Expecting students to perform well becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy when teachers and institutions hold high expectations for themselves and make extra efforts. The following are strongly discouraged Tests with averages in the 40's and 50's, regardless of later scaling Exam grades that are left exceptionally low because they might be rescaled in the future Midterm grades that are only loosely correlated to final grades Being purposely vague about grading procedure to keep students motivated Structuring the class so that a bad day can cost the student 2 letter grades or more. That is, more effort means a better grade. Structuring a class to keep students about two letter grades lower than what they will ultimately receive, in order to motivate them to strive for more, is demoralizing and should be avoided. There are many roads to learning.
People bring different talents and styles of learning to college.
Brilliant students in the seminar room may be all thumbs in the lab or art studio. Students rich in hands-on experience may not do so well with theory. Students need the opportunity to show their talents and learn in ways that work for them. Then they can be pushed to learning in new ways that do not come so easily. Assigning all of the points via the traditional three exams and a final is discouraged.