A.5 Grades and Other Inconveniences

A.5.1 Grading: the big picture

As it turns out, I have to produce a grade for your work in this course. Given that, I want to be sure that the grade reflects something useful: the level to which you showed proficiency with the content and skills that this course is about.

Things I don’t want this grade to reflect:

whether you had a bad day during midterms
whether a particular concept took a little longer to master
whether I decided a particular question was worth 3 points or 4 points

To this end, this course will be using a method called proficiency grading or standards-based grading. This sounds very fancy but what it comes down to is this: focusing not on a single test, or particular questions, or points (or half-points) – but on what you have demonstrated that you can do.

Your grade comes from two main components:

Engagement is about “statistician skills,” including communicating statistical concepts and results to others, asking questions about their work, and working together to produce knowledge. Engagement involves being a part of the community we’re building in this course – which is important in itself, improves your and your classmates’ learning of content, and prepares you to join the broader statistical community.

Content is about the specific topics we’ll address in this course, like “Bayesian posterior distributions” or “large-sample estimator behavior.”

Honestly, though, it can’t be more ridiculous than “My average is 89.4 so that’s a B+, but if I’d lost one point on that quiz back in Week 2 instead of two points, my average would be an 89.5 which rounds to 90 which is A-.”

I realize that this system may be new to you, and it may feel difficult to navigate at first. I’m happy to talk with you about all of this stuff – how you’re doing, pacing and scheduling, whether you’re on track to achieve your target grade, what you might want to focus on next.

A.5.2 Overview: How to Get an A (or Whatever)

Use this section as a quick intro (or reminder) for the grading system in the course. But be sure to read the more detailed sections below as they become relevant, or if you want more info :)

So, how do you get the grade you want in this course?

Prepare for each class by doing the reading and pre-class questions
Attend each class, and reflect on the class at the end with a wrap-up comment
Make an earnest attempt at the practice problems each week
Reach Excellent, Satisfactory, or Progressing proficiency on the required number of learning goals for your target grade
- This sounds vague for a reason :) Everyone has different study techniques that work well for them – and they may be different in different courses. If you’re not sure you’ve found yours yet, experiment! I’m happy to offer advice as well.
- Remember, you can re-attempt Assessments to try and improve your proficiencies if the first time didn’t go well!

In specific numerical terms, here are the proficiency counts you need in order to achieve each base grade:

Not to be a downer, but please do note that there are substantial requirements for a D minus/Pass base grade! This means that even if things come up and you decide you need to pull back to the ungraded option (it happens!), you still have to show proficiency with a fair amount of material – plus, your engagement has to be strong enough that it won’t drag your grade down below the D minus line.

Engagement credits aren’t something you can rack up in just a couple weeks at the end of the semester – it takes time. So even if you feel like the course isn’t going well, or isn’t your top priority, think about staying on pace with the material, and with your engagement, throughout the semester. Honestly, the course will be more interesting that way :)

For example, to attain a B minus base grade, you need E on two learning goals, S on twelve learning goals, and P on four learning goals – reaching some proficiency with all 2+12+4=18 of the goals. (Of course, it’s okay to “overachieve”: if you got 3 E + 11 S + 4 P, that would still get you a B minus, even though technically you wouldn’t have 12 S’s.)

In addition, you must also reach Satisfactory engagement to get a base grade of A minus or A. This is very doable, but you don’t want to leave it until the last minute; see details here.

Engagement modifier: The default level of engagement (Satisfactory) means there is no modification to your course grade – you get whatever base grade you earned based on Assessments and projects. Excellent-level engagement raises your course grade by 1/3 letter if your base grade is B or below; Partial-level engagement lowers your course grade by 1/3 letter. Engagement that doesn’t reach the Partial threshold may have a larger impact on your course grade.

A.5.3 Assessments

Content is assessed primarily using Assessments. These are individual activities that address the learning goals from a specific Module. You can think of them as quizzes if that makes you happy. Or don’t, if it doesn’t.

You may be given some specific work to do or problems to look at in order to prepare for an Assessment ahead of time, but the Assessment itself takes place during class, in a limited time block. This is because, while it’s important to practice “slow reasoning” and taking your time with deep problems, it’s also very important to be able to talk about your reasoning and results promptly and smoothly, once you have them worked out.

Each Module contains multiple learning goals; on the corresponding Assessment, you’ll see a separate grade reflecting your performance on each learning goal. Each one is graded as demonstrating one of four proficiency categories:

Excellent work shows a complete grasp of the topic or skill. Answers and reasoning are communicated clearly. This work is pretty much as good as it gets :)
- Excellent work can contain trivial errors that aren’t relevant. For example, an arithmetic error isn’t a problem in itself (this is not an arithmetic class, thank goodness). But it would be a problem if your statistical knowledge should have told you that the answer didn’t make sense, like if you calculated a probability to be less than zero.
Satisfactory work shows a solid grasp of the core of the topic or skill. There may be some small gaps or errors, or the wording/reasoning may be a little unclear, but the fundamental ideas are all there.
Progressing work shows a partial grasp of the topic or skill, but with some gaps that are pretty important. It might be hard to understand the reasoning or the results.
Non-assessable work doesn’t provide enough information to assess understanding. It might have significant omissions or so many errors that it doesn’t make sense to address each one of them.

