So I submitted my retention report yesterday...

[G5052]

I've been a community college professor for 15+ years now, and there's always some twist or turn.  

 

We now have a system where we have to do an online form reporting who is failing at this point in the semester and why.  I was a bad professor and never got around to watching the online training, but it was pretty straightforward and only took 15 minutes to make my entries.  The goal is of course to improve retention.  They send an email to the student which includes links to sources of help.

 

Anyway, when I reviewed my gradebook in preparation for this, several things struck me (one section, 22 students)...

• Both of my students who are homeschooling graduates are failing because of many missed assignments
• Four other students who were not homeschooled are failing
• My two older (40+) students both have solid A's
• I have four students who have almost perfect scores on everything 

So six are failing, and four have almost perfect scores.  That's quite a spread for almost half the class!

 

Anyway, yet another snapshot of community college!

[elegantlion]

 

So six are failing, and four have almost perfect scores.  That's quite a spread for almost half the class!

 

Anyway, yet another snapshot of community college!

 

I've seen this in my classes as well as a student. In all three classes, the professor brought this up. In two classes, they said they'd never seen such a spread before. I was truly surprised how many student blew off studying for a history test and failed. I talked with a few and even offered to help them study for the next test if necessary. It was not a hard test by any stretch. I'm in a regional state university. 

 

I feel empathy for these professors as they are practically handing some of the information on a silver platter and have stressed office hours or contacting by email numerous times. 

[creekland]

It wouldn't be all that different for most high school classes to be honest - except you'd be missing the 40+ year old students, of course.

 

I know the A distribution of one of my middle son's cc classes (Microbio).  He and another homeschooling student (doing DE) got the only two As.  Many fellow students got A- or Bs, including most of those in his study group.  I've no clue how many failed, but the class lost a few after the first test.  A couple who showed up for his study group "once" also didn't make it.  As far as I know, all of those were regular college students at the cc (meaning the age could be variable within a few years, but not 40+).  I've no idea if older non-traditional students took the class.

[unsinkable]

'

[Reefgazer]

I see this bimodal curve also in my biology classes and my co-workers see it also.  Some people will work their tails off for that "A" or "B: and others won't.  Funny you should mention this topic, because a friend of mine (also a professor) and I just discussed this at length last night.  Both of us teach at the same university and both of us have experienced marked drops in student effort/quality/retention over the past 10 years or so; the drop has been particularly remarkable within the past 5 years.  Our university has had a retention system similar to the one you describe in place for a few years now; it has changed nothing.  Students who are failing know they are failing without an automated robot telling them so; they just don't care enough to do anything about it because they figure a gentleman's "C" will be awarded to them regardless of effort.  This situation won't change until administrators stop holding professors responsible for failures.  Professors are not responsible for failures unless they are grossly incompetent; adult students are responsible for their failures.

[G5052]

I've seen this in my classes as well as a student. In all three classes, the professor brought this up. In two classes, they said they'd never seen such a spread before. I was truly surprised how many student blew off studying for a history test and failed. I talked with a few and even offered to help them study for the next test if necessary. It was not a hard test by any stretch. I'm in a regional state university. 

 

I feel empathy for these professors as they are practically handing some of the information on a silver platter and have stressed office hours or contacting by email numerous times. 

 

Yes, I hate to say it, but I'm hardened to it by now.  A good number of my students usually fail, but this fall's spread is more than usual.  I actually tweeked it over the summer to tie up a few loose ends, but that can't be the cause of this.  From my perspective, everything is clearer than ever.

 

I did just get an email from one of the homeschooled students apologizing for his lack of attention to deadlines.  Well, that's a start, but he's so far down that I'm not sure he'll be able to pass in the end. 

[G5052]

Both of us teach at the same university and both of us have experienced marked drops in student effort/quality/retention over the past 10 years or so; the drop has been particularly remarkable within the past 5 years.  Our university has had a retention system similar to the one you describe in place for a few years now; it has changed nothing.  Students who are failing know they are failing without an automated robot telling them so; they just don't care enough to do anything about it because they figure they a gentleman's "C:" will be awarded to them regardless of effort.  This situation won't change until administrators stop holding professors responsible for failures.  Professors are not responsible for failures unless they are grossly incompetent; adult students are responsible for their failures.

 

Yes, that's the time periods I would say too.  Fifteen years ago, it wasn't uncommon for me to give nearly all A's and B's.  Most of my students were older than the norm.  Friends at work would joke that I was so fortunate to teach only in the evening because "that's when the serious students come."  I never had classroom problems either.

