Grading Declarations
“So what is this thing you keep banging on about, this Grading Declaration?” I hear you ask. Well, the hint is in the name, really: the grading declaration is a requirement in each assignment that you declare you should get a particular grade on that assignment.
More than that, it’s an affirmation that you’ve:
- understood the material,
- carefully read the assignment,
- have put your best effort into completing it,
- and are happy enough with your work that you’re assuring me you deserve “full credit.”
Example
This is easier if you can actually get a feeling for the workflow.
Targets
Here’s an example for Activity A. You’ll start off with some specific requirements in your assignment like this:
- Summarize the data by creating and describing the results from the following descriptive statistics:
- mean
- median
- standard deviation
- interquartile range
- (optional) any other descriptive statistics you find interesting
- Show how a histogram that, although the distribution of the data is slightly skewed with a long right tail, is approximately normally distributed. Explain why this is the case.
Declaration Quiz
When you go to submit the assignment, you’ll first look for the Grading Declaration quiz. In this case, Grading Declaration: Activity A. For each of the targets above, you’ll see a corresponding short answer quiz item. Simply explain how you feel you accomplished that target for that category. Easy as that (but that doesn’t mean it’s easy)!
Once you’ve submitted your declaration quiz you should see the associated assignment submission folder open up. Submit your assignment as usual and, hey presto, time to move on to the next one.
Some assignments, like quizzes and chapter questions, do not require you to submit anything to an assignment dropbox, and thus have no grading declaration.
I reserve the right to overrule if I feel the declaration is not in good faith! Example: you declare a test was run but the submission does not demonstrate any, you will not get credit.