Blog Assignment # 8

All posts are due by April 2nd, 10pm.
All comments are due by April 3rd, 9am.

1. Write for 10-15 minutes about writing a research paper and how it might be different from writing academic essays, which is what you have been doing so far this semester. Use examples to support your ideas.

2. Read your classmates' posts.

3. Comment on one post.

Yulia Smirnova Blog # 7

I think that hard classes are better. Because when you have easy classes,you don't study so well, you don't do your homework every time,you are always relax. However when you have hard classes all the time you try to make yourself better in these classes,try to understand everything, you do all your homework, try to do your best. I think so, because last semester I had harder that this semester. So I know that last semester was more active and difficult. But now I have more free time,I feel like I became a little bit lazier.I have more time to talk with my friends, to go out, to sleep, to eat. My life became slowly. Also last semester I studied more. So the first thing that I will do next semester I will take hard classes.

Andrew Kim "Assignment #7"

Harder class is sometimes frustrating, but it can be better for ourselves.

I'm taking American history class which is very challenging. In the beginning of semester, many of my friends asked me "Are you serious? Why don't you take that in another school?" The course that i'm taking is notorious for its huge amount of readings and writings even though it is 103 level course. Each week, I struggled with readings and most of time ended up with finish less than half of the assigned readings. I felt like being tortured first several weeks, because i couldn't say any words about the books in discussion class.

I was once thought about become historian, and was good at multiple choice world history. But everything was totally new to me in this short period of American history. It broke my arrogance and made me work hard. As a result, nowadays I feel like i'm learning something. Today i'm done with my history mid-term, which was divided into two day exam. (identification of terms on 3/17, three short essays and one long essays on 3/19.) It was my first all essay exam and was the hardest exam i have ever taken. I just wrote crazily and don't remember much about how i wrote it. But the important fact is that i wrote all the assigned essays, although i'm not sure about my score.

Xian Li's blog assignment #7

After taking a midterm exam, the topics we are talking in class recently become so vivid. I do not like a very hard class because it will not help the students understand the essence of the class. Just as our presentation, professors always require me to make things as simple as you could so that we can attract the audience’s attention. In order to make a class better, the best way is starting from something easy to understand and gradually adding challenges. Students like challenges but not too much at a time. Just as my examination today, I spent several days on reviewing. However, most of the questions are beyond the scope of our lecture notes. I confessed I was defeated and would pay more effort to the course. But I really felt scared of the course because it was that difficult. Therefore, I think “the harder, the better” is not correct, at least it should not be a guideline for teachers to give lectures.

Hongchul : Assignment #7

I am not sure that the harder class, the better class. Sometimes the hard class may urge lazy person to greater efforts, while it may discourage him from success in that class. It depends on circumstances. However, based on my experiences a certain level of laborious works considering student’s ability is necessary to succeed in the class.
First of all, it is common that most people are apt to delay their works if there are no limitations and constraints in the class. Strict grading is considered as one of constraints. When the teacher grades student’s works strictly, most students feel stressed about the grade. To get good grade they should be always on time to their class, keep the due data, and succeed in the test. To do so they can easily get the educational goal of the class. Meanwhile, it is observed that some students are lazy to do their class without any hard works and constraints in the auditing class. In this case, the hard class is beneficial to student’s work in their class.
On the other hand, if the class is too hard for students to keep up with the class, the hard class discourages most students from success in the class. When the students are not satisfied with their class due to the hard working, the efficiency of their works in class is too low so that they may not succeed in their class.
The Analects of Confucius says, “It is always safest to take the middle course.” I am sure that a certain level of laborious works within the student’s ability is indispensable for our class.

Vanessa Cruz Inoa Blog: # 7

All the class represents different vision of the education. In some time has class harder, class easy or class better compared with another’s. The class it is a methods of learning, a complement between student and professor. Some times also one class represents a student’s goal. I my own experience the class with harder are in the university are Statistics Analysis, class. The professors are excellent, she it is really nice person but the class material it is really harder. The understanding the process of the equation, memorizing and calculate the exercises aren’t easy and it isn’t my strength. For example to the class are necessary use computer program SPSS, I haven’t idea how use this program. . Oh my Lord, never in my life makes one course really difficult. The first test it is five pages, plus vocabulary definition of 7 words. For my important are learning in the class and understand the class material.

This it is an example of my own experiences, but really true for many students aren’t easy learn and understand some else class. The student development reflects the feed back of the class. The responsibility of improve, learn and discover are represent a compromise. Between the student and professor this is dependent of the class are good or bad the most important are the effort and dedication of both.

Javier Rodríguez "Assignment # 7"

Personally, I don’t think that harder class makes it a better class. As students we are accustomed to being stuffed with so much information. This means that most of the information that we received in school is imposed by our teachers. Furthermore, this type of education represents traditional ways of teaching. Today, many academics believe that education has the onus to prepare students to be able to answer objectives test which measure the capacity and success of each student. However, many educators think that harder test and harder facts helps students to improve their critical thinking. In some ways this information makes students lose their interest on class subject and incite them to don’t pay any attention to class which results in lower grades.

I think that educators are confusing challenging with memorization. Students with a better ability to memorize facts will do better in tests. Furthermore, in order to provokes commitment on students’ educators has to explain how these facts helps them to improve their knowledge and also how these facts can be applicable to their life.

