Point totals now in effect

Per the syllabus, the following point totals are now in effect for figuring out semester grades.

Letter grade	Points needed
A	216
B	180
C	144
D	120
F	<120

Note: nobody has final tally yet -- finals still being uploaded etc., iClicker data from last two weeks of lecture, etc. are still in flux. But this table shows what we are shooting for, and eventually your semester point total will be complete, falling into one of the above ranges.

ALSO: I do not round off anything other than the HW and clicker pointage. Do not confuse yourself by referring to percentages. Only points determine your semester grade.

Logs

If you want to start estimating your semester grade -- as if I were to award it now -- you can refer to these two new files in Webcourses:

1. Homework log, which gives you a rundown of the homework points we have had so far this semester. These homework points will be converted to 20 points on your semester grade, as discussed in the syllabus. The homework log is linked to the homework folder, at the top of the page.
2. i>Clicker 2 log, which does the same thing for how many clicker questions we have asked in class so far. The number of i>Clicker 2 questions you answer will also be converted to another 20 points on your semester grade, as discussed in the syllabus. Look for this log file linked to the course home page, with the little i>Clicker 2 icon.

The HW subtotal and i>Clicker 2 subtotals you have earned are also on your My Grades page in Webcourses. With your subtotals and the log files, you can get an estimate of your clicker and HW pointage.

In addition to the HW and clicker pointage, you have exam pointage that goes straight into the semester grade without conversion.

Classes begin next Monday. Excellent.

Exam 3 data is up for Tuesday sec. 0M01.

Those of you in Tuesday's section 0M01, you can now look up your Exam 3 grade in Webcourses. As always, it is the sum of the scantron and SMA subscores. You can now know which of the three midterm exam scores will be dropped, and which two will be retained, as part of your semester grade. YAY

Those of you in Sec. 0M02, you will have to wait a few days more. For now, your Exam 3 data lines will be zeroes. Stay alert.

Supplemental Instruction schedule

Here is the schedule for Supplemental Instruction each week.

Monday

3:30 - 4:20 P.M.

ENG2 105

Tuesday

9:00 - 9:50 AM

HEC102

Wednesday

1:30 - 2:20 PM

HEC119

Thursday

4:30 - 5:20 PM

ENG2 205

Gloria Scott does a superb job of helping you perform at a higher level in class and on exams, which leads to a higher grade for the semester. Give your best shot at making it to S.I., even one session per week will be a whale of a help.

S.I. is just one of the great study tools organized by the Student Academic Resources Center (SARC). One of my favorites is their big web page of study skills handouts. I even use a few of those handouts!!!

Section 0002 final exam scantron scores are up.

Afternoon section 0002, your scantron scores are up. Look in your My Grades page in Webcourses.

Morning section 0001, we are still waiting for your guys' data.

It will be a while until I get all the semester grades figured out, so do not bug me about grades for a few days.

Semester points is live

I just activated the "Total semester points" row in your My Grades page.

It is still incomplete, though, because nobody has any final exam points on the books yet. But eventually, final exam points will be in there. At that point, the "Total semester points" will tell you how many out of 240 regular points you have earned for the semester grade.

ALSO: Bonus points are separate for now but eventually will be added in.

Whooops

Exam grades are correct...

but...

semester total and semester grade are incomplete -- I forgot to add in your bonus points! Uh oh.

I will fix it up this morning, no worries.

Semester grades are up.

Your semester grades are now UP. I will send them to the registrar tomorrow.

Do not bug me about semester grades.

Do not bug me about semester grades for a few days.

Failure to comply with this request will be dealt with in a gravitational manner.

All class CPS data is UP.

I rounded up the CPS pointage. This is the CPS portion of your semester grade.

Also: the "CPS correct bonus" value is now set. There were 80 questions in CPS, so if you answered 60 or more correctly, you now have the 4 bonus points. Nice.

We will use the CPS in class on Monday for the Chuck Norris mega-review, and both sections will use the CPS on the final exam.

CPS and homework pointage

You can now get a fairly good idea on your semester grade going into the final exam, other than the fact that we have some homework and CPS still to do.

