The world doesn’t owe you a B+

Ten pointers on my grading philosophy.

Every year at the end of the term, I engage in a dance of sorts with some of my students. Every term, for the 29 years I have taught, I write a personal note explaining why they didn’t deserve that B, B+, A- or A.

While most students get it, some can’t understand why I am being so hard about those additional 3 percentage points they need to turn their B- into a B.

To be fair, while I teach close to a hundred students a term, there are only one or two who fall in this group. Most get it on the first pass. But there is always one, every year, who doesn’t.

This year I decided to commit my thoughts to medium so that I could refer them to this note, at the start of the term.

This is the expanded edition of grading philosophy for the three courses I will be teaching this term.

One. The purpose of education.

As instructors when we design a course we start with learning objectives. Learning objectives are a mix of lessons, concepts and skills. What are the four things students should take away from this course? What are the two skills they must acquire to receive a passing grade? Collectively how would the answer to the two questions above and this course change their future behavior?

Course materials are not just limited to class room instructions. They also include additional readings, references, datasets, exercises and assessments. They are all designed to help the cohort we teach achieve the learning milestones for the course.

A student can only pass the course if they have met the core learning objectives. If they don’t, then it is our fault as instructors.

Here is one recent example.

The final assessment for ITC course was design of an 8 bit CPU with 16 bytes of memory with capability to execute a combination of 4 instructions.

A key learning lesson here is the ability to execute and trace instructions in a generalized form. Using memory as the tape from Turing Machine. It helps understand the fetch, decode, execute and writeback cycle. It is a key lesson because for many of us as students, this was the point where we fell in love with computer science.

The course materials for this lesson were two you tube playlists, a spec sheet for the 8 bit CPU and 6 x 2.5 hour lectures including two online tutorials.

If you hardcoded execution to a memory location, over wrote memory that hosted the original instruction, did not understand the instruction set architecture, short circuited the control unit, could not trace instruction execution, could not explain how you would extend the instruction set architecture, could not explain how you would handle overflow, did not implement a memory management scheme, or caused a data bus conflict, you failed the assessment for that lesson.

If you failed this one assessment, you can forget that A, A- or B+ grade. This is a core lesson. I can’t give you that grade if you didn’t get it.

How did we assess it? We give you a custom assembly language program to execute using your CPU design. Then we asked you to trace the execution and explain why things happened the way they did. Or didn’t happen? The assessment was also a teaching moment. Because it helped connected the dots you may have missed while working on the project.

Note to unsuspecting students. If we teach building an 8 bit CPU in Logisim in the first course for freshmen CS, imagine what a series 300 or 400 outline does.

Two. Class participation. (CP)

Nothing causes more heartache than this one component of the course grade. Here is what the class participation points are for:

Equated to the quality and depth of your contribution to the learning process and not just quantity of meaningless comments. Quality is determined by a comment, question or feedback that improves the learning environment of the class, allows your peers to better understand a point or encourages the instructor to explain the concept in more relevant and applicable terms.

You don’t have to speak in every class. But when you do speak, you have to make it count.

My favorite examples are on the fly assessment questions that I pose in the classroom. Typically in a class of 50 students about 4 get it right. Repeatedly. These are the students who scored 7's, 8’s and 9’s out of 10 in CP.

How do you execute a MOVE instruction in RISC architecture by reusing the ADD instruction? How do you mark a sheet of paper with the most rectangles in less than 30 seconds? How do you reduce the clock cycles required to execute the ADD instruction? How do you compress this nested for loop into more efficient design? How do you handle or read overflow on the execution of SUB, especially when B > A? How do you implement SUB with a XOR gate? Did you actively fight group think?

Sometimes students pose a question that stumps me and I have to tell them that I will get back to them. These are the 9’s and 10’s. Sometimes they ask a question that leads to very insightful discussion in the classroom on a core topic.

You have to be in the class for you to have a shot at these opportunities. You have to be pay attention, you have to come on time, you have to participate, you have to answer questions. So yes, while attendance may not be mandatory, absences do have an impact on your CP score. So does spending all your time on your phone in the class.

Three. Baseline performance.

One of the most common reason I receive to upgrade a grade, is: “I worked so hard in this course or this project, I deserve those extra points.”

I have a simple response. I have worked very hard for 32 years in technology and consulting industry. Not once in those 3 decades did a client clear an invoice because we worked hard or felt we deserved to be paid.

They would only look at the invoice, let alone process it, once we shipped something that met client expectations. And sometimes client expectations were not even covered in the original scope of work.

A university education is expected to help you hit the ground running in the real world. Learning what it takes to get paid is part of that education.

