Introduction

Dear Alan Nielsen,

This report contains all of your grades from the class: Psychology 3850: Language Evolution and Cognition, taught in the Summer I semester of 2020 by Dr. Alan Nielsen. For each piece of coursework you will find your grades here plotted relative to the performance of other students in your class.

Overall Performance

Before further breaking down the numbers, allow me to inform you that your course grade was 86%, which earned you a letter grade of A (GPA= 4)). In a class of 39 students your position in the class was 11.

Your overall performance is shown in the graph below:

FocalColor <- mapvalues(FocalData$Letter, from = rev(Letters), to = colors)


OverallPlot +
  geom_vline(xintercept = round(FocalData$Overall,2), color = "Blue", size = 2) +
  geom_text(aes(x=40, y=1.8, label = "Your Grade = "), hjust= 0, color = "blue") +
  geom_text(aes(x=56, y=1.8, label = round(FocalData$Overall,2), hjust= 0), color = "blue")

Online Discussions

Twenty percent of your course grade was based on Online Discussions. Of these, you earned a grade of 20/20.

FocalColor <- mapvalues(FocalData$DTletter, from = rev(Letters), to = colors)


DTPlot +
  geom_vline(xintercept = round(FocalData$DT,2), color = "Blue", size = 2) +
  geom_text(aes(x=0, y=18, label = "Your Grade = "), hjust= 0, color = "blue") +
  geom_text(aes(x=5.5, y=18, label = round(FocalData$DT,2), hjust= 0), color = "blue")

Mini-Essays

Twenty five percent of your course grade was based on weekly mini essays. On these mini essays, you earned a grade of 18.5/25.

MEPlot +
  geom_vline(xintercept = round(FocalData$MET,2), color = "Blue", size = 2) +
  geom_text(aes(x=0, y=4.5, label = "Your Grade = "), hjust= 0, color = "blue") +
  geom_text(aes(x=6.5, y=4.5, label = round(FocalData$MET,2), hjust= 0), color = "blue")

The below table shows your week-by-week performance on Mini Essays relative to the rest of the class.

time <- c("Week 1", "Week 2", "Week 3", "Week 4", "Week 5", "Week 6", "Overall")
Grade <- c(FocalData$ME1, FocalData$ME2, FocalData$ME3, FocalData$ME4, FocalData$ME5, FocalData$ME6, FocalData$MET)
Averages <- c(mean(subset(FinalGrades, ME1>0)$ME1), mean(subset(FinalGrades, ME2>0)$ME2), mean(subset(FinalGrades, ME3>0)$ME3), 
              mean(subset(FinalGrades, ME4>0)$ME4), mean(subset(FinalGrades, ME5>0)$ME5), mean(subset(FinalGrades, ME6>0)$ME6),
              mean(FinalGrades$MET))

EssayTable <- cbind.data.frame(time, Grade, Averages)

EssayTable %>%
  data.frame() %>%
    mutate_if(is.numeric, round, digits = 2) %>% 
            knitr::kable(caption = "Psychology 3850- Mini Essay Grades", col.names = c("", "Your Grade", "Average") ) %>%
              kable_styling(full_width= F) %>%
                pack_rows("Weekly Grades", 1, 6) %>%
                pack_rows("Overall Grade", 7, 7)
Psychology 3850- Mini Essay Grades
Your Grade Average
Weekly Grades
Week 1 3.5 3.47
Week 2 3.0 2.93
Week 3 3.0 3.11
Week 4 4.0 3.25
Week 5 4.0 3.68
Week 6 4.0 3.48
Overall Grade
Overall 18.5 17.29

Peer Assessment

Ten percent of your mark came from Peer Assessments you conducted on each others work. The Peer Assessment portion of the course also contained the possibility to obtain bonus marks, with the highest number of bonus marks obtained being 3.5. For Peer Assessment , you earned a grade of 11.5/10.

PAPlot +
  geom_vline(xintercept = round(FocalData$PAT,2), color = "Blue", size = 2) +
  geom_text(aes(x=0, y=14, label = "Your Grade = "), hjust= 0, color = "blue") +
  geom_text(aes(x=3.7, y=14, label = round(FocalData$PAT,2), hjust= 0), color = "blue")

Online Presentation

Fifteen percent of your mark came from your Online Presentation, where you were tasked with choosing a single academic paper and producing a ten minute presentation for the rest of the class. On your Online Presentation, titled “Iterated learning and the evolution of language” you earned a grade of 11/15.

OPPlot +
  geom_vline(xintercept = round(FocalData$OP,2), color = "Blue", size = 2) +
  geom_text(aes(x=0, y=9, label = "Your Grade = "), hjust= 0, color = "blue") +
  geom_text(aes(x=3.5, y=9, label = round(FocalData$OP,2), hjust= 0), color = "blue")

Your instructor’s concluding remarks on your course essay were:

“Your summary is very… summary-y and less presentation-y.i.e. you move a bit too quickly and too generally through the findings and I suspect other students would have a lot of difficulty after watching this describing what the paper was actually about other than in the very broadest terms. But overall this was pretty good”

Online Presentation Quiz

Ten percent of your mark came from a Quiz based on eight online presentations chosen by your instructor. On your Online Presentation quiz, you earned a grade of 9/10.

OPQPlot +
  geom_vline(xintercept = round(FocalData$OPQ,2), color = "Blue", size = 2) +
  geom_text(aes(x=0, y=9, label = "Your Grade = "), hjust= 0, color = "blue") +
  geom_text(aes(x=2.75, y=9, label = round(FocalData$OPQ,2), hjust= 0), color = "blue")

Course Essay

The final component of your grade was a course essay on a topic of your choice worth a total of twenty percent of your grade. On your Course Essay, titled “Iterated Learning and Compositionality” you earned a grade of 16/20.

CEPlot +
  geom_vline(xintercept = round(FocalData$CE,2), color = "Blue", size = 2) +
  geom_text(aes(x=0, y=4.5, label = "Your Grade = "), hjust= 0, color = "blue") +
  geom_text(aes(x=5.5, y=4.5, label = round(FocalData$CE,2), hjust= 0), color = "blue")

Your instructor’s concluding remarks on your course essay were:

“You still fall short of a really exceptional essay here, but I understand you were having problems figuring out how to unpack some of the issues being discussed while also presenting those issues. Still, this has shown a lot of growth since its first draft, and you should be proud of the work you produced here, which demonstrates solid understanding of the material you have chosen to cover. This is made even more obvious by the improvements to and tightening up of the writing in several sections. Good work Laurel”