 

Then 10 years ago I had my first experience with a student who came to class drunk, and 1/3 of my students failed that semester.

 

And the quality has gone downhill since then.  

 

I can't believe that the retention system is really going to change things either. It says something when we apparently can't trust the students to judge if they are doing OK or not, particularly with online gradebooks. But I guess that gives some accountability for the college to say that they did what they could.

 

Thankfully I've never been questioned about the number of students I've failed.  That would be something to complain about!

[MarkT]

I've been a community college professor for 15+ years now, and there's always some twist or turn.  

 

We now have a system where we have to do an online form reporting who is failing at this point in the semester and why.  I was a bad professor and never got around to watching the online training, but it was pretty straightforward and only took 15 minutes to make my entries.  The goal is of course to improve retention.  They send an email to the student which includes links to sources of help.

 

Anyway, when I reviewed my gradebook in preparation for this, several things struck me (one section, 22 students)...

• Both of my students who are homeschooling graduates are failing because of many missed assignments
• Four other students who were not homeschooled are failing
• My two older (40+) students both have solid A's
• I have four students who have almost perfect scores on everything 

So six are failing, and four have almost perfect scores.  That's quite a spread for almost half the class!

 

Anyway, yet another snapshot of community college!

 

I guess I am little bothered that your system tells the instructor so much about the student's background (obviously some of it can be discerned by observation).

 

Not surprised that the older students are doing well -  maturity does help.

 

[FaithManor]

The last time I taught fine art appreciation for non-majors - a gen ed class - I failed 5 out of 22 students. Another 7 received very low, barely passing grades, 5 students students earned b' s and c' s, and 4 earned A's.

 

I was not particularly tough since this is a gen ed class and many of the students have extremely limited arts background. Very much a basic, introductory course. So the number of failures and very low passing grades was discouraging, but these students just would not turn work in on time, or try very hard. Some got their just desserts for it too having out off taking this 100 level course until the last semester of their senior year which meant they did not graduate on time. Oh there was a lot of moaning to the Dean about me, but bless that man, he stood behind me 100%.

 

They have asked me back recently, but I just have not had the time to teach the course - it is a two hour round trip commute now that we moved further east - and have three high schoolers to homeschool so I fear the situation could be worse now.

 

One think enters into the "why" equation is the tight hold high schools have on students. They micromanage these kids to death, and micromanage the teachers as well. This means that students do not learn time management, study skills, nor make intuitive leaps about what they might need to do next. It is dictated to them. There is no difference from one class to another due to strict teaching policies. Thus, everything is generally the same for four years. The students do not develop any adaptability skills. Then they go to college, are entirely responsible for self, have no one to dictate to them, and find out professors teach in a variety of ways, have some variance in grading, and no administrators are demanding that x percentage of students must receive A's and B' s. They are m' particularly well equipped for the stark change.

 

As for local homeschoolers, the two largest groups are not even remotely academic minded and proud of it. Their students are not heading to college, and the few that do break away from mom and dad and attend cc are reported by the local faculty to be very underperforming which means the instructors take a dim view of homeschooling though they rush to admit that many ps students are not doing better. The homeschooling families that are academic oriented, like us, are not sending our kids to the local cc because it is so limited in what it offers and many four year colleges do not accept their credits. So these kids are heading to four year institutions where they do very very well. Thus the professors at schools like Hope, Kalamazoo, Alma College, and Hillsdale as well as big uni' s like U of MI and MSU report their homeschool freshmen are 3.0 or better students.

[Reefgazer]

The system where I teach gives professors no such info, but the students volunteer the info of their own accord.  I know similar info on my students, and more.  It's surprising how much the students open up to me if I stay after class a bit and listen to their interests and their hopes for their future.  I hear all sorts of highly personal stuff that I don't ask for (and I mean really personal - fertility issues, marriage problems, money problems, job loss).

I guess I am little bothered that your system tells the instructor so much about the student's background (obviously some of it can be discerned by observation).

 

Not surprised that the older students are doing well -  maturity does help.
 

 

[-M-]

Did the homeschooled students self-identify? I ask because my daughters, and their brother before them, refrain(ed) from telling their professors and peers that they are / were homeschooled -- primarily to avoid the labels, good and bad. (My son did eventually tell one of his English professors, when he requested a letter of recommendation from her.) My youngest and oldest children also participate(d) in dual enrollment, but the professors remain unaware of that unless the students share that information. This was particularly uncomfortable for my youngest, sixteen, when the freshman seminar professor announced that she "hated kids," which she defined as anyone under eighteen.
 
