I'm trying a new (to me) grading scheme in all of my classes this semester. Concept-based grading. The short summary of the scheme is this: traditional grading schemes have grades given per item turned in, and each item may cover 1-to-several concepts. Then the items are categorized, and each category is given some weight. For example, a typical grading breakdown for my courses in the past might look something like
10% Quizzes
10% Homework
60% Exams (4 exams at 15% each)
20% Final Exam
Concept-based grading, on the other hand, has the entire course content broken into individual concepts that need to be mastered. Each concept is tested, frequently, and new scores replace old scores rather than averaging in. Here's Dan Meyer's blog post about it, for more extensive reference.
