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It would be interesting to have it based on awards/achievements, rather than experience points as experience points are just a renaming of the grade number that

It would be interesting to have it based on awards/achievements, rather than experience points as experience points are just a renaming of the grade number that maps to a letter. At the beginning of the class, there is a huge number of projects or tasks, and they are combined in different ways to "unlock" achievements. Actual grades could be based on how many of different difficulties you have at the end of the class. You can't unlock more difficult achievements without unlocking other ones first (or in tandem). Students get to choose exactly which path they want to take through the assignments to get the right kind/enough achievements to pass. Consider a compiler design class, where the tasks are things like "implement a RPN calculator", "write an LALR parser", "parser that acknowledges operator precedence", "code generator for a CISC machine", "code generator for a RISC machine", "implement space-saving optimizations", "implement time-saving optimizations", "execute code by walking the AST", "generate intermediate bytecode", "parser generator using Yacc/Bison", "parser generator using lemon". These are kind of high level, they'd need to be somewhat more discrete in the ramp-up phase at the start of the class.

barrkel 17y ago
I don't think XP is a simple mapping to grade numbers - see my comment elsewhere in this post. Doing less than perfectly in any single test hurts your potential grade permanently, but not necessarily so with XP.
- thwarted 17y ago
  I'm not saying it necessarily is a simple mapping, but I think it's easier for people to misunderstand the relationship since both are effectively "point based". Can an XP based system be any different than those teachers who say upfront that each quiz or test or question or whathaveyou is worth X number of points? If you need a certain number of XP to pass the class, and you don't gain enough at a critical juncture in the course, do you get a chance to make it up? Doing away with the time component of class based instruction, where exams are administered at given, set times, and you just need to prove that you know the material come the last day of class, would be an XP based system. I've had teachers do that before. Really, expecting students to make specific progress at a specific rate over the semester, as codified in regular exams, is a way to avoid having to deal with teaching different things at different times to a group of students, in the name of efficiency.

barrkel 17y ago

I don't think XP is a simple mapping to grade numbers - see my comment elsewhere in this post. Doing less than perfectly in any single test hurts your potential grade permanently, but not necessarily so with XP.

thwarted 17y ago
I'm not saying it necessarily is a simple mapping, but I think it's easier for people to misunderstand the relationship since both are effectively "point based". Can an XP based system be any different than those teachers who say upfront that each quiz or test or question or whathaveyou is worth X number of points? If you need a certain number of XP to pass the class, and you don't gain enough at a critical juncture in the course, do you get a chance to make it up? Doing away with the time component of class based instruction, where exams are administered at given, set times, and you just need to prove that you know the material come the last day of class, would be an XP based system. I've had teachers do that before. Really, expecting students to make specific progress at a specific rate over the semester, as codified in regular exams, is a way to avoid having to deal with teaching different things at different times to a group of students, in the name of efficiency.