardless, if the losers attended the class with full knowledge of such a grading rubric, would the winner have created the losers? Would it be them claiming virtue? Seems to me that part was negotiated prior to enrollment, and the losers are equally responsible for their loss and establishment of the winner's virtue.

 

[agent00f]

Grades do not have to be assigned based purely on performance relative to peers in your specific classroom.

Regardless, if the losers attended the class with full knowledge of such a grading rubric, would the winner have created the losers? Would it be them claiming virtue? Seems to me that part was negotiated prior to enrollment, and the losers are equally responsible for their loss and establishment of the winner's virtue.

This is how to put it intelligently: sports are the devil's work.

 

[Moonbeam]

This is how to put it intelligently: sports are the devil's work.

Of course. Competitive sports are hideous.

Grades do not have to be assigned based purely on performance relative to peers in your specific classroom.

Regardless, if the losers attended the class with full knowledge of such a grading rubric, would the winner have created the losers? Would it be them claiming virtue? Seems to me that part was negotiated prior to enrollment, and the losers are equally responsible for their loss and establishment of the winner's virtue.

You were hooked into that game before you entered school. Our whole culture of centerless people is based on grading each other in categories that are meaningless. We invent as many as we can to accommodate all manner of those who have nothing to feel good about.

Have you ever read the experiences of early teachers when they first taught those poor hapless ignorant savages in Polynesia. The kids wouldn't either not answer questions or they would all raise their hands together. In the west we have specialized in hating ourselves so badly we really need to feel special. This educational technique is a tiny attempt to return to a better mental place. You surly see that hatred of others and personal feelings of failure are twins. Imagine the kinds of neurotic psychopaths a teacher like agent would produce with him as a judge of excellence. I do not see mental health as being successfully adjusted to a sick culture.

But there is little to be gained arguing this point in my opinion. The unconscious cultural assumptions of Americans in this area is massive. You might as well try to explain water to fish.

 

[interchange]

This is how to put it intelligently: sports are the devil's work.

Of course. Competitive sports are hideous.

You were hooked into that game before you entered school. Our whole culture of centerless people is based on grading each other in categories that are meaningless. We invent as many as we can to accommodate all manner of those who have nothing to feel good about.

Have you ever read the experiences of early teachers when they first taught those poor hapless ignorant savages in Polynesia. The kids wouldn't either not answer questions or they would all raise their hands together. In the west we have specialized in hating ourselves so badly we really need to feel special. This educational technique is a tiny attempt to return to a better mental place. You surly see that hatred of others and personal feelings of failure are twins. Imagine the kinds of neurotic psychopaths a teacher like agent would produce with him as a judge of excellence. I do not see mental health as being successfully adjusted to a sick culture.

But there is little to be gained arguing this point in my opinion. The unconscious cultural assumptions of Americans in this area is massive. You might as well try to explain water to fish.

You both seem to have mistaken my challenge of @Moonbeam 's statement as some sort of advocacy for or against such a system. I had no such intent.