!!
 
It would take volumes to share the many stories my kids have carried home about the, erm, unusual approach to studies the majority of their peers take. This year, I've actually been able to see some of the "spread," too: Some grade distribution detail is available on the student course site. For example, on the first psych exam, the high was 74 (out of 75); the low was 23. There were only two As on the exam, the prof announced on returning them. She offered study tips, referred to the online resources she posted, and grew more than annoyed when one student asked a convoluted question about the role over-confidence plays in exam-taking. "That was in our reading. Did you complete the assigned reading?" "In the book? Um, yeah. No. Why?"
 
I love this bit from In the Basement of the Ivory Tower: Confessions of an Accidental Academic (Professor X; 2011):
 
p. 88
I am actually surprised that a larger sprinkling of good students doesn’t turn up in my Huron State classes. I have come to think of two-year colleges as a great bargain. If you are a particular type of good student – someone who is in it for grades and low cost, someone who can sit through rudimentary lectures without falling asleep, who can listen to the rambling and disconnected answers of your fellow students without wanting to bludgeon them, who can listen to your teacher’s repeated attempts to pull answers out of a class without wanting to scream out the bleedingly obvious response – if you are someone who can avoid falling into despair when college classes have high-school-type problems, and the library is so lightly used, and no one really ever reads of word of anything, then a place like Huron State is a great buy.
 
 
Who can listen to the rambling and disconnected answers of your fellow students without wanting to bludgeon them....That bit always reminds me to be impressed with my daughters' equanimity in the face of their peers' -- to be kind -- lack of skills.

[FaithManor]

Students in my class tended to self volunteer a lot of information about their family and education backgrounds.

 

The homeschool set here who are of the "anything we do is always better than the PS" like to announce it proudly to the entire class on the first day because they have been lead to believe they really are the top of the heap and will not encounter anyone who could possibly be better educated than they. Sigh...thankfully, again this is mostly at the very tiny, not very good cc nearby anyway. Though, they do it at the good one where I used to teach the fine arts class and as a homeschooling mother, I wanted to take them aside and say, "Shhhh....you are about to learn a very important life lesson. Stop talking and listen."

 

But, at U of MI, MSU, MTU, Hope, these types of schools, I get the sense that the homeschool students who attend there, having managed admission to much more competitive schools and likely very aware through extra curriculars like scouts, 4-H, music performance groups, etc. that there are many bright, motivated, excellent students out there and they are one fish in a large sea, keep it to themselves until they have established their reputations as good students. This is the way it was with DD, and other homeschooled university or good LAC attending students I have known, and what their parents have reported. My boys will keep it under wraps until they can't. This way they are not judged one way or another, but stand on their own skills.

 

That first subset of homeschoolers though just make me cringe, but my local PS is pathetic, truly pathetic. To lower the bar and pat one's self on the back is just staggering. The disservice it does the student is disheartening.

 

All in all, amongst my professor friends and acquaintances, I can't think of one in which previous educational experience was disclosed by the admission's department. In every case, the students themselves have been forthcoming.

[G5052]

Did the homeschooled students self-identify? I ask because my daughters, and their brother before them, refrain(ed) from telling their professors and peers that they are / were homeschooled -- primarily to avoid the labels, good and bad. (My son did eventually tell one of his English professors, when he requested a letter of recommendation from her.) My youngest and oldest children also participate(d) in dual enrollment, but the professors remain unaware of that unless the students share that information. This was particularly uncomfortable for my youngest, sixteen, when the freshman seminar professor announced that she "hated kids," which she defined as anyone under eighteen. 

 

Actually the system identifies homeschooled dual enrollment students ("Dual enrollment -- homeschool" versus "Dual enrollment -- private school'), and I usually have 1-2 homeschooled graduates that I know about because I know their parents. I was the membership coordinator of a large, multi-county homeschool group for a number of years.  It sometimes puts me into an awkward situation that way. Imagine what it is like to fail the kid of someone you used to talk to regularly at park days, support group meeting, etc.

 

Anyway, thankfully this is a largely pro-homeschooling community college.  The counsellor who handles dual enrollment has homeschooled children, and there are several other faculty members who either are homeschooling or who have relatives who are homeschooling.