<p>I don’t really find it useful to find out that a student is the top 10% of a class. So what? What if the class was not challenging and didn’t motivate anyone? What if top 10% still didn’t really reach a reasonable standard of knowledge in that course? How do I know that what was taught in the course was in line with the information I’d expect to find in a course like that? How do I know that the 20-30% after that top 10% aren’t just as prepared as most candidates are in that particular area, but have some other skill that make them more valuable than someone who’s even better in a specific way?</p>
<p>To me, it’ sjust not that meaningful. Grades in general are not that meaningful, in my opinion. If the goal of grades is comparison, I think that fosters an atmosphere of extreme competitiveness that I think is detrimental to learning and detrimental to developing habits of working with others and integrating multiple people’s ideas and knowledge to have a stronger cohesive whole.</p>
<p>So I guess, from my perspective, most of the time, the best method sets a hard line of expectations for students to meet and if they learn the information you expect them to as a professor that should be an A. If they learn most of the information, but not all, but did well enough that they could be successful using and building on that information in further course work or intellectual exploration, that’s a B. If they got the concepts and some of the details down, such that they understood the class but would be unlikely to have a strong enough foundation to continue to have success with further exploration, independent or directed, that should be a C. If they did not grasp the concepts or retain any of the details, they should fail.</p>
<p>But that’s my own, personal view.</p>
<p>I think those standards and expectations should be high, btw, but I don’t think it matters if 100% of the class meets that expectation.</p>