What you do:

1. Look at "HW pointage" in My Grades, and round it up to the nearest whole number; maximum = 16.
2. Look at "CPS pointage" on your My Grades page, and round it up, too, to the nearest whole number; maximum = 24.
3. Check "Best three midterms" in My Grades.
4. Add up (a), (b) and (c).
5. Divide that sum by 160. That percentage gives you an idea of what your semester grade would be IF I gave semester grades today, not in May.
6. Look up that percentage on the semester grade scale.

A	90% or higher
B	75% or higher
C	60% or higher
D	50% or higher
F	lower than 50%

Genius section

The afternoon section 0002 is the genius section for the semester. Even though they are fewer than the morning section, the "after lunch bunch" has consistently more top scores on midterms and higher averages on midterms. This is also true on the final exam. Chuck Norris would be proud of the afternoon section.

I am analyzing all the exam scores and so forth, and I hope to have them posted up by tomorrow morning, if not sooner.

Grading ins and outs

In the next week or so, I will be messing around with the gradebook frequently. So do not panic is all the HW points disappear for an hour or other weirdness. It is just me working in the gradebook. :)

Prelim

I have activated the "Total semester points" line in your My Grades page. Right now it contains CPS pointage and best two midterms. After Monday, I will also add the HW pointage out of 16. After your final, I will get the final exam points and bonus points in there, too.

You can use the "Total semester points" figure to estimate your current grade going into the final exam:

1. Before Monday evening: divide your "Total semester points" by 104, and then look up the percentage value on the table below. If I gave a semester grade based on CPS and best two midterms, this is what it would be.
2. After I add in the last HW27 points on Monday evening, do the same thing, but divide by 120. This would be your semester grade if I were to give it based upon CPS, HW and best two midterms.

Your bonus points, which are not all in yet, will boost that.

Here is the semester grade scale again:

Preliminary letter grade	Percentage
A	0.90 or higher
B	0.75
C	0.60
D	0.50
F	less than 0.50

NOTE: the semester grade is based on points. See syllabus.

Semester grades update

Sorry to not announce the updates before now. We were racing against the clock yesterday, to get your grades plus several hunderd other students' grades uploaded by 5 PM to a tricky, slow and reluctant computer system run by the registrar. After which I got some ZZ til this morning. WHEEWWWW!

Anyway, here are some updates which you might already have figured out:

1. Uploaded final exam scores.
2. Converted CPS work to the points (out of 30) that go into your semester grade. This is in the "CPS pointage" row of your grades page.
3. Computed the CPS bonus for getting more than 75% of CPS questions correct. Seventeen students got it. Nice work!
4. Got the homework points (out of 25) on your semester grade figured out. This data is in the "HW pointage" row in your grades page.
5. Depending on how well you did, I gave up to 1 bonus point on each of the mega reviews: i.e., the Chuck Norris SMA and the Webcourses Super-mega combo review homework.

You could have calculated all of these point values from the data in the gradebook before yesterday, but now you have these rows figured out for you. Good.

Now I will get some ZZZ.

Exam scores are UP

Your exam 4 scores are up now, at last!!!

Also, I created the "Best three midterms" row, so you can look at that part of your semester grade.

Meg has updates SSG points for everybody on exams 3 and 4. We will update SSG for the final exam after the final exam.

There is still a ton of work to do with CPS pointage to upload and other things. But your semester grade should be coming into clearer focus now.

Keep preparing for the final exam on Friday!!!!

Final exam scores are UP.

Excellent. All of your final exam scores are now UP.

Everything is on the books now for almost everybody, so you can get a rough idea of your semester grade by calculating and adding up points as we did in lecture, and then going by the points total on the syllabus for a letter grade.

HOWEVER
I still have to tidy up bonus points like SSG and questions, plus some SMA from midterm 4 for a few people. I also have to decide how to factor in the Chuck Norris HW and the Super Mega Combo-review on CPS last week. So what you calculate will be R-O-U-G-H.

Do not bug me about your semester grade, and do not get Ashton, Gaby or Meg to bug me about your grade. The more you bug me, the slower your semester grades will be.