It is an important lesson. Ship as per expectations if you want to be paid or score a stellar grade.

Just working hard doesn’t cut it. Hard work by your definition may not be hard work at all. The minimum time required to ship a functional 8 bit CPU using Logisim was 40 hours. If you didn’t hit 40 hours, you didn’t meet the minimum requirement to complete the job.

Four. On expectations. The world doesn’t owe you a B+

No one owes you a B+. A grade is not a reflection of how hard you worked. It is a reflection of how well you understood the lessons and takeaways from the course. Also how well you were able to put them to work in your individual assessments.

Each course has a instructional design. This is what we use for setting up instructor expectations. Here are the three rules of instructor expectations that you must remember.

One. If you meet instructor expectations, you are guaranteed a C.

Two. If you exceed expectations, you will score a B.

Three. If you deliver outstanding exceptional work that is far ahead of your peers and classmates, only then do you score an A or A-.

Five. Why am I here?

I am here to teach. I am not here to baby sit your GPA.

I get paid to do two things.

a) Help you become a better professional. Here better defines a candidate who can hit the ground running the day they are hired.

b) Assess and provide feedback on your performance so you can improve yourself.

Feedback is a gift. It is part of continuous self improvement loop required to extend your performance envelope.

Each assessment is an opportunity for you to self reflect, introspect and grow. There is no growth without acceptance and acknowledgement that you fell short of the standard.

Why did what happened, happen? How do I fix it? What do I need to change to improve my performance? More problem sets? A wider net of study material? MIT OCW? Tutorials? One on one sessions with instructors or teaching assistants? A different approach to prepare for assessments? A focus on understanding, comprehension and applications, rather than rote learning?

If your grade is not at par with standards required to be on the dean’s list, perhaps the problem is with you and not with the assessment design. Focus on your performance envelope and how you can extend it rather than why your grade does not reflect the effort you thought you put in.

Assessments get harder as you progress in the course. The first month is easier. Each following month is harder. This is by design. As your performance envelope expands so does the difficulty level of assessments.

Six. Second guessing.

Are instructors always right? No. Can we make mistakes? Yes. Do we sometimes get blind sided by our biases? Yes. Are we aware of our flaws? Yes. Do the grade we assign perfect, accurate and completely free of errors? No.

Having said and acknowledged all of the above, your assessment of your classmates and peers is very different from our assessment of your classmates and peers.

With all due respect when it comes to independent assessment, you were not in the room when they were being assessed.

“I did all the work while they “did not work / cheated / lazed about / fooled around / wasted time” throughout the semester. And yet they have scored higher than I have.”

When we assess one hundred students a term, there are always some who get away with what you would perceive as an unfair grade. But there are two minor flaws in your thinking.

One, your perception of them as a cheats or non-contributors. Are you absolutely sure about that? Just because you think they fit a certain profile in public, do you know for sure they have the same profile in private?

You weren’t really there in the room for that final viva / assessment, so how can you be so sure? And if you are not, do you know what you are guilty of?

Two, our ability to assess candidates as instructors. Your final grade is a collection of multiple components. The only way to score a stellar or exceptional grade is to perform consistently across all of them. You can’t skip or cheat across all of them.

We are very sure of the As and A-s. As we are sure of the Fs and Cs. The Bs are always troubled ground and open to some subjective assessment.

Yet when we see this statement comparing your performance to someone else in the class that you have decided to look down upon, it seals our view about your position.

This isn’t about your assessment. This is about our assessment. Our assessment that rated someone higher than you did.

What does that say about you? This isn’t about your grade. This is about your ego. You can’t handle the fact that someone you thought was a lessor mortal has managed to score an extra point over you.

Perhaps the issue is with your own personal assessment, not ours. If you can’t handle the truth, work extra hard next time.

Second guessing implies that you know better than three decades of teaching, instruction, and assessment experience. And for most professors with rich industry backgrounds, decades of recruiting, interviewing and employment experience.

You. Don’t.

I had a 2.79 graduating GPA in my CS undergrad because every term I took 2 actuarial exams in addition to a full semester load of courses. My instructors knew this. My classmates did not.

When not distracted by actuarial exams my GMAT score was 94 percentile measured against a global cohort and I made the Dean’s list at Columbia in a cohort of 1100 students.

Seven. Your historical track record.

“I have always been a straight A student. I can’t understand why you have given me a C in this course.”

The biggest difference between high school education and university education? University education is not focused on grades. It is focused on acquisition of real world skill sets. The ability to solve problems you have not seen before using first principles. This means that you need to be able to learn material, build internal models and then use those internal models to solve general problems that have not been covered in the classroom.

