Final Grades Notes

After the final exam was graded I processed all the course grades as described in the syllabus.  They are now posted.  Here are the adjustments I made – all in your favor:

• Attendance was adjusted to allow two misses without penalty
• Discussion scores were adjusted so that the lowest score was dropped
• Lab scores were adjusted so that the lowest score was dropped
• Scores were rounded when determining the letter grade

Overall the class did very well.

Notes on reading your “Most” & “Least successful” answers

• Most of you found much to like in the course, though the specifics varied.  Some liked the labs, some the reading/discussion.  And almost everyone liked the field trips, especially the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge Trip.
• Some of you, especially environmental engineers, felt that the environmental portion of the course was too separate from the rest.
• Some didn’t like the discussions, though others found them most helpful.
• One person was strong in their criticism of Access Science as having little they found worthwhile
• Many liked meeting the department faculty
• Several felt that the lab periods could be better used
• One person wanted physical experiments – you’ll get them in CAE-210.

Thank you all for a good term, and thanks especially to the Shamia, Lauren and Jonathan for making the course flow so well.

Jim Mitchell

Take-Home Exam – Grading Notes

We’ve completed the grading of the Take-Home exam.  There were a number of corrections to the raw scores that were appropriate on review of the exam results and also several emails from students.  All increased your score.  They are as follows:

Calculated Questions

• VistaBb had a bug that marked a number of your answers wrong when it shouldn’t have.   All these were corrected manually.
• For the soil pressure calculation the wording wasn’t clear whether there was water in the ground.  I therefore allowed the calculation with and without water.
• I also reviewed all the answers for the full set of calculated questions and gave partial credit in a number of cases for answers close to the acceptable range.

Multiple Choice Questions

The questions noted below had ambiguities in their phrasing or used information that may not have been available everyone.  In these cases everyone who didn’t get the “right” answer received 90% credit (2.0 out of 2.2).  The questions were:

• EER- Energy Efficiency Ratio
• Revit Features
• Revit Type
• Role of Senior Design Advisor
• Tacony-Palmyra Bridge Opening
• Use of Energy in Buildings

Paragraph Answer Questions

I went through and ensured that you got the maximum credit for all your attempts as on the highest-marked answer.

Jim Mitchell

Exam Grading Status

As of 5:30 on Tuesday (6/8/2010) we’ve completed the first pass on grading the exams.  The grades there ARE NOT YET FINAL.

We are very much in the process of reviewing the grades for difficulties that we’ll resolve over the next 24 hours.  Several students have written that apparently correct answers have been marked as wrong by VistaBB.  I’ll be working with IRT on Wednesday to figure out the source of the problem and to resolve it.

In the meantime I’m glad to hear about specific difficulties that you identify so I can include them in my review.

Jim Mitchell

Lab-9 – Grader Comments

• The vast majority of you did an excellent job on Lab 9. 
• Limited confusion using the excel functions was noticed. 
• If you are unsure of anything, please ask for help.  This serves as advice for future classes as well.
• The majority of the memos were professional and of sufficient length. 

Lab-8 – Grader Comments

• The most common points lost were from not including a proper memo format when it wasn't already provided to you in a template. 
• A memo requires To, From, Subject and Date and Microsoft Word provides templates that you can use for future organization. 
• The other major points lost were for not following the directions and including the information about the group: group number, group member names and advisor, project title, etc.
• When writing a maximum 2 page memo make sure to make your statements meaningful and realize that a paragraph is composed of 3 or more sentences.  
• Otherwise the memos seemed extremely well-written and a great improvement from the beginning of the term, keep it up!

Wording Error in Online Take-Home Exam

I’ve corrected an error on the exam that one alert student brought to my attention.  In the question addressing the significant digits in a multi-story concrete building I initially asked for the “volume” of concrete.  I’ve now corrected that to “weight” of concrete.  I’ve also alerted the only two students who had completed the exam.  No one taking it after about 8:30 on Thursday should see the erroneous version.

Week-10 Discussions – Grader Comments

The discussions this week were excellent!  Most of you wrote some really well thought out and meaningful responses to your week 2 discussions.  It was great to read how your opinions have or have not changed towards your intended major, and they were very well written.  

A few students lost points for not including a source from access science, so my advice is to always make sure to read each assignment's grading criteria carefully before you begin each assignment to make sure you will get full credit.