I've personally felt that grades for a class over the course of a semester (and also from freshman year to graduation) should be calculated using an average of

I've personally felt that grades for a class over the course of a semester (and also from freshman year to graduation) should be calculated using an average of both the student's overall grade point average as well as some sort of moving average, that shows a more realistic progression of their knowledge. The whole point of a class is to go from a point of lesser knowledge to a point of more knowledge on a subject, but by simply averaging out student's scores over the course of the semester, there is no evidence of their progression. By using a combination of a moving average and the total average, a teacher can more accurately see how well the student is progressing.