Math, Science Popular Until Students Realize They’re Hard
Title could almost be from The Onion.But it's true. It is hard, but that's okay. The whole point of the grading system was to acknowledge subtlety; that it's okay if you don't have an A, because it doesn't mean you haven't learnt anything, it just means you haven't learnt everything [in that course]. But somehow many students seem to take it as the end of the world not to achieve that A, when really that isn't the important thing at all.This is my own bias talking, but I think that tests were people routinely get above ~80% are badly designed tests, because set up the wrong expectations in students. If students expect 90-100% scores are possible, and then they start a subject where all of a sudden that's not true, then they're not going to deal with that well. Whereas if everyone's getting results in the 60-80% range, it sets up an attitude that "this is hard, but that's okay -- it's meant to be, and there's no shame in realising that there's a lot left to learn." Which I think is altogether more helpful...