In my own experience, I gain more interest on topics when they are related in some way to my live. If topics are not related to my interest why I should pay attention? In conclusion, a harder topic does not make a class better. In order to improve students achievements educators has the responsibility to illustrate that information in a different way to facilitate student’s understanding.

Ha young Choi Blog #7

If the classes are hard to study, that doesn’t mean that the classes are better than others. Students have to take the class that they can understand what professor teaches and enough challenged to do their homework. If classes are too hard to follow then students will get a bad grade and disappointed on their grade. They don’t understand the material fully. Then they could renounce the class or lose interests. If they lose interest, students won’t try hard to learn something from class. On the other hand, if the classes are too easy that they already know what professors are teaching, students won’t work hard to learn and have no interest in the class. In my case, I took calculus class last semester. I wasn’t prepared to take the class. The class was hard for me to study. I almost failed a first exam, when I saw my grade I disappointed my mathematical skills and my grade. I tried hard to get better grade on second exam. But I got bad grade that I did not expect. I got discouraged. As I have said, the level of classes are depends on ability of students to understand and feel they are learning something. If a student is good enough to take hard class then it is ok. But a student isn’t good enough to catch up the class then he or she shouldn’t take the harder classes.

Blog Assignment 7 (Dahyun Choi)

Sometimes harder classes make the students to do harder as I do. However, I do not think that the difficulty of a class and success of the class are not really related. Of course, there will be lots of works to do and these may help the students to take more time to think about the lesson. Sometimes the class materials are hard to understand and the learners find that it is hard to keep in the class. On the other hand, there could be bad situations as well. Instead of taking more time and effort, they may give up early. As the students feel less satisfied towards their performance, they may feel less achievement. As the result, they would just pretend to doing the works during the class or furthermore, they may drop the course. And I don't think that like these classes will be better or successful.
In my experience, when a class was too difficult and harder than I expected, I just dropped the course. I thought that I was not able to perform well. For certain amount of hardness of a class may be helpful to encourage the students. But I do not think that the harder classes will always lead to the classes better. I believe that a proper amount of difficulties of a class is important to both of the teacher and students.

Yoonsuk Jung, Blog assignment #7

Some people may believe that the harder class, the better standard because they can profoundly concentrate on their study rather than easy class. When someone experience or achieve his or her extremely difficult class, they can obtain valuable things such as a confident manner, endurance, and a high intellectual level of study.
However, it does not always closely relate to that the harder class, the better standard. When a student frustrated in his or her class because of huge difficulty, some negative effects will be happened such as negative attitude, losing interest or confidence of study, and gap of relationship between classmates or teachers. From my experience, when I was confronted by extremely difficult class, I felt stupid and a derelict. I did not want to do anything and lose a scholastic spirit even though I constantly suffered from pressure falling behind my other classmates. Therefore, it is difficult to judge which type’ class could benefit for students between hard and easy class and it also depends on students, teaching method, and subject.

Lakshmi Blog Assignment #7

As a buddhist I believe the middle path is the best way to recieve everything in the life. Education also should be in the same path. It should not be too easy or too difficult. When we talk about the word hard there are three stages in that word too. Hard, harder and hardest. So the middle word is harder. If the class is just hard it interpretes like easy. But when it is said harder it brings some kind of value to the education. It's not valuable when we get things easily. It should be much difficult then it is easy to evaluate too. When the class work is harder the students have to sacrifice their time spending on their studies. When they feel it is not that easy to acieve their goals they understand that they should read and should be prepared to get good grades. So I believe it is really important to be harder to be better.

Blog Assignment #7 Jehwan Lee

Generally people think that if the class is hard, it would be bad for students because it means take learning more than they can understand. On the other hands, I insist that this is not always true. When we treat individually harder material, we can get more knowledge and learn ability for solving difficult problem. For example, I used to take the method that I practice the problem more difficult than that of text book. If I study like that, I would understand that material because I learned deeper than text book suggest. But there are problems if this method are applied on whole class. First in this case, student's self-study becomes extremely important. In other word, if there is no motivation to try to understand that difficult stuff, students would be feel boring easily. Next, evaluating students will be harder. If the class is harder, usually the gap of each student's understanding material is bigger. Therefore, if the teacher evaluate usual grading system same as other class, it is possible that average grade is too low. The solution I suggest is that separate students by ability and teach them with suitable class level. It will make increase efficient of education.

Hiu Wing, Chu Blog #7

Many different factors can make the class become better, such as a good teacher and small class size, but I don't think the harder class can be one of these factors. First of all, the harder class might means the class exam are more difficult, or the course cover the harder material. However, it is not means that after the student took the class, they will become better and have the improvement.Therefore, if the class is too hard and students can not handle it, the class just will become useless, and meaningless.
Since when the meterial in the syllabus is so "challenged" that only have few students can understand it, then the remaining student in order to pass the class or get the good grade, they only can memorizing all the statements and answers without comprehend. Finally, they will delete those "data" in their mind as soon as possible and learned nothing at all. Then what's the point that we have to had a harder class in order to make the students better?
Furthermore, do you know what is the use of grade, like freshmen, junior, senior? Grade is use to seperate students into different levels by their abilities. Hence, why we still need to make the course harder after we assign the student to class appropriately? It doesn't make any sence!
Sometimes the harder class might help some genius, but not all of the student. As a result, the class harder will not make the class better.

