Friday, February 10, 2012

The mustard seed approach to grading

Today I learned a new thing about grading.

What do you do if a student presents an algorithm in two ways, at a high-level and with pseudo-code, and if the two versions are different, one correct and one incorrect? Should one count the answer as correct or incorrect?

The "mustard seed" response: there's some good in there, so focus on what's good and count it as correct.

3 comments:

  1. I like the mustard seed approach that you take, but I have my worries. A student might make it a habit to present two versions for each problem where he/she is a bit unclear. What then?

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  2. The other day, in an exam, I had a situation similar to the following scenario.
    Question: how much is 2+2?
    Student's answer: 4 because the Earth is flat.
    How do you evaluate such things? They know the answer to the question but it is obvious that something is deeply wrong...

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  3. If the space of solutions is compact, then a student can (in theory) densely cover it and get the full mark without knowing the right answer himself/herself. Some complexity control is needed.
    (:

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