All of the components of the course grades have been posted to BB.

On the Final Exam, with only one exception that I see, everyone in
the class appears to have improved their position on exam points
(or, at least, not hurt themselves). Add your four exam scores and
divide by four to get your exam scores mean (average). Divide your
Final Exam score by two to get your percent score. Compare the two,
and see how the Final affected your grade.

It is rare to find someone going down significantly on the Final.
That is probably because anyone smart enough to go to college is
probably not stupid enough to prepare significantly less for a 200-
point Final than for a 100-point regular exam. Most people probably
do not do a whole lot more to prepare for the Final, even though it
is worth twice the points, so most usually score about the same as
they usually did. Some students will really maximize their efforts
and do significantly better on the Final.

I urge you to check the components for accuracy of recording. If
you have not already reported any errors that you found, please do
so right away. I have until the end of the day, Saturday to
officially submit the grades to TCC, so there is time to make any
necessary corrections. Or, if there is anything that I have not
already dealt with, bring it to my attention again. Provide a
detailed explanation of any suspected error. "I think there is an
error on my Assignment points." is not sufficient. DO NOT reply to
this message. Email me directly about anything I need to take
another look at.

Please note that there are three Participation subcategories (QoW,
Chat, and Disc List) with the maximum possible points available
shown for that category. They are simply there to show where your
Participation points were earned. Some students may have
accumulated more Discussion List points than are shown. That is
because once the student maxed out on participation total points, I
quit counting the points earned on the Discussion List. BB is not
counting the points earned in those categories in your "Total
Points". The total "Participation" category has a maximum of 100
points possible. Those points are taken from the other three
categories. BB is counting those points in your total points.
Everything else should be pretty much self-explanatory.

I must also remind you that you must subtract your lowest exam score
from the total points BB shows for you. You must also reduce the
Total points possible by 100 (798 - 100 = 698). BB is not able to
handle dropped exams, so you must do it manually.

TCC faculty are now able to directly post grades to TCC's SIS
system. I may wait until as late as Saturdayday to post the grades
to allow some time for any necessary corrections. Once the grades
are put into the SIS system, students can view them on the Student
Web. You can access the "Student Web" by going to the TCC home page
at: http://www.tulsa.cc.ok.us and clicking on "Student Web", or you
can access it directly by going to: https://sis.tulsa.cc.ok.us .
There is also a Student Web link on the entry page of BlackBoard.

Most successful college students usually monitor their performance
throughout the semester and do an analysis of their performance at
the end to see where they might do better in the future. That is
how they get better and better as they continue their education. To
help you do that, I offer the following information.

It looks like there will be two earned Fs in this class. It is
fairly uncommon to have anyone earn an F in my classes. Some
students received an F, but that is because they quit working in the
class and did not drop the course. I consider those to be "F By
Default", rather than "Earned Fs". The way I have designed the
course, it is quite difficult to earn an F. There are too many
opportunities for points that require only "doing" something and are
not even graded in any traditional manner. But, if even that is not
to your liking, anytime you feel you just cannot manage the workload
in a class, avoid an F by officially withdrawing from the course.
We do not like giving them any more than you like receiving them.

I would, by the way, be remiss if I failed to point out that
participation was on the short side by the entire class, and those
were easy points to get. It is always disappointing to witness
students committing academic suicide, but that is what those people
in the class did by not maxing out on the participation components
of the course. Only about 25% of the class earned 70% or more of the
Participation points. Participation points add up to a little over
14% of your grade (a little less than a letter grade and a half), so
to the extent that one did not max out on participation points, it
likely had a significant effect. With 75% of the class earning less
than 70% of the possible participation points, you have to know that
the outcome for them has to be a little bleaker. As much as a full
letter grade bleaker! In fact, everyone in this class who did not
earn an "A" would have moved up a full letter grade simply by maxing
out on the Participation points!! The lowest grade in this class
should have been a C.


You do not have to take my word for it. Check it out yourself.
Just subtract your participation points from 100. Add the
difference to your total points, compare that value with the grade
scale shown below, and see how much your grade would have changed.
Typically, in classes I have analyzed in past semesters, excluding
the students who earned an "A" or who earned almost all of the
participation points, almost every person in the class would have
walked out with at least one letter grade higher had they maxed out
on the participation points. Typically at least a few of them could
have moved up two letter grades just by maxing out on the
participation points. Plus, and of even greater importance, since
the participation components were intended to provide you with a way
to discuss the material that was likely to be on the exam, and
(hopefully) help you learn more and score higher on the exams, there
was probably a negative effect on exam scores resulting from the
lack of participation.

