A Flexible Formative/Summative Grading System for Large Courses
Albert Lionelle, Sudipto Ghosh, Márcia Cristina Moraes, Tran Winick, Lindsey Nielsen · 2023
Students in entry level CS courses come from diverse backgrounds and are learning study and time management skills. Our belief for their success is that they must master a growth mindset and that the final grade should represent their final mastery of topics in the course. Traditional grading systems tend to be too restrictive and hinder a growth mindset. They require strict deadlines that fail to easily account for student accommodations and learning differences. Furthermore, they run into averaging and scaling issues with 59% of a score counting as failing, making it difficult for students to redeem grades even if they later demonstrate mastery of topics.