So for example, on a given Assessment you might have an E/S/E, reflecting your different proficiency levels on the three learning goals for that Module. Each score of E, S, or P counts toward your course grade; see here for details.

Note that these ESPN levels are the only actual “grades” on these assignments. In certain places on Moodle or Gradescope, you may be able to see a numerical score, but those numbers don’t mean anything independently – they’re just arbitrary values because the system makes me enter a number. The letter is what counts!

The nice thing about Assessments, as opposed to “regular” quizzes, is this: you can almost always retry them Indeed, it’s normal to re-attempt some Assessments over the course of the semester – there are always going to be weeks (or concepts) that are tough, where that first attempt just doesn’t go as well as it could. This is part of that “built-in flexibility” thing! Generally, there will be a new Assessment every two weeks, and time set aside for retakes on the “off weeks” in between. In order to re-attempt an Assessment, you’ll request it via Google Form – including a short reflection about your previous attempt: what went wrong, and why it’s going to be better this time :)

Final Check: This is an end-of-semester activity that can draw on any of the material from the course. You’ll get more details about the Final Check later.

A.5.4 Engagement credit details

Engagement – helping to build a statistical community – is a vital part of the course. It’s assessed based on Engagement Credits. You earn credits by demonstrating your statistical communication skills and your contribution to the community.

The discussion below gets pretty detailed, but if you’d prefer to skip it, think of it this way. Standard engagement means you at least:

do the pre-class questions
attend class and post your wrap-up comments
attempt practice problems each week
put in a solid effort on your project
…but take a few days off at some point.

Do this and you’ll be fine: your engagement will not affect your grade. The rest of the rules and numbers are just there to provide additional flexibility, and reflect engagement that’s much stronger (or less strong) than that standard.

Another way to think of this is: if you do all the “automatically scheduled stuff” that you get assignment notifications for (pre-class questions, class/activity/wrap-up, practice problems, your little project), you’re fine: engagement will not affect your course grade. But if you miss out on any of the regular stuff (forget to do the pre-class questions, miss a day of class, turn in practice problems late, etc.) you can compensate by doing some posting to Topic Conversation forums.

Of course, you can also do Topic Conversation posting if you want engagement to improve your course grade :)

With that in mind, here’s the details:

Activities and credits

Here’s a table of the things that earn engagement credits. A point to note here is that most of these activities affect other people. Engagement isn’t just about you and your learning – it’s about how you contribute to the experiences of your classmates.

To earn credit, each activity has to be a respectable effort. Coming to class doesn’t count if you sleep the whole time; “lol same” doesn’t count as a substantive Topic Conversation post. (But saying something in a discussion post that turns out to be incorrect is fine – being engaged doesn’t mean always being right!)

Activity	Credits
Complete pre-class questions	1
Attend class AND submit wrap-up comment	2
Post to a Topic Conversation (up to 4 in a week*)	1
Submit practice problems on time (honest effort)	4
Submit practice problems up to 1 week late	2
Complete Project presentation**	2-10

There may also be special activities during the semester that could earn you engagement credits; I’ll announce them if any come up.

*That is, you can earn up to 4 of these credits in a week, for 4 substantive posts. You can also use your Engagement boost to earn credit for additional posts.

**The project presentation can earn you different amounts of engagement depending on how well it goes :)

Effects on course grades

Your engagement credit total is translated into a general engagement level, which then modifies your course grade (or doesn’t). The exact numbers are:

Level	Credits	Grade Effect
Excellent	180+	Add 1/3 letter
Standard	140-180	No effect
Partial	110-140	Subtract 1/3 letter
Nope	below 110	Prof’s discretion

A shorthand way to remember these thresholds is:

Standard engagement is doing all the “standard stuff” (attendance, PQs, project components and feeback, practice problems, decent effort on your project), except you completely peace out for a week (miss 3 days of class and 1 practice problem set)
Excellent engagement is Standard engagement, plus two Topic Conversation posts each week and a strong project (and you do all of the practice problem sets, though you can still miss a day or two)
Partial engagement is Standard engagement, except you miss 3 weeks instead of just 1
“Nope” is…less engaged than that.
- This generally translates into a larger subtraction from the course grade. But there are sometimes special circumstances, which is why it says “Prof’s discretion” – I decide what to do in these cases individually.
- Again, if you find yourself in such circumstances, please talk to me or a dean! We are here to help you get back on track, even if your goals have changed.