Grace - Blog #7

It doesn’t mean the classes are better if the classes are harder. It’s all depends on the student’s ability to take the harder class or not. There are lots of different styles of classes. Some can be easy going because of the professor explains things well or because of the good TA. However, I think it’s all depends on how the student has the real interest in that class or not. Even if the class is easy, if you are not enjoying that class, you don’t have the motivation to participate well in that class. You won’t be excited learning new thing or for the fun assignments. The student will just wait for the class to end or stressing about the class works etc. Also, sometimes student think that taking harder class will make them look smart, “showing off”. However, it won’t make a better class. The class is consists of the professor and the students. Of course there will be some students who just take some classes they don’t like just to fulfill the requirements. However, harder class doesn’t mean better class because class suppose harmonies together; the professor and the student. Even though It’s not a hard class, if most of students try to participate more or enjoy the class and the professor is always helpful, then I think It’s better than the advanced classes where all the A+ students are at but they all just care about their own priority. Taking harder classes won’t make them better but having a mind for the class is more important and it will make a better class.

Jacob Lee blog #7

It is a bit vague to say that if classes are hard. In a class all the students cannot have the same level of education. Even with the same environment students have different thoughts and reactions to everything. However, I think that a class should be a bit high slandered than what an average student can cover. If the class becomes too hard students would start to give up and just leave the class. On the other hand if the class is to easy the students will not study and not prepare much.
I had a biology class which was not my taste. It was really a pain in the butt. I when to every class that was on a school day and all the discussions that were important to the subject. Thus, my grades were falling to the ground which was out of my expectations. I think that it was really hard to see that the average was 50%, which means that most students barely understood half of the material that the professor was teaching. Due to the reason most of the student gave up their grades and changed the grades to pass/fail.
My music class was different, the test were so easy that students did not even come to class, so most of the time the class was empty. I did not think the professor cared about attendance at all, but it was easy that most students almost ignored what the professor said.
Therefore, in my point of view, classes should not be easy, but also not too hard that it will make students give up the class course

Blog Assignment #7

All posts are due by 10pm Wednesday March 19
All comments are due by 9am Thursday March 20

1. Write for 10-15 minutes about the following: If your classes are harder, does it make them better classes? Why or why not? Support your ideas with examples.

2. Read all posts

3. Comment on one post.

****It's almost Spring Break!*****

Yoonsuk Jung, Blog assignment #6

A grading system is the simplest and easiest way to evaluate person’s ability in the world. However it cannot evaluate students’ inner value such as creative talent, potential capability, and cooperative spirit. Therefore, we can often find some problems like limitations in our grading system. First, our grading system is very strict and not flexible rather than fair. There is no fixed pattern or general form to evaluate our hidden abilities. It simply gives a grade like A, B, C, D, and F to students according to their test results. In addition, our grades can be differently evaluated by each different professor’s taste or preference. For instance, when I was a freshman, I took an economic class with my friend but the only different things were class time and professor. My professor focused on students’ class-participation like attendance, assignment, presentation, and discussion than exam. However, my friend’ professor only focused on two-exam results. The end of semester, we were under totally different situation. I cannot get a high grade even though I spent most my time to catch up my class and got a high grade each test. However, my friend just got a huge curve from his professor so he can easily get a high grade “A”. Second, a grading system can make trouble between students or between professor and student. The reason is that some students want to get a high grade from their class without sweat. It means that a student who does his or her best in class can be damaged. What is more, if a student did not get a high grade from his class, he complains or blames their professor’ method of grading. Therefore, a grading system could lead to a potential dispute between people who work hard and with honesty and people who lack in academic morals and cheat and copy others work getting grades that they do not deserve.

Jacobl Lee Blog Assignment #6

Living in Korea I had grades graded as numbers, at the end they gave us letter grades but when we got our reports it was in numbers rather than letter grades. However in American it was a bit different to what I am used to. They give out letter grades with curves. In my point of view people will become less competitive for their grades compared to Koreans who get the total average on their report card. People would less want to be the best, the number one, because how hard the person works he would get the same grade as the person who did less work and got an A. Working much more harder and getting the same grade even thought I got a higher grade. Also for students who fail the class might not care much about their grades, but on a report showing an F on the report card with a score of 30 is better then having the 30 grade. It could be less embarrassing. On the other hand, it would make the student more discouraged, because if he would have the same grade as someone with the grade of 50 when he got 30, the student would think it is the same thing. To sum up I personally think that letter grades are not the best grading system, thus show the exact grade average by number might kill the hope of wanting to get a better grade.

Blog 6 - Grace

There are many ways of giving grades depends on different countries' academic institutions. Among them, As, Bs, Cs grade system is the most famous and traditionally used. However it’s somewhat unfamiliar to me. I took an IB courses and it has 7 levels 1 to 7. Also, when I was in grade 7 to 8 in Korea, there were no such thing as As and Bs. My grades were mostly bases on the just how much I got from the exam or the assignment. So everybody was very competitive about getting perfect score in every subject. So It still effects me and I always try to get an A for everything and if sometimes I get an B, I feel really bad for myself. So I think it’s the problem of a bad impression for student too. For example, in my astronomy class there is no curve system. So if one get 79, it’s still an grade C. We can’t say 79 is a bad score but when it appears on your report card, it will still be an C and it will drop one’s GPA. Secondly, another problem of As and Bs grade system is that it’s unfair for a person who got the nearest score for the next grade. For example, the range of grade A was 90 to 100. Then if there was a student who got 89 for his math exam, then he will end up getting B just because he missed 1point. On the other hand, it’s an advantage of a student who got 80 on his math exam but end up getting B because he has 1point higher from grade C’s range and he just made it. If it was the case in Korean education, these both students will just remain the score they got. So there’s already 9 points difference which will make a huge gap for their average. I think As and Bs grade system is the most well known grade system in the states because it’s most reasonable and useful from people could think of. However, I think grade comes from how much effort you put in.

