Wow. This place is phenomenal.
I didn't really know what kind of help I needed... or what I was hoping to hear. But the variety of perspectives and suggestions have helped me to better understand the issues and options.
I truly believe that the teacher just didn't consider the weighted categories very carefully and that he might not fully comprehend the affect on the overall grading system.
In agreement with one common sentiment, I don't want this to be about my son's grade, which is why I want to mention it well before the semester... regardless of which of us brings it to the teacher. (And the more I read here, I think having him talk to the teacher is best.)
Yes, the teacher had the category weights in the syllabus at the beginning of the year. But the mere publicizing of what turns out to be a nonsensical strategy doesn't make it any less nonsensical, nor should any parent be prevented from calling attention to the mathematical problem when it surfaces. No reasonable person would expect three small assignments to be able to outweigh both a solid homework and solid assessment component. If there were a similar volume of work associated with the Map category, then I would be much less bothered by what I view as a careless decision.
(And, yes, most definitely, I do not want to earn a negative reputation as being one of
those parents!)
No way is it pedagogically defensible that a two page essay on a final exam has less impact on a student's graded performance than a single sentence during a class bulletin board discussion.
[. . .]
And really, how anyone can be confused about "My grade in this course is an A and not an A+ because I earned 9/10 on this rubric-based thing which was INTENDED to be a ten-minute assignment... and I have otherwise got a 99% in this course"??
I've got to work out a much less confrontational version of this that my son can comfortably wrap his mind around.
"WTH?? Are you high???" just doesn't set the right tone, and I realize that.
Good luck. DD has had the most luck with "I'm concerned that {assignment/category] isn't representative of my mastery of the course materials."
Looking back at the last few years, I think that I've required my son to tackle anything to do with grades, tests, assignments, etc., explaining that he needed to hone the skill while in M.S. where the grades didn't count like they do in H.S. I think he's developed a perfectly non-confrontational approach along the way.
[FWIW: Playing with the numbers is intriguing. Losing those two points on Maps has the same effect on his overall grade as if he'd simply chucked a full 60 points of his homework (40%) into the toilet or scored 30 points lower (20%) on his tests, neither of which seems fair/equitable/reasonable to me.]
So a hearty thanks to all... I'll certainly share the results. And in the meantime, I've forwarded your emails to my new Nigerian friend instructing her to split the money evenly with all of you!
