Should Professors Stop Grading on a Bell Curve?

[Lawpy]

Calc based physics is not hte same as algebra based physics.
At my school there's Physics I, II , and III for physics majors. Everyone else in physics heavy major ( math, physics, chem) had to take the " real" physics I. ( not II or III)
Life sciences and Bio gets to take two semesters of "General physics " I and II.
You take it right after orgo, which makes it seem like a piece of cake, unless you're super lazy or are bad at math.

we are talking about upper-level physics.

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[mwsapphire]

I just wanted to give my two cents on physics at my school, it seems like a merciful system that not many schools have. I know you meant advanced physics specifically.

 

[Lawpy]

I just wanted to give my two cents on physics at my school, it seems like a merciful system that not many schools have. I know you meant advanced physics specifically.

i think i had a similar scheme. calc-based physics for physics majors (which taught something on Python), calc-based physics for engineers and math majors (which was by far the hardest physics sequence possible), and the lame, watered-down algebra-based physics for biology majors/premeds.

personally, the engineering based physics courses were really hard although i suspect they were designed to weed out the engineering majors. the calc-based courses for physics majors were designed as an introductory survey for the list of things to know before tackling the upper levels, and so were usually easier than the engineering series.

 

[freak7]

i think i had a similar scheme. calc-based physics for physics majors (which taught something on Python), calc-based physics for engineers and math majors (which was by far the hardest physics sequence possible), and the lame, watered-down algebra-based physics for biology majors/premeds.

personally, the engineering based physics courses were really hard although i suspect they were designed to weed out the engineering majors. the calc-based courses for physics majors were designed as an introductory survey for the list of things to know before tackling the upper levels, and so were usually easier than the engineering series.

Stats for engineers was awesome though.

 

[Lawpy]

Stats for engineers was awesome though.

yeah thanks to those courses, i no longer have the need to rely heavily on stat tables for inferences! just go to matlab, calculate the cdfs and get the p values needed from there.

and of course you can do all those stuff via R, Stata, Sas, and other statistical software packages.

 

[freak7]

yeah thanks to those courses, i no longer have the need to rely heavily on stat tables for inferences! just go to matlab, calculate the cdfs and get the p values needed from there.

and of course you can do all those stuff via R, Stata, Sas, and other statistical software packages.

I like how this thread accidentally just came full-circle and now we're back to talking about distributions.

 

[mwsapphire]

We are such nerds.
On an unrelated note, doesn't a bell curve only really benefit people on the extreme ends though? And people in the middle don't get helped as much? Or is that just me?

 

[freak7]

We are such nerds.
On an unrelated note, doesn't a bell curve only really benefit people on the extreme ends though? And people in the middle don't get helped as much? Or is that just me?

It only benefits people on one end.

 

[enchantediris]

I dislike forced bell curve grading. I actually had to convince my PI (who is teaching a class to freshman premeds) not to use a straight bell curve in her class... I did the math and in her small class of 20 students, only a max of 2 students would have recieved an A (if you rounded up). That's such a lose-lose situation for both the premeds freaking out about their grades, and her for her class reviews...

 

[leonardoson]

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