Thanks for the reply! Maybe I should clarify that students in my classes only get As if they fully earn it on the assessments. Bad performance doesn't get As,

Thanks for the reply! Maybe I should clarify that students in my classes only get As if they fully earn it on the assessments. Bad performance doesn't get As, grade grubbing doesn't work, etc. However, I find myself capping the difficulty level of assessments in type 1 classes, which makes As very accessible to almost anyone who puts in the work. The philosophy is, here's what I expect you to know, if you demonstrate that you know all of it, you can get an A. (Of course, the student in your story shouldn't get an A or maybe even a C if they don't know the material!) I think a philosophical difference might be that I'm thinking about type 1 classes like a set of weights students have to learn to lift. If you can lift all the weights, you've accomplished the goals of the class and I have no problem giving you an A. If you struggle here or there but can mostly lift them, you can get a B or C. I'll still be okay passing you up to a class that needs you to lift objects to accomplish more complex tasks. I'm getting the sense that your approach is more like a race, where people who finish way ahead of others should be rewarded with higher grades. Just a different approach. Yeah, I worry about demotivating top students. If I get any extra time for adjusting my class prep I'll spend it on extra challenges or resources for them. But that's also what type 2 classes are for.