Blog Assignment 6 (Dahyun Choi)

I think the grade options are quite limited and it is just a tool for easier process in traditional academic situations. And these grade options cause several problems to the students and the education system. Since we define the grades as As, Bs, Cs and so on, it is easy to think that getting better letter grade is doing a good job. Moreover, if a student got a bad grade in a class, even though the student liked the course or participate in the class, it is the only way to define the students all of attitude, ability and skill. And we will assume that the student was bad at class. And I do not think sometimes the grading system is not fair. Grading is often subjective and it tends to made a teacher’s opinion without any objective reason.
When I took a Art class, I drew really hard. I took many time to do my homework and research assignment. Every time the professor evaluate my work, he gave me lots of praise and encouraged me. I thought I was very good at drawing. On the last day of the class, he asked me to give him some pieces of works which I drew and he said he wanted to use them as his material for the next semester. I agreed and gave my works. But, I was shocked after I got the grade. I got unbelievable grade for this course and I was confused. It was hard to accept so I sent him an e-mail about my grade. He said, he thought the grade was reasonable and he said he could not change it. But the grade was really bad and it was the worst grade I had. There was no way to prove it since it was a Art class and there was no quizzes or tests.

Javier Rodríguez "Assignment # 6"

Nowadays, education is going through an era of changes. Educational structures have the onus to develop new and better social entities. However, a letter grade is an old system which evaluates student's performance. This old system represents those members of a society who has the ability to memorize or apply certain concepts in class. On the other hand, we have a person who does not have the same ability to learn or associate in the same way than others do. Our contemporary grade system does not represent the capacities of every member on a society. Every member of a society (students') has many ways of learning. It so impressive how many college professor or others educators preach about a change but are doing nothing to make a change.

According to the article, "The Farce Called "Grading" many educators having the same paper to grade comes up with different grades. An educator uses their own criteria to evaluate student performance which is understandable. But this grade letter system needs to be changed for something that evaluate in an equal way those students’ who are doing their best to get better grades but does not have the availability to obtain them. Grading system needs to be transform to a system that evaluate student’s performance but at the same time evaluate students’ effort. This letter grade system just provokes in students an instantaneous action of memorization.

In conclusion, students’ just go school and memorize things for test. Therefore, those who have the ability to remember more will receive better grades. Letter grades are not representing students knowledge just represent the ability of these students to accomplish with academic requirements. But this evaluation system does not recognize these students’ who can apply this knowledge in other ways.

Ha young CHoi Blog #6

Usually not only one professoer can teaches a course. Several professors teach same subject and concept with different textbook, time and number of studnets. Because of different professor teaches a class there are different syllabus, how to rate grade and number of assignments. In this semester, I have been taking “principle of micro economics” course. I looked up the syllabus. I have 2 mid term exams and 1 final exam. I also have pop quizes more than 3 times in the semester I have assignment every week. Here is a problem, one of my friend have been taking same micro economics class but different professor. One day i was doing a assignment in the library and I saw my friend who is taking different class. I asked him “Don’t you have assignment due on Friday?” and he replied “We don’t have assignment this week. We only had 2 homeworks until now.” Our class had more than 4 assignments from begining of the semester. Last week, I took mid term exam and also my friend took the mid term exam. When I saw he’s test sheets questions are easier than what I took. He is learning little different from what I am learning in my class. Esspecially he got better grade than me. I feel bad and envy him because he got better grade. As a different professor teaches same subject, there are different grading systeam that professor want to grade. Therefore students are graded by different standard. It is not fare.

Vanessa Cruz Inoa: Blog # 6

I thinks is an old system was in the beginning has good acceptation and good result to education system. But in this time is necessary change the evaluation system in the education. Many people haven’t the same abilities for learn in one way. Because the studies show multiples forms of the people think and exist multiples form of intelligent. Not all the people learning with a book and pencil. For the more other people learn in the practice of make sometime. Today educations have a new direction, perspective and new issues. The technology is the best example in the education. Because, change the methods of evaluation and developing of new skill. Is more practice, technical and fast. The grading only represent a “note” is forming to education system evaluated, give and qualification the students. For prove the knowledge development the students in the school. Sometimes the students study for a test and put all the knowledge to good grade. But the result isn't good "F". This situation change the vision of the student and damage the hope. The grade in this case represent a symbol but not shows the effort of the student on study. Exist many situation with relation to effort and dedication of the student for have good grade. The important is recognize the teacher to students efforts and show interest on the class. This it coulbe help to reflect the vision of the education with respect to grade.