Not everything you will get assessed on, will get covered in the classroom. Good instructors will rarely assess you on what they have taught you in the classroom. They will assess you on generalized applications. Good instructors will always push the envelope so that you can learn to think. Great instructors will give you questions you won’t even know where to start on.

Why? Because that is how you learn to think. By thinking.

As instructors we are not here to measure and grade you on high school performance. It doesn’t matter how well or not well you did in your prior life. All that matters is your ability to master the materials we teach in the current course and your ability to apply it.

Your personal history gets no mileage in your final assessment.

Eight. Submitting someone’s work as your own.

You are here to learn, not cheat. I am very clear on this. I have zero tolerance for this.

You are welcome to try but if you get caught, you won’t get a zero in your assessment, you will get a straight F in the course. Remember, it is easy to get away the first few times, but ultimately as you rise higher, the odds move against you. The short cuts lead to dead ends.

If the case deserves worse than an F, then academic misconduct proceedings. It’s not worth it.

If you don’t learn this here at school in a low personal cost environment, you will learn it in real life soon enough where the penalties are going to be much higher.

Short cuts circumvent the objective of education and are the worst possible form of self harm. You didn’t pay expensive tuition to get your ticket stamped. You paid it to improve and grow yourself.

Nine. The difference between champions and “also-rans”.

Talent, certainly. But talent isn’t enough. There are three additional secrets.

One, marginal improvement. Two, want and commitment. Three, distance between the winner and the runner up.

First, marginal improvement.

I personally know two world class athletes. The first is in the global top 30 ranking for her sport in her age group. The second will be in the next 5 years. The common theme between the two. They started training for their events before they turned 8.

Every year they climbed higher in their regional ranking. Every year they worked their ass off. Every year they improved by a small bit. Over a decade marginal improvements compounded.

This year one student came up to me at the end of the first month. Struggling with the course materials he asked for help. He came from a non-CS background and had no context or background of the field prior to this course. I suggested and proposed an advance graduate text book that I really liked. I told him it was a stretch but it would help him get over his handicap. Improve every day by a small amount.

He did. When he first came to me, he was on track to score a B-. When he was done at the end of the term, he finished with an A.

Which brings me to the second secret. Want and commitment.

How many 8 year old do you know who want to be world champions? How many 8 year old do you know who want it and are willing to work for it?

Give it the commitment it deserves. Wanting exceptional performance isn’t enough. You also have to commit to it. So commit.

Going back to talent. One of the smartest student in my class ended the term with an F. Three more ended with a C. About ten ended with grades not accurate reflection of their potential, promise or brilliance.

Clearly being intelligence and being gifted isn’t enough. You have to back it up with consistent hard work. Burning the candles at the end of the term isn’t consistent. Looking for unsanctioned shortcuts isn’t hard work.

This has been a trend across thirty years. The most intelligent students in my class sometimes end up with a C. The most consistent end up with an A. The laziest end up with an F.

Three, distance from the runner up.

In every competition, everywhere in the world, from global stage to city championships, referees, time keepers, judges, play favorite. It’s the competitive world’s worst kept secret. The competitive world is not fair.

How do you fight it? By being so far ahead of the competition that there is no room for foul play. There is no doubt about you being in a class of your own. This is the only way to survive at the top. If it is a photo finish, you have already lost.

I may be a horrible instructor. The course maybe a terrible course. Our execution may deserve a Razzie. The labs may not work. There may not be enough TAs. The instructions for your assignments may not be clear. All this is par and expected.

You have an obligation to educate yourself. Irrespective of the odds. You have an obligation to standout, irrespective of how awful a job we do.

And the best of you always do.

Ten. The fallacy of an F.

Every F and a C is a mark of failure on our part as instructors. We failed you. It’s that simple. No excuses.

We failed to inspire you, motivate you and teach you. Which is the reason why some of us take Fs so hard. Also the reason why we try to avoid them as much as possible. This is not true for all of us but is true in general for most of us in the field of education.

Every F is a blemish, a stain on our teaching careers. A reminder of our failure as instructors.

We. Failed. You.

Given that, you have to work extra hard and go out of the way to get an F in my courses. This is not a joke. I mean it.

How do you avoid an F?

Swim, don’t float. You are in the pool to learn to swim, not to float. So swim.

Each week in the term is a lap. Swim in every lap. Don’t float.

If you only swim in the last two laps, it is the most certain path to an F. If you swim in every lap and are still lagging behind, focus on your technique. If you get tired midway, focus on your stamina. If you are still missing the gang in the front by a mile, train harder, smarter and more often. If all else fails, cross train on the weekend. All the world champions do.

There is no path to a good grade that does not require you to swim, improve on the fly and put in consistent hard work.