The quiz for the final assignment will be due Dec 12, i.e., during finals week.  Since you will be busy with that, I'm willing to not have a final and base the grade on the quizzes.  (Don't forget about the possible extra credit for completing one of the earlier assignments.)

So let's make the final optional. I'll prepare a final for those who let me know they want it by Dec 5. (It will be similar to the quizzes, but more questions.)   It will count 25% of the grade for those who take it. For those who don't take it the grade will be based solely on the quizzes (and the possible extra credit).

The last quiz will not be a substitute for a final. It will just be another quiz to be averaged with the rest.

Yes, I'll drop the lowest quiz score.

What do you think a reasonable grading scale should be?

right, can you tell us what the class average currently is, i believe this will help in determining the grade scale. 

The average score reported above (7.35) was a (very) gross result. It didn't normalize for the quiz with 16 questions -- and therefor gave everyone 16/10 of what the score for that quiz should have been. But it also didn't drop the lowest quiz score. If you do both of those the average student score is 7.24.

yes i agree with the post above

I agree with Mr. Campos

I've done everything I can think of -- and everything you've asked -- to help you learn the material. The question now is: what have you done? 

The grade in the course is supposed to reflect your competence in the material. How much have you actually learned? If you haven't learned much, your grade shouldn't be very good. That's part of the deal.

I'll tell you, though, that my practice is to be fairly lenient with respect to passing the course. I give very few D's and F's. But I also reserve A's for people who have done well. B typically means that you've tried hard and learned something but haven't been completely successful. C typically means that you've shown up but haven't made much of an effort. (Plusses and minus are adjustments to those overall ratings. C- is a passing grade as far as the major requirement is concerned.) 

Given those criteria, how many of you honestly think you deserve a B or better? Be truthful with yourself. Have you made a real effort to learn the material? If so, what has kept you back? Why haven't there been more questions on the forum? I know that some people have worked hard, but the relative silence on the forum suggests that a lot of people have not made much of an effort.

But the term isn't over. As I said, there is extra credit for each of the last two Coursera assignments. There may even be someone who would be willing to help. He's an expert in Haskell, another functional programming language, but not in Scala. So the concepts will be familiar to him, but you'll have to help him with the Scala syntax. (Doing that should help you.) If you are interested let me know and I'll put you in touch.

Someone asked what the average quiz score was, and I answered. In the previous answer I was referring to grades on tests and quizzes below the traditional values. All grades will be at least the standard values: 90-100: A- or A; 80-89: B-,B, or B+, etc. On that scale the class average is C- or C. We can do it strictly by the numbers if you prefer.

By the way, the final is scheduled for December 12 8:00 - 10:30. I'm still open to having one or not--or even to make it optional. If you take it, it counts; if you don't take it, only the quizzes will count. If you want to take a final, you must tell me individually by this Thursday. Send me an email message: Russ.Abbott@gmail.com.

The final will be taken in class.

It will be worth the same amount as every other quiz. To do that the score will be multiplied by 10/16. That will normalize the score to 10 points.