Hongchul : Assignment #6

Usually university curriculum mainly consists of regular grade-courses. It is common that grading is indispensable to increase the efficiency of study. Most students struggle with getting a good grade. It is assumed that the better grade, the better students. Although grading system has the bright side, I have an undesirable experience relating to grade.
In my first semester, I took the analytical method, which is one of the core courses which I had to take for my degree. It was really tough course. The Rumanian professor was very strict to grade homework and tests. After taking midterm examination, most classmates were depressed by the bad results. Compared to other courses the average was too low. Also final test result was similar to that. Nevertheless we hoped that professor would grade relatively considering average value. However professor didn’t do that. As soon as we received own grade, we chatted about each grade and began to complain about the professor. The number of students in his class was more than 20. Only two got a A and several students got a B. More than half of them got a C. He graded test results strictly without reference to average value so that most students might get a C. Some of students had a problem in keeping their status as RA or TA because of bad grade. It was a terrible class.
On the other hand, the professor complained that the students were not good enough to take his course. That is the reason why he did not teach this course any more since then.

Blog Assignment #6 Jehwan Lee

There are many kind of grading system in the world but recently almost public institute select the grading system which is simply cut the students by exam score. Let me compare the grading system of Amerca and that of Korea. In Korea, there also similar grading system terms are different. "A" is "Su", "B" is "Wu", "C" is "Mi"... It is used in high school and the grading system of university is same as that of America. I don't exactly know how grading in Korea university. However in America, this grading system are changing slowly to evaluate students more detailly. The basic frame is same but there are options to cover exam or something else. In my opinion, there are some bad options to evaluate every students equally. In my experience, I took the astronomy course last semester. There is very helpful option the AGO system which is home study grading system so if I steady solve the quiz that assigned automatically in internet, I could got 1 perfect exam score. On the other hand, I didn't know the option and I should take final exam the end of semester. In this case because I just didn't know the advanced of option early of the semester, I should take one more exam. That means the students who took the option don't have to study end of the meterial. The purpose of grade is evaluate student equally at the same time, also encourage learn meterial to student. In the contrast, I think that this option give an convenient to get perfect score and make students don't study whole meterial.

Xian Li's blog #6

In general, the grading system does provide an easy way to get an idea of how well a student works in his/her study. However, unfair grading often happens which degrades the confidence of the grading itself. Some teachers have personal bias on a student and keep the bias when they are giving grade to the student. Actually, I remember that when I was in elementary school and really not good at painting. My painting teacher thought it was because I did not work hard in her course and always gave me very low scores on my home assignments. One day, I asked my classmate who was very good at painting to help me draw a profile as the new home assignment, (I know it is cheating now:) ), and I turned it to the teacher. Finally, I get a very low score again. She pointed out lots of problems in the profile and said "I do think you have paid no effort on the painting course". From that time, I totally lost the interest in this course and felt very depressed. Grading is a really subjective thing and I think all the teachers should respect their authority and profession especially when giving grades to the students.

Andrew Kim "Assignment #6"

From 1994 to 1999, I attended a private elemetary school in Seoul. It's randomly chosen admission ratio was about 5:1, and i got accepted in rolling beads!! The school was very experimental. Once a month, for example, there was an "open class," which there was no lecture but students moving around the class room and study themselves in various sections. The class was consist of class related materials such as pictures, maps, dictionaries, quizzes which drawed our interests. Not like other public elementary schools, there were no monthly exams but just a few quizzes. Moreover, there were teacher's evaluations instead of numerical transcript. When i was young, I didn't like the evalutations because some teachers informed my parents about my troublesome behaviors. But as i think back, i realized that i had learned many things naturally and voluntarilly at that time.


Unlike my elementary school, however, cruel grade system appeared in the following years.
The high school what i attended was notorious for hard internal exams, and our GPA was very low compared to other school's students. As a result, it became our disadvantage in college admission. Moreover, I was so neglect to studying subjects that couldn't find any interested in. One of my bad memory was i got C in mathmetics. I didn't study hard and I got about 69 in mid-term and 89 in final. i couldn't get B(score of 80~89) because overall average was 79 and ended up with C. I petitioned to my math teacher but he said he cannot raise my grade since the questions what i wronged are all multiple choice quetions. He couldn't change the objective facts, because it was against policy. What is the difference between score 79 and 80?

Even so, the reality is that we cannot give up grades because there are no other alternative measurements. Giving up grade is not like "Quit smoking." (p.131) Grade is not an addictive thing but an inevitable thing.

Yulia Smirnova Blog # 6

Grades play a very important part in students' life. Our grades show us our knowledge. Our GPA is shown in our resume, so when you want to find job, employers will look on your GPA first. That's why all students try to have good grades. But nowadays we have problems in grading. I think that all teachers have different method of grades. For example, in My math class A is 100-90%,A- is 89%-80% and so on. But on my Sociology class A is 100% -95%,A - is 94%-90% and so on. So here we can see the difference how two different people grade exams. Also a lot of professors dropped quizes with lowest grades or they give extra credits for some assighments. So it is easy to get good grade. Also sometimes teachers overstimate grades for students, because they don't want to have any troubles. For example, one of my suitmates had bad grades in Calc. She had lower than 30% in her exams. So she was gonna fail this course. But her teacher did excusse for her, and gave her D(in her class to have D is more than 55%). I don't understand why proffesors do this. Now my suitmate takes Calk 2, and she has more troubles with itthis semster. She did not understand the material from last semster, and she has more new material which is more difficult. Moreover she has another professor who is not so kind. She has a big opportunity to fail this course. The professors do worse to students when they overestimate grades. I think that teachers give a lot of exusses to students. And students don't work so hard,because they know that teachers will try to give them higher grades anyway. I consider that this is one of the important problems nowadays.

