travelouge or intellectual discussion

I've been reviewing past posts and realized that my blog is a nice record of the things I do. Except that it is never updated, because it isn't that interesting. So I think that I will change it and make it more of a social commentary than a review of my life.
So the other day I go in to sit down with a counselor in the college of life sciences to have a small chat about signing up for the microbiology major. Strangely enough the adviser didn't really want to talk about my major. Instead we spent most of the time discussing a change of policy in the college called "Zion Learning." It encourages students to help each other learn by doing a couple of things.
1) It eliminates the curve entirely. So many of the Large classes are structured so that students don't have to actually know the material to get an A. My American Heritage class is on about a 15 percentage point curve overall. But it is designed this way. It isn't that the kids taking the class are all unintelligent, or incapable of learning the material, rather it is structured to prevent grade inflation by asking vaguely worded test questions, or esoteric questions that no one knows the answer to.
2) by eliminating the curve, they encourage students to work together. If your study partners get A's on the test, it doesn't affect your performance. In fact in Biology 120 last semester my professor gave out A's to a full 65 % of the class. Not because the material was easy, but because the students had learned it, and had helped each other learn it. Out of over 300 kids, only 3 failed, and none of them showed up to the final exam. The story is told of a graduate professor who fed up with the competitiveness in his biology class declared that all 20 or so of his students would receive the same grade. Everyone would get the grade attained by the lowest scoring student in the class. Those students rushed to the aid of the lower scoring students, and as a result, learned the material better themselves. I believe that the lowest score in the class by the end of that semester was an A-.

Perhaps for a while graduate schools and employers will devalue BYU grads for "grade inflation" but I sincerely believe that if we implement a Zion learning community, we will all benefit. Graduates will be better prepared, will be more empathetic, and will be better qualified overall to do the work required of them. Soon I think that employers and grad schools will see that an A at BYU really signifies mastery of the material, not just cutthroat competitiveness, and mastery over classmates.

I'm in favor of Zion Learning...