- General
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Ideas
Better Rewards for Better Assignments
I have written several assignments myself. I always put lots of effort and time into my assignments and got the Outstanding score from all of them. However, after starting to grade the assignments of others and reading the assignment grading guide thoroughly I noticed that it was really easy to get the Outstanding grade. Basically the assignment grade is lowered when one fails to meet requirements, but as long as all the requirements are met and the sources are stated they get the perfect grade. This made me feel like I wasted my time carefully writing a detailed RPG post for my assignment whereas I could have gotten the same grade with merely several sentences.
So my proposal is this: There should be bonus rewards like house points, or more experience or galleons than usual, for those who go out of their way and make a real effort writing an assignment. This way the Outstanding grade can be achieved easily, but the extra time and thinking that was put into detailed ones also won't go unnoticed.
Customer support service by UserEcho
The issue with this idea (it's been suggested before) is that someone may not think enough effort or detail was put in to be rewarded those extra points, while others may reward them even for the slightest amount of detail. It's a personal opinion on what would deserve those extra points, so it wouldn't always be fair to all users.
There could be an automatic word count for each assignment, which would be a pretty objective way of showing the time put into it. People trying to get over the word limit by simply telling the same thing over and over again would not get extra rewards from the graders. If anybody thinks that they have not been awarded points they deserved (which is in this theory now regulated by the word count) then they would have the option to submit a complaint about it. And it wouldn't be possible for the graders to hand out extra rewards to everybody since the access to it would be limited by the word count as long as it's not met.
I absolutely agree with this! I have put a lot of time and effort into my assignments, but now that I've started grading, it's become so frustrating and frankly discouraging, because I'm obliged to give "Outstanding" to slapdash assignments that technically answer all of the requirements but are so, so poorly written and have clearly been written without any research or thought at all.
I would really like to see the system recalibrated so that those who submit outstanding work are properly rewarded for it - either through an additional bonus of some sort, as Cade suggests, or by recalibrating the grading scale so that you can only earn an "Outstanding" for truly excellent work.
I fully agree as well. I was shocked by how easy it is to get the "Outstanding" grade. Perhaps one should lower it the way that "fulfilling all the requirements" will get you "Exceeds expectations" or something, and then Outstanding is given for a more detailed and time consuming assignment. I am of course aware that it is very subjective, but that is why five people grade, and why you can complain.
I understand it might feel unfair if the homework you worked on also gets Outstanding as something which didn't show much effort. However judging homework by the length/word count for extra points is something I do not agree with. Length is generally not a requirement for homeworks. Some people might not have the capability to write 1000 word homeworks, that doesn't mean they do not put effort into it. Finding the answers to the questions already an effort made.
And although I believe people would love to get extra points/money for their homework if they overdid it, that judged by the users could be an abused power. What the graders can do however is to praise the homework in their feedback which makes the user who wrote the homework feel better.