Normally, extra credit is offered to students in a scenario which requires extra, but optional assignments. The grade earned on the extra work serves to boost the student's grade. Teachers may use extra credit for many reasons. Teachers may feel that some above average students could benefit from an additional challenge, but that the challenge might not be appropriate as required work for all students, and should not count against higher level students if he or she chooses not to do it. Extra credit might be used to let a low performing student improve his or her grade.
If used wisely, extra credit can even promote differentiated instruction. Typically, completion of extra credit assignments can only help a student's grade. Extra credit is usually given in one of two ways:
Points might be added to an existing grade when extra work is completed.
Additional grade items may be added to the course to provide an additional high grade to be calculated into the final average, without actually counting the grade (when finding a mean of grades).
