Grades

Grades

For first-year students the subject is pass/no record. In order to pass the course, your total weighted score on the exams, and final exam must be greater than a passing score, which is set by the instructors using the weighted passing scores for the tests and the final exam. The passing scores for the tests and final are determined after the exam through analysis of the intellectual content of the questions and how partial credit was given. It is the score that demonstrates the minimum mastery of the material that the instructors believe a student should achieve.

Hidden grades will be assigned. If everyone in the class does well, everyone can get an A. Grades (+/-) will be assigned based on your overall, weighted class average using the weighting scheme presented below.

Course Assessment and Evaluation

We are undertaking assessment and evaluation of the effectiveness of the TEAL Studio format for teaching first-year physics. The various evaluation methods to be used include pre and post-testing. The pre- and post-tests are part of the normal testing we do in the course to evaluate your knowledge of the subject. We anticipate publishing the results of this assessment and evaluation effort in peer-reviewed educational journals. No student will be identified by name in any of these published or unpublished studies-only aggregate statistics will be given-and strict confidentially will be maintained in the study results. If you do not wish to be associated with this assessment and evaluation effort, even anonymously, you may at the end of the term (after grades are assigned in the course) remove your results from the pool of student results. If you have questions about this study, please contact Dr. Peter Dourmashkin or Ms. Judith Medeiros-Adams (mede@mit.edu), Administrative Assistant to the MIT Committee On The Use Of Humans As Experimental Subjects (COUHES), Dr. Leigh Maxwell Firn, Chair.