I guess first of all, is.. I would like to understand the end goal of going through a DVA course. Are we still running with the idea that a student that has taken and passed a course will get a badge or a special gif of recognition of some sort? If so, that would really validate this next wall of text

I'm currently looking at about 3 students that signed up and did nothing. No homework assignments, no face time in class. I wasn't even going to bother sending them the final exam.

I have about 5-6 students that consistently showed up to class.

Homework assignments were a complete bomb, though. Pretty much no one did them past week one.

I'm cool with that, I sort of saw the homework assignments as a way of people demonstrating what they gained from the class. But I also saw them as a thing people could do if they missed class.

But what might have also happened is... someone waltzed in, read the chat logs, learned something, and is able to write the final... So it's hard to judge how to proceed. I mean, it's just my opinion, but I can't sign up for a university course, not show up the entire time because I was too busy, and expect to receive credit for it. If I'm going to enroll in a course (and take the seat away from someone else), I'm going to make damn sure I make some kind of effort to participate and earn that little token of recognition.

So part of my dilemma is... I don't necessarily want to take those 10 initial sign ups, PM them the final and pass them through the course when they did absolutely nothing for the whole month.

So we brainstorm! One solution is to weight the participation... Like say by class, homework and exam.

My theory for weighting is... I don't want someone who ONLY takes the exam to be able to pass the course... so the exam < 48% of the final grade.

The other 52% gets split between Class attendance and homework assignments (26% each).

There are 4 classes and 4 homework assignments. So singularily, they would each be worth 6.5% (roughly).

What I'm getting at is... even if someone couldn't make the chats, but they did one homework assignment and aced the final exam, they could still pass the course.

So here's a few options there...

50% pass required...
100% final exam = 48%
One homework assignment OR one class attended (or a mix of both) = 6.5%
= 54.5% grade.

65% pass required...
100% final exam = 48%
Three classes OR three homework assignments completed (or a mix) = 19.5%
= 67.5%

70% pass required...
100% final exam = 48%
All homework completed OR all classes attended (or a mix equalling up to 4) = 26%
= 74%

I guess it all depends on how casual or strict we want to be with the end goal of the classes and who earns the badges. I guess what I don't want is to see people waltz into DVA like it's a laugh and waltz out with a token and have gained nothing from it and done nothing for it.

Any other ideas on how to pass people through a course?