I would think that Calvin and Hobbs is exceptional; rerunning that is like running “Your Daily Shakespeare” (except far more people like Calvin and Hobbs).
Grading frequently measures compliance, and students frequently use unproductive and even damaging strategies (from brute memorization of material at the expense of understand to flat-out plagiarism) when chasing grades. It’s telling that one of the first things I learned when doing program assessment (at the university level) is that you can’t assess students’ mastery of specific learning outcomes by using students’ grades. I still use grades—in fact, I’m notoriously the hardest grader in the department—but I struggle against it. If I was earlier in my career and could devote the hours necessary to redesign most of my courses, I’d probably change to specification grading.
Thanks for that. GoComics keeps eating the URL I’m trying to post, but I found a really good article in the October 3, 2022 Harvard Crimson by Aden Barton called “Grade Inflation: What Goes Up Must Come Down.” It’s on the Harvard Crimson site, which GoComics apparently doesn’t want anyone to visit. ¯\(ツ)/¯
He was telling her what she has now .