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[scienceprof]

On the attendance thread, Alan said

I allow a bonus for "seat time". While I don't give points for attendance, I do use it for borderline grades. At the end of the term, if they have missed less than x hours of class time, then I add y % to their total percent. ...

It's a Jedi mind trick to change the emphasis from "I have to show up or I'll get docked points" to "I'll get a bonus if I attend regularly".

Alan

Which made me wonder if anyone else had  Jedi mind tricks they would like to share.

My best is: I used to require students to rewrite lab reports that were below a "B" , and I got a lot of whining.  Now I ALLOW students to rewrite, and I get a lot of gratitude.

[voxprincipalis]

On the attendance thread, Alan said

I allow a bonus for "seat time". While I don't give points for attendance, I do use it for borderline grades. At the end of the term, if they have missed less than x hours of class time, then I add y % to their total percent. ...

It's a Jedi mind trick to change the emphasis from "I have to show up or I'll get docked points" to "I'll get a bonus if I attend regularly".

Alan

Which made me wonder if anyone else had  Jedi mind tricks they would like to share.

My best is: I used to require students to rewrite lab reports that were below a "B" , and I got a lot of whining.  Now I ALLOW students to rewrite, and I get a lot of gratitude.

In one of my classes, the majority of the grade comes from their in-class work and preparation, and a smaller percentage comes from the final. On the first day of class, I allow the students to collectively choose the percentage weighting of the final. I give them a range: not less than 20%, not more than 30%. Almost always they choose 25%, which is what I had in mind, but they like it more when it's their choice.

VP

[pavlovian]

In one of my classes, the majority of the grade comes from their in-class work and preparation, and a smaller percentage comes from the final. On the first day of class, I allow the students to collectively choose the percentage weighting of the final. I give them a range: not less than 20%, not more than 30%. Almost always they choose 25%, which is what I had in mind, but they like it more when it's their choice.

VP

I do something like this in my smaller, advanced seminar course, except they think they are deciding on the weightings for all the different graded components.  I say they "think" because I set it up in such a way that there looks like there's much more flexibility in the outcome than there actually is.  I do this because I think it gets students to feel more personally invested in the course.  When they've made a commitment as a group to having, say, preparation for class discussion be worth 30% of the grade, then they are more invested in making that happen.  It's also tough for them to complain about the weightings later.

[felicia68]

Last year I started allowing my students to vote on which vocabulary words would be on the quiz.  Say there are 80 words.  They vote for the top 40 words that they think are useful to know.  Then 20 words will show up on the quiz.

You would think that the grades would improve, but they only improved marginally.  However, the excitement and enthusiasm about vocabulary increased tremendously.

And the discussions about 'why we learn vocabulary' also improved.  I think students got some training in how to study on their own.

[anonymath]

In my stats class, when we get to discussing central tendency, my students get to debate (and then vote) on how they'd like me to grade their homework portfolio. I'll either take the mean, median, or mode of their individual % correct on their homeworks. They absolutely love it that they get to make the decision, and boy do they remember their central tendency afterwards.

[grasshopper]

I give more assignments than there are points allotted for assignments, so that students can choose not to do an assignment here or there, with the option of making it up later.

This is fan-super-tastic because...

... they never ask for "extra credit," since the extra credit is built right into the grading scheme. I've had to give "extra credit" once, and that was due to medical trauma.

... I rarely receive emails begging for extensions, because they have a chance to make up the assignment at a later date.

... it fosters a sense of responsibility for what and how they learn, which somewhat counteracts the consumer mentality - we're all producing knowledge together.

... most students will do the assignments at the beginning of the term to get them out of the way, meaning less grading for me at the end of term, when I'm most busy.

[thenewyorker]

On exams out of ten image identifications and essays (worth 10 points each), I give at least fourteen. The students then have to choose ten out of the fourteen. This is not as clever as many of the Jedi mind tricks posted above, but it gives them a sense of control and since they can choose the ones they feel more confident about, the test anxiety eases a bit.
For their museum assignments, I also provide them with a list of the institution and a brief summary of the exhibit. They can choose which one to visit. I still control the assignment since there are certain exhibits that fit the theme of what I am currently emphasizing in class. They can choose the one that interests them most. It also gives me a big break from reading essays that are all identical. (Wait...maybe that is why I do it...)

[odessa]

In a principles (survey) class, I have a particular type of assignment that students need to do two of during the course of the semester.  I provide four, fairly equally spaced, due dates.  They get to choose when they want to hand in their two.  The Eagers will do dates #1 and #2 and be grateful that they can check those off their semester to-do lists; the Procrastinators hand-in on dates #3 and #4. 

If anybody starts complaining about how stacked up things are getting at the end of the semester, another student is likely to point out that Complainer could have front loaded at least two assignments. I just smile.

I don't have to deal with late penalty conversations on dates #1 and #2 because I just tell them to hand-in on the later dates.  Unfortunately, there's always someone who skips the first two hand-in dates and gets in a jam for the latter dates.  In which case, my standard late policy holds.

