HigherEd 2.0

So the grades are in, and I wanted to give you some statistics for the course. Final exam class average: 82.5%. That was a challenging exam, and I am really impressed with the class performance. In particular, the average on the machine/frame problem was (drumroll, please) 17.7/20! My 4-year-old, Mr. Mixed Metaphor, would say “Holy Crackamoley” to that result. Not sure what he means, but it’s good. Congratulations to everyone for making a big effort to review that material from the second exam. More good news: there were three perfect scores on the final exam.

Class average for the entire course was a whopping 86%! That’s essentially unprecedented. In 12 years of college teaching, I have never seen such a high mean for the class. I don’t think I’ve done anything differently (like, given easier exams), so I think you deserve all the credit. We did have some extra credit for the course, as you know. Between the podcast contest and the student solutions, you earned a total of about 32 extra points on your final grades as a class. That’s enough to raise the class average by about 1/2 percentage point. Even still, a mid-80’s class average is stupendous.

Finally, even more good news. Not a single student had a final class average below 70%. That’s truly amazing and is (I think) a testament to a few things. First, you all worked hard. Second, you all helped each other. The student solutions provided access to information in addition to earning you extra points. Third, you worked together collaboratively on the project, which again provided a fun experience AND extra points.

I hope the class format suited you this semester, and the grades certainly suggest that you bought into the project. But with great freedom also comes great responsibility…next semester we are going to jump it up a notch (search for it on the page) and see how we can take the student generated materials to the next level. This semester certainly suggests that when we all work together, we can all be winners. I feel confident that as a class you displayed a level of mastery of the course material that was tremendous. Let’s see what’s possible if we work even harder next semester.