Editing Intro to Programming and Data Science (Fall 2024) (section)

= Grades =

This course will follow a "self-assessment" philosophy. I am more interested in helping you to learn things that will be useful to you than in assigning grades. The university still requires grades, so you will be leading the evaluation of your work. At the beginning of the course, I will encourage you to think about and write down what you hope to get out of the course. Three times during the course you will reflect on what you have accomplished thus far, how it has met, not met, or exceeded expectations, based both on rubrics and personal goals and objectives. At each of these stages you will receive feedback on your assessments. By the end of the semester, you should have a clear vision of your accomplishments and growth, which you will turn into a grade. As the instructor-of-record, I maintain the right to disagree with your assessment and alter grades as I see fit, but any time that I do this it will be accompanied by an explanation and discussion. These personal assessments, reflecting both honest and meaningful reflection of your work will be the most important factor in final grades.

I suggest that we use the following rubric in our assessment:

* 25%: class participation, including attendance, participation in discussions and group work, and significant effort towards weekly assignments.
* 5%: Final Project Idea.
* 10%: Final Project Proposal.
* 40%: Final Project paper/Jupyter notebook.
* 20%: Final Presentation including your slides and presentation.

My interpretation of grade levels (A, B, C, D/F) is the following:

A: Reflects work the exceeds expectations on multiple fronts and to a great degree. Students reaching this level of achievement will:
* Do what it takes to learn the programming principles and techniques, including looking to outside sources if necessary.
* Engage thoughtfully with an ambitious research project.
* Take intellectual risks, offering interpretations based on synthesizing material and asking for feedback from peers.
* Sharing work early allowing extra time for engagement with others.
* Write reflections that grapple meaningfully with lessons learned as well as challenges.
* Complete all or nearly all assignments at a high level.

B: Reflects strong work. Work at this level will be of consistently high quality. Students reaching this level of achievement will:
* Be more safe or consistent than the work described above.
* Ask meaningful questions of peers and engage them in fruitful discussion.
* Exceed requirements, but in fairly straightforward ways
* Compose complete and sufficiently detailed reflections.
* Complete nearly all of the programming assignments at a high level

C: This reflects meeting the minimum expectations of the course. Students reaching this level of achievement
will:
* Turn in and complete required assignments on time.
* Be collegial and continue discussion, through asking simple or limited questions.
* Compose reflections with straightforward and easily manageable goals and/or avoid discussions of challenges.
* Not complete programming assignments or turn some in in a hasty or incomplete manner.

D/F: These are reserved for cases in which students do not complete work or participate. Students may also be
impeding the ability of others to learn.