Classic teacher's dilema

don't apologise for the rant, my friend. I wouldn't call it a rant at all.

A-Train:

Of course, the Russian Vodka helps me get to sleep.

I wondered how long it would take to mix threads (with an eye to the student gifts thread)

I hate the final exam as the be-all, end-all of a course. Too many skewed results, too much cheating to deal with. When I can, I set a program of assignments, so the final is worth between 30 and 40 % of the final grade.  Goof off enough through the semester and failure is assured before the final exam. Make and effort, and enough sympathy points will be factored into the assignment grades that a student can survive bad exam.

At the institute of light industry (best named college in China), I responded to the "everyone passes, eventually" by inflating all barely passing students' grades to 65 or higher, and the unearned passes were set at 60. I gave no grade between 60 and 65, so anyone who looked at my grade sheet could figure out who was really passing and who wasn't. Not that anyone looked, but I felt better about it. Got any vodka, mate?

I wish this post was available for me last year. I failed 12:72 students and really wondered what would happen to me - and the students. Luckily I had good spread sheets to show why they had failed so the school did not come down on me. Some completed no homework (3 assessments) almost all cheated in the exam, 5 students attended less than 8:16 classes. I was still generous with marking but just couldn't get these students through. The Dean decided that I was OK with the failing and I have been asked to stay on again.

This term I have given 80% of marks to monthly assignments to lessen my overall load in the final weeks and hopefully get everyone through. It's looking good - so far all of my 'kids' (242) are sitting at  80%+ .

I blame myself for the fiasco last semester but some help from other FT's and the faculty would have helped too...