The quizzes (worth a total of a little more than half of a letter
grade) were much less of a disappointment. Two-thirds of the class
maxed out or came close to it. The rest of the class earned none of
the available Quiz points. The purpose of the quizzes was to help
you know whether you had mastered the material before taking the
exam (actually, before you attempted to do the assignments --
especially those that required knowing the material in the
chapters). Not taking all of the available quizzes is like flying
blind. If you did not come close to maxing out on the credit for
the quizzes, subtract your Quiz points from 38. Add the difference
to your total points, compare that value with the grade scale shown
below, and see how much your grade would have changed.

Assignments account for 8.6% of the points that count toward your
grade. That is nearly a full letter grade. On the assignments,
nobody in the class maxed out, and about 75% earned 10 or fewer
assignment points. If you did not max out on the credit for the
assignments, subtract your Assignments points from 60. Add the
difference to your total points, compare that value with the grade
scale shown below, and see how much your grade would have changed.
With only a few exceptions, those who did poorly on the referencing
in the assignments, also did not do much in the way of summarizing
the material. One purpose of most of the assignments was to help
you get prepared for the exams by getting you to focus on concepts
and information that was likely to be on the exams. There is almost
no way that a reasonably well done job on most of the assignments
would have failed to help the scores on the exams. That means that
there was probably a compound loss of points -- not only the loss of
credit for the assignments (again, more than three fourths of a
letter grade), but lower exam scores, too.

To see the effect of failing to max out on all of the non-exam
sources of credit, add up the differences on all three categories,
add that to your total points, compare that value with the grade
scale shown below, and see how much your grade would have changed.

If your response is that "There just is not enough time to do all of
that course work!", I would encourage you to go back to the Course
Orientation page and look at the advice taken from the TCC catalog.
Learning at the college level takes time, and if you overload
yourself, there is no way it is not going to have a negative effect
on your grades (and your physical and psychological health, in all
likelihood) and, more important, your learning.

In the future, you might want to bear in mind that the assignments,
papers, and other components of the grades that professors employ
are not there for the purpose of keeping you off the streets and out
of the bars (actually, though, not a bad idea if you think about it)
or to make your life miserable. They are there to promote learning
and increase your chances of success in our courses. I rely on the
stick and carrot approach, using the stick to hold the carrot out in
front of you, offering you points as a reward (reinforcement) for
doing what you need to be doing in the hope that you will try it,
see how well it works, and continue to use the techniques in the
future. As you move further down the education line, you should
probably not count on receiving that direct reinforcement. Fewer and
fewer of your professors will be likely to give you credit for such
things as quizzing yourself or discussing the material with your
classmates. More and more of them will be assuming that you have
already learned to do the kinds of things that help you learn and do
well in your classes.

While you have some time between semesters, I would strongly suggest
that you take the time to return to the "Assignments" page, click on
the "Study Skills" link, and visit some of those sites. There really
is a wealth of information out there to help you become a better,
more successful (and, ultimately, happier) student. Don't let it go
to waste.

On to the nitty-gritty.


To determine your percent score for the course on BB you will have
to add up the points in each category. Be sure to drop your lowest
regular exam score, and reduce the Total Possible Points from 798 to
698. BB cannot be made to do that automatically. Divide the sum of
your total points by the possible points (698). That will give you
the traditional percentage score.


I will be utilizing a 10% curve. The grade scale:
559 - 698 points = 80 - 100%= A
489 - 558 points = 70 - 79.9% = B
418 - 488 points = 60 - 69.9% = C
349 - 417 points = 50 - 59.9% = D
0 - 348 points = 0 - 49.9% = F





After everything is said and done, the class as a whole did not do
too terribly badly, though noticeably worse than most DevPsych
classes. I would have been pleased to have seen better. Except for
more Fs, we had a full range of earned grades, in a reasonably
normal distribution. Of course, most of us educators are never
truly satisfied with the performance of our students. If everyone in
the class earned an honest A, most of us would probably complain
about that "dummy" who made the lowest A, who could have done better
with just a leeeettle more effort.



It has, for the most part, been a pleasure.


Good luck, and good learning, in the future.