Course Contract
In most learning situations in life outside of school, grades are never given. The learning that occurs in cooking, dance, or yoga studios do not use any grading. Why? In these “studio” cases, it seems meaningless to give students grades, and yet without any grades, those students get better at yoga, dance, and cooking. Why are grades meaningless in those settings but seem so important in a school setting?
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Using conventional grading structures to compute course grades often leads students to think more about their grade than about [their learning]; to worry more about pleasing a teacher or fooling one than about figuring out what they really want to learn, or how they want to communicate something to someone for some purpose. Additionally, conventional grading may cause you to be reluctant to take risks…It doesn’t allow you to fail…which many suggest is a primary way in which people learn from their practices.
Asao Inoue, “160W’s Grading Contract”
For many of the reasons highlighted above, this course implements a grading contract. This contract is
informed by both classroom and real-world experience; very often the most transformative moments for
learners happen outside of traditional "yes"-"no", "right"-"wrong" structures. As such, your instructor has
little interest in adjudicating absolutes. Given that your instructor largely learned by producing unsatisfactory
and incorrect work, so will you. Except, you have an advantage: you can always try again. In the professional world,
“do-over”s are limited. If you accept this invitation and make every attempt to improve, your work will
merit the credit it deserves.
Grading Philosophy
Section titled “Grading Philosophy”Rising to the level of above-average or exceptional work relies on the just that: above-average or exceptional work. This contract should provide incentives to think beyond mere sufficiency. As you’ll see below, work that aspires to higher levels of reward involves digging into the high-effort details that make modern web design workable. Often, this means going beyond completion and achieving high levels finishing quality.
Evaluation
Section titled “Evaluation”This course contemplates three (3) primary ways of achieving learning objectives and outcomes:
Weekly
Bi-weekly
Months-long, with interim due dates
Assessments
Section titled “Assessments”Weekly
Assessments represent short, targeted activities which evaluate learning on a specific core topic. These will represent short technical interview components such as oral questions, short technical problems (solvable within shorter periods of time), or requests to speculate on solutions to given design problems. While these may be somewhat cumulative (i.e., can incorporate previous content), their main goal is to examine understanding of topics recently completed within the prior week’s time. The majority of these will be individual assignments, though some may be collaborative. The instructor will distinguish between these when assigning the challenge(s).
Challenges
Section titled “Challenges”Bi-weekly
Longer-term technical challenges intend to simulate a “take-home” interview assignment. When assigned, each of these challenges will be due one (1) week from the day they are assigned. These will occur every other week in the course and evaluate learner’s grasp of content from that time period. The majority of these will be individual assignments, though some may be collaborative. The instructor will distinguish between these when assigning the challenge(s).
Project Benchmarks
Section titled “Project Benchmarks”Monthly
The main goal of this course is to enable you to complete a single larger-scale personal portfolio project. Students may choose to display other types of projects from discplines including, but not limited to, computer science. While this project occurs over the course of the entire semester, there will be periodic benchmarking assignments to assess student progress on the various planning and building tasks inherent in creating a complete, polished, personal website. These benchmarks will be due on a monthly basis. This project constitutes an individual assignment.
Grading Schedule
Section titled “Grading Schedule”| Grade | Avg. Project Attempts | Avg. Challenge Attempts | Avg. Assessment Attempts |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| A- | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| B+ | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| B | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| B- | 1 | 3 | 3 |
| C+ | 2 | 3 | 4 |
| C | 2 | 4 | 4 |
| C- | 2 | 4 | 5 |
| D | 3 | 5 | 5 |
This course incorporates effort and process as its main evaluative metric. As such, you are encourged to make as many attempts as you wish to complete assignments. The number of attempts needed to pass each benchmark will be averaged and rounded down.
Achieving Benchmarks
Section titled “Achieving Benchmarks”To successfully achieve a benchmark, students must complete all requirements of an assignment. These will follow either a rubric or a set of Gatorgrader specifications. For example, challenges and assessments like presentations or interviews will follow published rubrics; challenges which require technical implementations will include automated grading specifications. While this distinction is not wholly representative of the various kinds of assignments in this course, be aware that each assignment will be accompanied by a set of grading specifications, known to students at the time of assignment.
Averaging Benchmark Attempts
Section titled “Averaging Benchmark Attempts”Benchmark averages will be calculated over the course of the semester, rounding down, using increments
of .5 as the rounding factor.
For example, a student with the following profile:
| Grade | Avg. Project Attempts | Avg. Challenge Attempts | Avg. Assessment Attempts |
|---|---|---|---|
| B | 1.45 | 1.85 | 3.3 |
would be evaluated as having achieved a B letter grade in the course.
Incomplete benchmarks
Section titled “Incomplete benchmarks”In the case of an incomplete benchmark, students will be assessed as having taken 6 attempts to complete it. This
evaluation will be incorporated into the average calculation of a student’s progress toward a given metric.