Of course, most folks don’t find themselves in one of those specific scenarios :) It’s more likely that you’d, say, forget to do the PQs or miss a day of class, turn in some practice problems late, do a couple of Topic Conversation posts because you have a question about something…it’s flexible, which means it can be complicated. That’s why I suggest:

Tracking engagement

The TAs/graders for this course have the job of keeping track of your engagement. This is not an easy task, especially when folks do lots of Topic Conversation posts or turn things in late. So I strongly recommend that you also track your own engagement, so that you can confirm your official totals and contact the TAs if you think anything is off.

Many people find it’s easiest to track your own engagement in the online spreadsheet, then share the link with the TAs as needed – this means you’ll also be able to see your engagement progress at a glance, and won’t have to wait for the TAs to post points on Moodle. But other folks prefer simply to create a text file each week listing all their accomplishments. (I recommend adding to it each time you do something, so you don’t have to go digging through your history at the end of the week!)

When you do your engagement tracking, be sure to include links to each discussion post for which you want credit. That way, if the TA misses one, you can just send the link, and the TA can easily find and confirm it. The easiest way for you to manage this is just to record the permalink to each of your posts right when you post it, so you don’t have to wade through all of the forums to find them later :)

A.5.5 Fine Print

There are a few extra rules that govern this system, both to make things more flexible for you and to keep the general workload under control.

Assessment timing: By default, Assessments are every other Wednesday. We’ll set aside a block of time at the end of class.
- If you have to miss a class during which you would take or retake an Assessment, contact me. If you’re able to do the Assessment in the next day or so, we may be able to set that up, rather than having to do it during a retake slot in a later week.
Assessment retakes: There are also seven pre-scheduled retake time slots, during “off weeks” when there’s no new Assessment.
- Yes, seven! That means there’s a retake slot for every Assessment, and also a bonus one. (The bonus one is about halfway through the semester: it’s designed as an extra catchup moment if you’re not on track for your goals.)
- To obtain a retake, you first have to reflect on how things went the previous time! What were the issues? How have you improved your understanding in those areas?
- Your reflection doesn’t have to be a big long essay – it can be in the form of bullet points. But it must be thoughtful and specific, not just “I didn’t do well last time but now I studied more.” Your job is to convince me that the retake is going to go better! If your reflection is too short or vague, I’ll ask you to resubmit it; you can’t do the retake until this is complete.
- To schedule a retake, you fill out the retake request form online. This is where you write your reflection about your previous attempt…and tell me which Assessment you want to retake, since I’m not psychic :)
- You must fill out the retake request form by the Monday night preceding the retake time slot, so that I have time to review your reflection and prepare a new version of the Assessment for you.
- There is no limit on how late you can attempt an Assessment for a particular module. If you want to go back and re-attempt the Assessment for module 2 in week 11, go for it!
- Third attempts on the same Assessment are sometimes possible, but they’re not guaranteed. If you’re requesting a third attempt on the same Assessment, you have to talk to me first, and you’ll need a very strong reflection in order to convince me that a third attempt is appropriate.
You have one boost that you can spend to increase your engagement credits, by getting credits for 4 extra Topic Conversation posts.
- You can spread these posts over multiple weeks if you like. By spending your boost, you could earn credit for 8 posts in a single week instead of 4 (the usual credit cap), or earn credit for 5 posts/week for four weeks.
- If you’re spending your boost in a given week, drop the TAs/graders an email about it, so they know to give you credit for all your posts!
No-class days: It’s very important to me that you (and, I hope, I) will feel able to take actual time off during college breaks and no-class days; but I also understand that some folks really like to get work done during those breaks. So there are a few adjustments to keep in mind:
- Of course, we won’t have class during breaks!
  - …but yes, spring break counts as a week for Topic Conversation posting purposes :)
- If we have a class session following a break, there will generally be pre-class reading/questions for it as usual. But I’ll try and keep this as minimal as possible, and make it available early, so that you do not have to do work over the break if you don’t want to.
- My appointment availability and email-checking times will be reduced over breaks and days off.

A.5.6 Actual numbers

Base Grades

Here’s my philosophy of what grades mean:

A C student could get by in the next Stats course they take, with hard work and getting help when needed. So the student has demonstrated a basic familiarity with the core topics of this course, some familiarity with non-core topics, and some practice with statistical communication.
- A D student hasn’t shown the level of mastery of a C student. They’ve demonstrated familiarity with some core and non-core topics, but there are major gaps; they’ve done minimal work on statistical communication.
A B student can do everything a C student can do, plus extra. They’ve shown stronger mastery of the core topics, more grasp of non-core topics, and solid statistical communication skills.
An A- student can do everything a B student can do, plus extra. They’ve shown a solid grasp of all the core topics and most of the non-core topics. They’ve consistently demonstrated an ability to contribute to the statistical dialogue to boost their learning and that of their classmates.
An A student can do everything an A- student can do, plus extra. They’ve shown a true understanding of the course concepts, how to adapt them to new situations, and how to explain them to others.

