Since the title explains itself, I can dive right into the reasons.\u00a0 There’s not always a need for a long, drawn-out introduction!<\/p>\n
1. I’m a meteorologist, and we don’t do that.<\/b><\/p>\n
Put very simply, we don’t get a chance to “make up” for a bad forecast.\u00a0 We can only learn from our mistakes, move on, and do better the next time.\u00a0 It’s illogical to think that a forecaster’s mistakes — no matter if they are major or minor — can somehow be washed off his record by doing bonus work.<\/p>\n
An example of minor mistakes: the forecaster who continually has a warm bias to his temperatures.\u00a0 Once you realize what you’ve done wrong, fix it!\u00a0 Explaining to people why you made the mistake is important, yes — but does not absolve the mistake.\u00a0 (See #2 below for more on this.)<\/p>\n
A major mistake: missed forecasts can have fatal results.\u00a0 In a recent 5-year period, 17 tornado fatalities occurred without a tornado warning being issued (Brotzge and Erickson 2009<\/a>).\u00a0 There is no apology great enough to overcome this one.\u00a0 I know this all sounds painfully harsh<\/i> and trite to those who aren’t as familiar with the forecast process.\u00a0 But put simply, in our field these are the lessons we face every day.\u00a0 I’m a firm believer that students should experience science as science is practiced<\/i>, and a no-extra-credit policy is a clear application of that principle.<\/p>\n 2. My ideas of sound pedagogy don’t support that model.<\/b><\/p>\n Four\u00a0reasons instructors may offer extra credit are given in this Faculty Focus blog post<\/a> from 2011.\u00a0 None of them convince me.<\/p>\n This is the only one that holds some water to me.\u00a0 But this is exactly what practice assignments and homeworks should be designed to do, right?\u00a0 Build confidence so that students can perform well on major assessments?\u00a0 Aren’t we already supposed to be designing our courses to that students are well-prepared for exams?\u00a0 I don’t understand how something like attending an evening seminar about a peripheral topic (a classic extra credit idea) builds confidence.<\/p>\n Teachers of college writing know that revision is a key to students improving their writing skills.\u00a0 In the hard sciences we might use the word practice, especially in meteorology where forecast opportunities are fleeting and revisions to previous work aren’t possible.\u00a0 I don’t remember but I’m pretty sure my first few forecasts as an undergraduate were awful, and that they improved with repeated practice (to the somewhat less-awful state they’re in now!).\u00a0 Our assignments and courses should be arranged to give students multiple opportunities to master difficult content before a major assessment takes place.\u00a0 When we don’t provide this structure, we are less effective teachers.<\/p>\n It’s a bit cynical but to me the implication here is that students aren’t motivated for ordinary classwork.\u00a0 I certainly hope that’s not the case!\u00a0 Every learning opportunity should be robust and motivational.\u00a0 If it’s not, it doesn’t belong in our classroom.\u00a0 Why should we relegate our most creative assignments for extra credit opportunities that may get done by only a handful of students?<\/p>\n One thing to point out is that I differentiate between large, formal “extra credit” assignments and the rare “bonus” questions that occur on a quiz or an exam: Michael Leddy offers a nice example and his take <\/a>here<\/a>.\u00a0 Most often, I use those to help me scale exam or course grades to better align with student expectations (I’ll rant about the insistence of a 90-80-70 letter-grade cutoff some other time).\u00a0 But my students can attest that I do this about once per course and is part of an assessment that already exists.\u00a0 My bonus questions are always opt-out (right there on the page for you to try), not opt-in (available only if you ask or by doing something else external to class).\u00a0 I’ll avoid saying much about the ethical issues of opt-in extra credit, too, beyond saying that they terrify me.\u00a0 Is the extra work only available to students who ask?\u00a0 Are they allowed to tell their peers?\u00a0 What if someone can’t attend that special guest speaker’s talk because of their job or family?<\/p>\n So there you have it.\u00a0 Let’s make our coursework compelling the first time ’round, and let’s create assignments that are not busy work but help students learn what we truly want them to do.\u00a0 That way, they get it right when the grades are on the line.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Since the title explains itself, I can dive right into the reasons.\u00a0 There’s not always a need for a long, drawn-out introduction! 1. I’m a meteorologist, and we don’t do that. Put very simply, we don’t get a chance to “make up” for a bad forecast.\u00a0 We can only learn from our mistakes, move on, … Continue reading Why I don’t give extra credit<\/span> \n
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