Lakshmi Blog Assignment #6

Gradings are very important all over the world. It is the primary evaluation of someone's qualifications to earn a wealthy life to have a good status in the society. But it is very important to get the grades according to a proper way. I say that because if someone gets gradings by cheating themselves they won't be able to do the appopriate duty to a seleted job. And on the other hand it is unfair for the qualified people. So benefitting for someone else is really bad. In this point the grade ambitious students must keep in their mind to work hard and get good gradings for their future benefits as well as the teachers hold their responsibility of offering correct evluations. It's essential to evaluate the positions by gradings to have a good understanding about their knowledge.

Hiu Wing, Chu Blog #6

Have you ever heard "RateMyProfessors.com"? I think most of the college students will know what is it. This is a website which shows different college and university professor's informations, such as helpfulness, clarity, interest level prior to attenting class... But I think many students are only concern in the "Easiness" part, becuase it can help us to find an easy "A" professor for our next semester. From this example, we can easy to verify one of the problem from our traditional grading system --- consistency of grading!
Even though we do not compare with different school, we still can find different of grading in the same level of class with different professor. For example, in our ECON160 classes, we already have two to three different professor for teaching. Since different professor will have different grading, like some professors can drop the lowest grade exam, but some of them can't. In order to have an easy "A", that's the reason why "RateMyProfessors.com" exist. Moreover, different majors also have different grading percentage. Likely in the Enghish classes, it will have more percentage on the homework and attentance; On the other hands, Mathematic classes are emphasize on the exam. Therefore, Consistency is a really big problem is our grading system.
In my opinion, the best solution for this problem is try to run a public exam for every grade, and everyone use that exam for our G.P.A in the transcript. This not only can solve the consistency problem. It also can make sure all school are learning the same meterial in the same level class!

Blog Assignment #6

All posts are due by Wednesday, March 12 at 10pm
All comments are due by Thursday, March 13 at 9am

1. Write for 10-15 minutes about what you think the problems are with having a grading system like we have in traditional academic institutions. (As, Bs, Cs...) Give examples to support your ideas.

2. Read all posts.

3. Comment on one post.

Hongchul : Assignment #5

There is nothing without grades in the world. Everything has its own grading system which is formal or informal. The grade obtained after finishing the task may be beneficial or harmful to us.

First of all, I agree that students should be graded in most classes. Based on my experiences grade is indispensable to increase the efficiency of study. For example, my graduate curriculum consists of regular class required to grade and special topics or research project which is needed to get successful or unsuccessful. Compared grade class with non-graded class, we can easily find which is more efficient. All the students in the grading class have to do their best to get good grade. To get good grade they should be always on time to their class, keep the due data, and succeed in the test. Meanwhile, it is observed that some students are auditing regular class with the permission of professor. In this case, most attendances are devoted their class for a while. A little later, they do not show up in the classroom for several reasons.

On the other hand, some people may suffer from the grade. If the grade system could be beneficial to us, it requires the proper judgments and fair evaluation. It is not easy to make sure of fairness in the general community or society except academic class. Grade is done not objectively but subjectively by human.

Blog assignment #5 Jehwan Lee

The most good grade in my life was TOEFL score. I suddenly decided that after graduate high school, I will go to America for study. Therefore I needed up to 70 TOEFL score. At high school because I didn't planed to study abroad, my English level was almost elementary students of American.
Remained term was barely 2 month. During 2 month, I had to get TOEFL score to apply American University. However when I saw text book about TOEFL first time, I felt frustrate. The English studied in high school was almost useless! More various vocabulary, more longer reading stuff, more fast listening.. When it comes to speaking and writing, I even had not practiced before. After measure my English level, I studied like insane. Fortunately, I had schedule nothing so that I could concentrate my brain learning English. And finally, I got TOEFL score 71. It is not high score but comparing my English, it was high enough. Moreover, I was so happy that I did what I made purpose.
After took the exam I tried again and again but it comes lower and lower. Honestly, I don't think did it my best. Probably that is because I release my nervous. By the way, it was good attempt for me and got most good grade in my life.

Yoonsuk Jung, Assignment #5

During my whole school-periods, grade has always been the most important thing in whatever I do and has been a main factor to evaluate students’ level of achievement. Due to this reason, most parents and teachers push their children and students to get high grades in most subjects because they think students’ future hugely depends on their grades. If a student does not have good grades, he or she will lose many opportunities such as entering a university with good reputation, and getting a well-paid job.

In my country, South Korea, there exists an extremely competitive atmosphere where most students strive to get good grades. When I was a high school student, I had to go to school by 7AM and studied until 11PM or 12AM from Monday to Saturday. I had mid and final exams and a trial test each month for ‘Suneung Exam’ similar to ‘SAT’ in America to enter a university. This is a normal schedule for not only me but also most high school students in Korea at that time. Everything was just evaluated by grades and no one complained about this situation. Therefore, I was always put under intensively stressful pressure from trying to get high grades and it was difficult to develop my social skills. If I were to go back to my adolescent period, I could not think about anything but studying. This is the negative experience that I had in my life with grades.

