Extra Credit
Students are very motivated by "extra credit" allowing a small amount for creativity is a huge bonus for students. I like to apply it to the final exam score if they miss a few questions.
Rosa,
I'm with you. EC as a help to gain understanding, review material, or give practice is good idea. But I don't want to give EC to boost grades when students have missed assignments or do not know the material. No one benefits when points are given away for little more than boosting a grade.
Barry Westling
I like the idea of extra credit for when the students are finished up with class work and for extra help with understanding the project or assignment. I dont like it when extra credit is used to make up for missed work or if the student misses a lot of class time. My current employer does nto allow any type of extra credit work at all.
Kevin,
I believe when we focus our efforts on student learning, creativity will abound, and less emphasis on points and grades will emerge.
Barry Westling
Thank you for this post. Previously I have viewed extra credit as an easy out for students. I never thought about it as a way for students to show some creativity. I never like my students to know that extra credit will be offered. I don't mention it tip late in the quarter so students a focused on scoring well on regular class assignments.
Christine,
I agree that allowing for some independent creative demonstration of learning is a good way to measure successfulness. My interest is to measure learning. So I take care that any credit beyond what was established at the beginning of the course does not get out of hand and distort a grade to an artificially high level.
Barry Westling
