Grading and Assessment

Assessment and grading can cause considerable anxiety for students, teaching fellows, and professors alike. So why test and assess? After listening to a lecture or watching a TedTalk video, we might feel that we completely understand the topic. But mere familiarity with content can provide a false sense of mastery. It is only through testing one’s knowledge — by applying it in problem solving, by teaching it to others, or by formal testing itself — that we truly gain mastery. Psychological studies have revealed that frequent testing is better for learning and retaining information than an equivalent amount of time spent studying.

Rationale

In the past iterations of this course, I administered two midterms and a final exam. I discovered that doing well on the high-stakes midterms became the focus of the course for too many students, causing them great stress. The midterms had also become a disincentive for non-majors to take the course. I also felt that the long intervals between midterms were encouraging, in some students, a pattern of falling behind in the reading and in understanding core concepts followed by intense cramming before each exam. This is a poor learning strategy, particularly since the concepts covered in this course build upon each other week to week.

Weekly assessments

My goal is to balance the workload across the semester to encourage steady engagement and learning and avoid the spikes in stress and effort at exam time. I will assess student progress with weekly quizzes. These quizzes will be administered during Section meetings.

Missing a weekly quiz

We will administer twelve weekly quizzes. If you miss taking a weekly quiz and have a dean’s extension, you may take a makeup quiz. You will be assigned a zero for that quiz if you don’t have a dean’s extension. However, we will use your top ten quiz scores to calculate your final grade. This means you can miss two weekly quizzes without affecting your grade.

If you miss a lecture due to illness, an athletic event, an interview, or other reason, it is up to you to make up that material. As I post notes and slides for every lecture and often post my recorded lectures, this should be straightforward. If you miss significant class time due to an extended illness, please have your dean contact me so that appropriate accommodations can be made.

Anatomical labeling or drawings

I will include some anatomical labeling (and require simple drawings) in some quizzes.

Final exam

Your ten highest-scoring weekly tests will compose 80% of your grade. I will also administer a comprehensive final that will account for 20% of your final grade. This will be a traditional closed-book exam given during the exam period. Before the final exam, I will hold one or more comprehensive review sessions.