Your proficiencies on the course’s learning goals get translated into a base grade just by counting how many you have! Each grade (like “B minus”) has an associated number of E’s, S’s, and P’s that you need to achieve to get that grade. Here is a visual representation of all the thresholds:

Note that there are 6 Assessments, but each involves multiple learning goals. You have to take (or retake) an Assessment in its entirety, even if you’re only focused on one of the associated goals.

In addition, you must also reach Satisfactory engagement to get a base grade of A minus or A. This is very doable, but you don’t want to leave it until the last minute; see details here.

Modifications to Base Grades

Your base grade is modified based mainly on your level of engagement. The Final Check could possibly modify your course grade, although not by much.

The default level of engagement (Satisfactory) means there is no modification to your course grade – you get whatever base grade you earned based on Assessments. Excellent-level engagement raises your course grade by 1/3 letter if your base grade is B or below; Partial-level engagement lowers it by 1/3 letter. Engagement that doesn’t reach the Partial threshold may have a larger impact on your course grade.

A.5.7 Special cases

Ungraded option

This course is available to take on an Ungraded (credit/no credit) basis, if you are not a Math or Stat major. See the registrar’s rules on this here. If you take the course on an Ungraded basis, you can’t count it toward your distributional requirements. You have until Monday, April 8 to ask the registrar to switch your grading basis (or switch it back if you change your mind).

If you’re debating whether to take the class Ungraded, I’m always happy to talk with you about it (though you do not have to get my permission, or even inform me!). I will not Judge You for taking the course Ungraded; there are lots of reasons why this can be a good idea, and ultimately it’s about what is right for you as a person and a student.

If you’ve never taken a course Ungraded before, please note that you are the one who makes that happen! You can tell me about your decision if you want, but I don’t and can’t do anything to make it official. You have to edit your registration via the form on the registrar’s website.

I do not do anything different internally if you’re taking the course Ungraded (again, I may not even know about it). I calculate your grade in the usual way; a D- or higher counts as Credit, anything else is No Credit. One nice thing about our assessment system is that you can gauge your own progress based on the concepts and skills you’ve mastered; but I also encourage you to chat with me about how you’re doing, especially if you plan to go on to another Stat course.

As always, if you find yourself in extenuating circumstances, I urge you to talk to me or a dean or both. Depending on the situation, we can talk about options like work flexibility, alternative assessments, withdrawing from the course, etc.

A.5.8 Flexibility and exceptions

I’ve done my best to build as much flexibility as possible into the structure of the course. This is because it’s really important to me that your experience isn’t determined by whether you feel confident enough to ask for special treatment! My goal is to make it so that you can deal with other things that come up, work ahead, catch up, spend more time on topics that challenge you, and so on, without having to come ask me for exemptions and extensions – a process that’s inequitable, stressful for you, and extra paperwork for everybody.

If you look at the threshold values for base grades, you’ll see that even if you are aiming for an A in the course, you don’t need to have Excellent proficiency on every single thing. If you miss an Assessment or can’t do your best on it for some reason, there’s a retake slot waiting for you. There are few specific deadlines, except what’s necessary to make sure your classmates have a good experience (such as pre-class questions), and practice problems aren’t graded for correctness. And if you have a rough week and miss classes or practice problems, you can make up those engagement credits with discussion posting. All of those options are there, available to everyone – not just the folks brave enough to ask :)

That said: stuff happens to everybody, but sometimes big stuff happens. If big stuff happens to you, good or bad – if you are in a situation that’s going to strain things beyond the flexibility built into the course – please talk to me about it. This includes but is not limited to concussions, ongoing physical or mental health issues, personal loss, unexpected accessibility concerns, being asked to serve on the Nobel Prize Committee – anything major, or anything that may affect you for more than two weeks or so. You can also start by talking to a dean if you’d prefer (and I recommend talking to them either way: Big Stuff is probably going to affect your experience beyond this one class, and the deans’ job is to help you with that). Again, I want you to succeed in this course, and I will work with you to find a solution that helps you do that while handling whatever is going on.

And on the flip side: flexibility is powerful, but it’s possible to have too much of it. If you know that you work better with more structure (or if you discover this about yourself during the semester!), I can work with you on building one. We can also talk about other ways to handle scheduling, pacing (working ahead or catching up), and balancing this course with your other responsibilities. But you need to have this conversation early: there’s just too much stuff in this course to speed-learn it in the last few weeks of the semester!