Also, in a 300 level course, when students start begging for a study guide for exams, I give them a choice -- I provide a study guide or I don't provide a study guide but they are allowed one side of a handwritten 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper worth of notes for the exam.  The decision is made by a simple majority rules vote.  They always choose the in-class crib sheet.  This works great.  I don't have to create a study guide, they think I'm benevolent allowing notes for the exam, preparing the crib sheet actually forces them to think about the material and what is important, they are less inclined to cheat because they have notes in front of them, it seems to take the edge off of test anxiety for those who are particularly sensitive and I write my tests in such a way (with plenty of warning and examples provided in class) that if a student thinks s/he can just copy some definitions onto the crib sheet and be good-to-go-for-an-A on the exam, s/he will realize that I wasn't kidding when I warned that that approach works for maybe 20-25% of the questions, but they really have to understand the material and how to apply it for the bulk of the exam. 

O.

[barrelofmonkeys]

I have a couple of Jedi mind tricks, too.

Like thenewyorker, I have at least one section on every exam where the students have a choice--i.e. choose 10 out of the following 12 questions, choose 2 of the 3 essays.  This really does seem to calm them down during exam time by giving them some modicum of  "control" over the exam. 

I also grade using "cumulative points" (such that, for example, a student can earn up to 800 points in the course) and then include a "grade guarantee" in the syllabus (720/800 guarantees an A-, etc.).  This way, I don't ever assign letter grades to individual exams or other assignments.  I have found that this really cuts down on the grade-grubbing and also puts "one bad assignment" into perspective for my snowflakes. 
 

[cc_alan]

I have a couple of Jedi mind tricks, too.

Like thenewyorker, I have at least one section on every exam where the students have a choice--i.e. choose 10 out of the following 12 questions, choose 2 of the 3 essays.  This really does seem to calm them down during exam time by giving them some modicum of  "control" over the exam. 

I also grade using "cumulative points" (such that, for example, a student can earn up to 800 points in the course) and then include a "grade guarantee" in the syllabus (720/800 guarantees an A-, etc.).  This way, I don't ever assign letter grades to individual exams or other assignments.  I have found that this really cuts down on the grade-grubbing and also puts "one bad assignment" into perspective for my snowflakes. 
 

I do something similar wrt assigning grades. When I pass back an assignment (exam, whatever), I write the points earned on it (along with the total possible) and I write neither a grade nor a percent on it.

The mind trick is to try to get them focused on their overall results. By not writing the percentages on the assignments, it encourages them to do it themselves. Sounds silly but all it takes is a few "you can calculate the percent earned on this assignment" replies when I pass back the first one and the students decide that I'm not going to do that for them.

Alan

[summers_off]

Jedi mind tricks (or positive psychology, is perhaps a better way to put it) is an important tool to improve teaching evals.  (This is anecdotal, of course...I have not seen any studies on this).

This past semester, I gave students credit for attendance (rather than punishing them for missing class); gave them points for correct answers on essay questions (rather than subtracting points for missing or wrong answwers); let them vote on 3 different possible ways of calculating final grades (all of which were acceptable to me, so I didn't care which one they picked); etc.  My teaching evals were the highest ever, even though the student learning outcomes were roughly the same.  It is all about framing!

[zuzu_]

I give a short quiz at the beginning of class whenever there is assigned reading.

So it's not their "quiz grade"--it's their "reading grade." They get credit just for reading! Cool!

[mountainguy]

My Jedi mind trick is that I allow students to re-write any written assignment (except final essays) for a higher grade, provided that it was submitted on-time. I then calculate their new assignment grade using the following formula: [.6(original grade) + .4(re-write grade)].

Students think I'm doing them a favor and rarely grade-grub about written work.. Few of them ever choose to take me up on the offer. It's too much work for them because they actually have to pay attention to what my comments say. 

[cc_alan]

Jedi mind tricks (or positive psychology, is perhaps a better way to put it) is an important tool to improve teaching evals.  (This is anecdotal, of course...I have not seen any studies on this).

HEY!

No fair trying to educationalize nerd terms.

Alan
Nerd-boy and proud of it... I've helped hundreds of padawans take the pebble from my hand.

[toothpaste]

Now that I start to write this out, I'm not sure whether it is good pedagogy or bad.  I'd appreciate feedback.

My standard exam format is an essay question plus a series of ID items (usually 4 out of 6, using the method described above).  I figured out a long time ago that if I set the values at 80% and 20%, the grade for the IDs almost never affects the final grade for the exam. That is, unless the student completely bombs the ID section and Aces the essay (or the reverse), the essay grade is the exam grade.

My reasoning was that this method compels students to pay enough attention in lecture to write down the main points (since I tell them the ID items), comforts those who want to know what they are supposed to be learning, and helps them organize their studying so that they remember something. But what I really value as a teacher is the analytic ability shown (or not!) in the essays.