Regardless of what one’s major is, RPI students are here for primarily one reason: to learn. While a great deal of learning certainly goes on outside the classroom, classes form a foundation of what one learns here. Depending on the class, a professor will typically assign grades to students based on tests, quizzes, homeworks, and projects. Through all of these, however, what is often assessed is the student’s learning and mastery of the material. Since that is the primary purpose of classes, that certainly makes sense, but there are unfortunately some deviations from this ideal.
Of the courses I’ve been enrolled in, one particularly sticks out in this respect. Professional Development III is taught by the Archer Center and is required of all engineering majors. While the course certainly has content that is beneficial to those in the class, it should not be letter graded. Even so, if grades need to be assigned, they should not be assigned on the basis that they currently are. The course grade consists of five components: an individual presentation, two exams, a group project, and one’s ability to give feedback to others.
The first major component, the individual presentation, is what is often called a “60-second sell” or “elevator speech.” A 60- to 90-second presentation determines 25 percent of students’ final course grade, and the grading for this is done by either a guest from industry or a campus administrator. While the rubric tries to ensure scoring done objectively, the task inherently lends itself to subjective grading. Objective or not, a 60- to 90-second interval of time being made worth 25 percent of a course grade is quite ridiculus.
Forty percent of the grade is based on scores on two exams. The tests are multiple choice and basically require memorization of material presented in slides posted online and from classroom discussions. That said, there is no textbook for the class, and so when an instructor forgets to mention material, the student is likely to encounter it for the first time on the exam. In a situation like that, where multiple instructors are required to cover the same material that is not given to all students in written form, great care must be taken to ensure that all students have been exposed to the requisite material.
The problems with the exams, however, do not end there. When they are returned, only the answer sheets are given back, not allowing students to see what they answered correctly. In order to see that type of feedback, and actually learn from mistakes, a student has to make an appointment to meet with their instructor outside of class—the exam questions are never handed out to be retained by the students. If an exam is just there to generate grades, and mistakes made on it are not meant to be learned from, is there a point to the exam in the first place?
The last major component of the grade is determined by a group project. Every member of the group receives the same score worth 25 percent of their grade and everyone evaluates the other groups for an additional 10. With group projects though, there are almost always those who do a ton of work and those who do little of it; it’s completely unfair that everyone will end up receiving the same grade, regardless of how much effort an individual puts into it.
These types of problems, however, are not unique to PD3. There are several other courses that do not give exams back simply because the same questions are reused the following semester; since people often learn best from their mistakes, however, this is entirely the opposite of how things should work. Whenever and wherever grades and assessments are used, they should always be used to reflect and aid in the learning process.
