Subject: Dropping Lowest Two Grades

9/8/2009

Jason Ackman
Application Specialist
Carroll University
Phone: (262) 951-3067
Email: jackman@carrollu.edu

Question to ListServ:

I have a few instructors who drop the lowest two quizzes that a student takes in the course. Does anyone know how I would accomplish this in LMS?

Responses from ListServ:

from Debbie Henderson

henderson@cofo.edu

• The only way we have done this is have the instructor delete the lowest two grades. They can’t change them to zero but have to hit the delete key to remove the grade.

from Richard Laherty

R.Laherty@scnm.edu

Richard F. Laherty, Ph.D.
Professor of Anatomy
Chair Basic Medical Sciences

• Another way that is possible if the quizzes can be separated into two units, say first half of term and second half of term, then you can set the gradebook to drop the lowest score in each group.

from Baad, Jim

jim.baad@grace.edu

• Both these approaches work, however I have found the manual removal of the grades the best way to do this (actually the best way would be having a gradebook that allows a wider range of number of dropped grades per type). I have had more than a few conversations with faculty members concerning this and the decision they always reach is manually removing the lowest grade or using a different grading scheme.
  
  If you setup two types or units (depending on your gradebook weighting) of quizzes and drop the lowest grade in each unit or type this is not equal to dropping the lowest two quiz grades. If a student has their two lowest scores overall separately in each type or unit they may benefit more than a student that has their two lowest scores in the same type/unit. For example:
  
  A class has 4 quizzes in two types, First Half Quizzes and Second Half Quizzes. The gradebook is setup to weight based on type and the lowest grade in each type is dropped. Two students are in this class, John and Suzy. Suzy scores a 85 and 82 in the First Half, and a 93 and a 75 in the second half. John scores a 72 and 73 in the First Half, and a 93 and 95 in the second half.
  
  If we could instruct the gradebook to drop the two lowest grades of ALL quizzes Suzy would receive a 93 and 85, and John a 93 and 95. But if you split the quizzes into two types to drop 2 grades Suzy will receive a 93 and 85 and John will receive at 95 and 73. That’s a pretty big difference, one that the professor may not immediately perceive but todays college students will quickly figure out.
  
  They never seem to like their math homework but they will spend hours calculating how high they need to score on their final to pass the class.

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