View Single Post
Old Aug 14, 2009 | 12:48 PM
  #15  
RB's Avatar
RB
snitches get stitches
 
Joined: May 2002
Posts: 49,696
Likes: 1
From: Portland, OR
Default

Originally Posted by Red X
Honestly i don't see the big deal with changing the syllabus half-way through. I doubt he did it just to 'get you'. The teachers here do shit like that all the time. They often times curve AGAINST you, and you don't know what your final grade will be until after the class is over. It depends on the distribution -- often times in a bi-modal distribution we have teachers who lower the high grades and raise the low grades to make it more bell shaped and less bi-modal.

The med school classes here curve you based on other students (which i find very reasonable if they average and throw out the outliers).
But at the same time, they'll usually tell you up front that they're curving based on other students. If you've established a certain rubric on which you're grading your students, they're commiting the the class. In most universities, once the class is half over, you don't have an opportunity to drop the class if you don't agree to the new grading criteria.
Reply