JAcob LEe assignment #5

It was about a year ago when I was in my home country, Korea. I was getting ready for my university entering exam, which was called ‘SuNung.’ I had studied more than an year for the test which I was willing to get in a good school. I personally wasn’t that good at math and Korean language, but with English and the science subject I thought I could not get bad score. On the day of the ‘SuNung’ exam I was not scared, but was ready for the challenge. While I was taking the math part of the exam I noticed that I was not able to solve most of the questions. Therefore, I suddenly froze and my head was blanked. I could not think of anything. After, the math exam I did not do well, because of the tough of my math score. After the exam I went home with a heavy shoulder. I graded my math score, and it was horrible. Right that second my dreams were shattered. I did not talk with anybody for about a few days. Moreover, I ignored all the calls that I got. Soon after it was time to apply for schools. However I had a grade that was unrecoverable, so I really did not look carefully into the school. That was my experience; if I had looked more carefully I could have gone to one of the school I wanted which did not require a good grade of math. It could be just who gets depressed with grades, but I do get a lot of stress over grades. My habits change a lot over grades mainly over stress; I eat more and sleep more which makes my fitness drop to the ground. It is hard not to get depressed to grade, but the best way in my opinion is to forget it and do better next time.

Blog Assignmnet #5 (Dahyun Choi)

We take an exam or write a paper to get good grade and I believe that these grade help us to prove our abilities in the school. When I was younger than now, I did not concern about my grade not that seriously but I realized that the grade is quite important in my life as I attend to the university.

In my experience, I had a trouble with my grades when I was in high school. I decided to study in the USA and one of the things which I could prove myself to the universities was my grade. Therefore I submitted all of my transcripts and when I applied the schools. However, my grades in New Zealand were not that good compared to when I was in Korea. The average of a class was nearly 50% and the highest score in the class was about 60~70% out of 100% in the high school where I was while my grades in Korea was much higher than that. Compare to other school, the examination of the school in New Zealand were really difficult and it took about three hours for one exam.

The standard of grading was not same world wide and I found that there could be problem when a student study in other areas. I worried a lot when I applied the universities in the USA and I was afraid of my low scores. Fortunately, I could enter this school and I feel appreciated.

Grace Kim - Assignment 5

I can find positive and negative grades experiences from the experiences that I had back in Korea middle school. Even though I took everything in my own language, taking 12 subjects in a semester was too overwhelmed. Also, there were about 400 students in one grade and the grade system was very strict. There was no curve system. Whatever grades I got, it was just my grade. So everything put me in a very competitive situation. Just making one mistake will drop my average score of 12 subjects. I remember my friend got average of 100 for 12subjects and she was the top student for a midterm. I was only 14years old but I had the enthusiasm of getting good grades and I could maintain top 10% in that year. It gave me a positive and negative influences. I couldn’t really complain about the strict grading system because it’s just the way Korean students do. Take caring of 12 subjects’ grades were too stressful and made me decided to study overseas. However it thought me how to organize my study time within in a short period and made me endure so much from the hardcore school life. It gives me a strong confidence even now. My hardcore studying habit has changed since I left Korea however it still gives me the strength; preparing papers and exams in advance because we use to prepare for a midterm at least a month ago. The only negative thing is that it gave me too much stress for school and no free time or socializing. I had to only concentrating on getting perfect scores. I'm glad I only experienced it for 1.5years and could enjoy better education in overseas. However the positive sides still helps me even now.

Ha young Choi Blog #5

Both Korean high school students who study in korea and American high school students who study United states want to go to famous universities. For example, Seoul national university or Ivy league universities in U.S. To apply any universities, American Students have to take SAT(SAT Reasoning Test) and also Korean students have to take Korean SAT test. But there is a big difference between Korean SAT and U.S SAT. In KOrea, students can take SAT only once in a year. In contrast, U.S students can take SAT as many time to get a good grade. There are more than 10 chances in a year to take the test in U.S. I took a Korean SAT 2007 october, I woke up at 7 in the morning to be on time where I am going to take the test. I took 6tests: Korean, Math, English, Social science, Law and society and politics in one day. The test started at 8am and ended at 5pm. I wasn't in a good condition because I was so nervous that if I might get a bad score on the test, then I won't go to university that I want to go and also I have to wait and study till the next year to take the test again. I was so worried and think about the case when I got a bad score. Almost all students have same feeling like pressure to get a good grade and stressed. But students in the U.S have more chance to take tests and opportunity to get a good grade. Therefore, Students who study in U.S and prepare to take U.S SAT have better opportunity and less stress about the test.

Vanessa Cruz Inoa Blog:5

My experiences of grade is the school, the school is part important of me life development and improve my self. Because many professor help to improve me critics knowledge about different topics. For example the knowledge and creation of new thinking forms. The study of different culture in America helps to understand the development of the society in different aspect. Lear about poor country versus rich country, different traditions, and conflict. The founding of new thinking is the growing of the new life concepts. These help me, to understand new life style. Arrive to United States is most interest life learning, because one thing is learn with the book and other is living the experience in the place with your self. About this is really true, for the more me brain change by complete and the interaction in to the new society open more my abilities of survive. Living different experience every day help me to created new forms of knowledge. At this time in my life is good and rich in experiences. I believe in this part of my life, this help me in the future in the development of new experiences and goals.

Hiu Wing, Chu Blog #5

Is a good grade in school means everythings? This might not be true, but I am sure that if i get a bad grade, I will hard to do anything! Therefore, many student are work hard on their grade and pass over what they need to learn.
I am one of the student who really want to learn from the book, but do not have enough of time. Because finish the homework and memorize the text book for exam are already make my spirit and strength totally used up, so how can I have ability to thinking about the thoery in the book or enjoy the study? It is almost impossible. I remember when I am 15, my chinese history exam was tested from page 1 to page 300 in the text book. this exam spend me a week to memorize those 300 pages and finally got 90s. However, after a few days, some of my classmates want to ask me the answer of the exam in order to do the correction, but I totally forget all those answer. So why I still need to memorize those? Is nowadays education system just a memory competition? I think this exam is really meaningless for me.
Anyway, I can't change the education system. Hence, the only thing I can do is move to United States and continous my study.

