First year programming: let all the flowers bloom

  • Authors:

  • Raymond Lister;John Leaney

  • Affiliations:

  • Faculty of Information Technology, University of Technology, Sydney, PO Box 123, Broadway 2007, New South Wales;Faculty of Information Technology, University of Technology, Sydney, PO Box 123, Broadway 2007, New South Wales

  • Venue:
  • ACE '03 Proceedings of the fifth Australasian conference on Computing education - Volume 20
  • Year:
  • 2003

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Abstract

We describe our criterion-referenced grading scheme for a first year programming subject, which has been designed to allow all participating students to achieve their full potential. Traditional norm-referenced grading schemes, where all students work on the same assessment tasks, result in tasks that may be effective for the middle-achieving student, but the tasks do not allow the weakest students to engage effectively, nor do these tasks stretch the strongest students. Our criterion-referenced scheme uses a mix of several assessment strategies to overcome this problem. The strategies have been used before in traditional assessment environments, but in isolation, whereas we combine the strategies into a coherent, explicit grading philosophy based on Bloom's taxonomy.