Xian Li's blog assignment #5

In my homeland, grade is really important for all students no matter they are in high school or in college. High school students should struggle for good grades otherwise they won’t be able to go to reputable colleges. College students work hard to get satisfying grades otherwise they will not be given opportunities to get a better job. What does the grade really mean? Does a better grade mean stronger capability? Actually no. I will give an experience of my friend when he was seeking a job after graduation. All the companies required the applicants provide their overall GPA rank in the resume. My friend, who is a very smart boy and excellent programmer, did not get very high GPA rank about 30% all over the department because he did not work hard on those courses irrelevant with our major such as politics, arts. Most of the big companies like IBM, Microsoft refuse to give him any interviews. Finally, he got an interview opportunity of Oracle thanks to someone’s recommendation and succeeded to pass all the interviews and got the offer.

When I was in high school, grades played a very important part in my life. My parents was very strong with me, and they said that I had to have good grades. As I had tennis practices after classea,it was so difficult to do homework. So when I had bad grades my parents
did not resolve me to watch TV, to go for walk with my friends,or to go to practice(sometimes I was happy not go to practices).They forced me to do extra work fo classes. As I have younger brother and sister, and they always played or watched TV, when I did my "punishment",I thought that it is not fairly. That's why I tried to have good grades. Also in my tennis club my coach controled my grades in school. If I had bad grades I could not play tournaments. And I had more opportunity in school when I had good grades. If i had good grades during the semster,I could not take final exams,or did not go to class sometimes or another good things. But sometimes teachers were too strong with me,because I missed a lot of class bcause of practices. They did not like that tennis and school are the same important. And sometimes techaers gave grades less that I actually had.
But nowadays I just try to get good education ,not just try to have good grades. But grades are very important too. Because i have to have high GPA ,because of my tennis schoolarship and for my future job.

Javier Rodríguez "Assignment # 5

Based on my own experience I have a different conception about what was school and grades for me. During my formation as a student in middle and high school I didn't pay attention to any of the classes that I took. Therefore, I wasn’t committed to work to get good grades. Without a doubt this is something that every parent will feel very disappointed if their kids are not doing well in school. However, that wasn’t my case.

When I finished school I was accepted in the State University of Puerto Rico which just let get in about 9% of all students that applies to get in. In fact, being accepted in that institution that selects every student based on higher standards was a surprise to me. On the other hand, my classmates in high school were having a similar attitude towards grades like me as well. However, when finally I get into university environment I changed my attitude towards school. Undeniable, I changed my view towards school due to competition that I experienced when I get into college. It was that environment full of people committed with their own and also with their family which enabled me to change my mind and work hard to be someone in the future.

In conclusion, my experience toward school was very weird. But, today I can see that I did something good for myself. Now, I finished a bachelor and I’m working on a masters. Without a doubt I will go for a PHD in a future. Therefore, is very important to work really hard to get what we want because that enables us to be someone and bring something positive to our country and our family.

Andrew Kim "Assignment #5"

Competition in College is fine, because it is time to prepare for our career, but I don’t like cutthroating competition during the high school years. Mentioning that Korean youngsters are good at math, the author said, “Only 23$ of Korean youngsters claimed that they were good at mathematics as compared to a whopping 68% of U.S. youngsters.” (p.119). I think this is a ridiculous example. The Korean students responded like that because competition in Korea is cutthroating and no one ever gets self-satisfied about their grades, unless they are their school’s best or the entire nation’s best. Teachers and parents also were not satisfied because they wanted their kids to go better university.
Even though most of questions of College Entrance Exam were easy, some questions were tricky, and the tests didn’t allow mistake. The moment we make mistake was the moment we being weeded out from endless competition. When applying for college, students were labeled by their detailed grade numbers, and everyone was just like milkcows.
On the other hand, American schools has less competitive atmosphere. I like the American students’ easy and relaxed attitude. The students can concentrate on some the other things beside study, such as extra-curricular activities which generates their creativity. Their “whopping” is actually good thing.

Lakshmi Blog Assignment #5

According to my experience I've never been confused about my gradings in any of the classes which I have been attended. In Sri Lanka it's different than in US and it's hard to get through an exam. While US try to give students more opportunities, as a developing country government in Sri Lanka wants to cut off the educated personalities instead of having more educated people. In one hand, we have to agree in that because as a small island there are only limited opportunities available for the highly accepted jobs. As the government cannot assure for all the educated people to offer a job according to their education, they have to limit the opportunities entering to the university. But, the tragedy is although I worked hard to achieve my targets like most of the others we don't get the appreciation or the self satisfaction for what we have earned through the education. It is because to get a good job it's very important to have political interferences. If not, the education is undervalued. Education is not only for a job but to have a better life. Receiving good gradings and not having satisfaction is an insult.

Blog Assignment #5

All posts are due Wednesday, March 5th by 10pm.
All comments are due Thursday, March 6th by 9am.

Write for 10-15 minutes describing one positive or negative experience you have had in your life with grades. Make sure to support your idea with examples.

Read all of your classmate's blog posts.

Comment on one classmate's ideas, opinions, experiences, etc.