Employment Question. What Would You Do?

[SereneHome]

US education system confuses me to no end....

We push and push and push 5 yr olds but then we make it easier for college students??  Shouldn't it be the other way around??

Edited October 28, 2018 by SereneHome

[Reefgazer]

1 hour ago, jdahlquist said:

Is this policy coming at a departmental, college, or university level?  Or, is it coming from the state?  

Is your particular issue because you have a lot of students drop?  Have a lot of F's because students don't even show up for tests and turn in homework but never drop?  Or do you have a lot of poor performers receiving Ds?  How I would manage the situation would depend on those issues.

I was teaching at a state school which had great pressure being placed on it by the governor because of low graduation rates.  Faculty were facing the situation are in.  I taught a junior level class, but we had a lot of transfer students from a junior college who NEVER showed up for class and dropped a month into the semester.  Some of us had enough of those students alone that we would fall under the "too many DFWs"  We were responsible for motivating students we never had any contact with!  Of course professors teaching senior classes had these students weeded out, so their numbers looked better.  One semester I had a group of about 10 students who were found guilty of cheating--all receiving F's that hurt my pass rates greatly.

I got a new job at a different university.  After the first semester I was notified that my name was on the "highlighted list" for my class GPA--the new school had a list of prof's whose GPAs were higher than desired--I was giving harder exams at the new university but was considered "too easy" where at the previous university I was "too hard"  Standards really are different at different universities.  

 

The policy is at the university level, but there is certainly pressure from the state to increase graduation rates.

In my case, most of my failures come from withdraws, but I don't know what the situation is for other professors.  My failures are those who generally don't show up or turn in work; if they show up and do the work, they generally pass.  But the college does not and will not distinguish between withdraws and failures (we have asked, but the answer was no because they don't want to encourage profs to pressure weak students into withdrawing).

[Reefgazer]

1 hour ago, Bluegoat said:

 

No, chemistry isn't inherently more difficult.  THey've just already done to the humanities what they are trying to do now in this college to the sciences.

I think chemistry is a bit more difficult than say, history, because most people I see do not have the solid math background necessary for college-level chem (not necessary for history), and because lab and lecture, which often complement each other but are not the same, require that you embed more knowledge in the same time frame and for only 4 credits. 

[Jean in Newcastle]

I am a bit confused.  Is there a set pass rate set by the administration?  Are you just in jeopardy of not meeting that pass rate because statistically with such a low number in the class, you pretty much have to have all students passing?  Can you point out the ramifications of the pass rate on such a small class to the administration?  Is there any room for negotiation? 

(I was thinking that there was a much bigger class with a lot more room for some students to withdraw, fail etc.) 

[Reefgazer]

38 minutes ago, DawnM said:

 

Does your school not differentiate between the two?  Both of my sons' colleges have "math for non-math majors" and "science for non-science majors" classes available.  And any of the higher level science and math classes require you to either have a certain grade in the prerequisite or take a test to get in.

I would think instituting that would help a lot.  (You probably don't want to know that one of my sons isn't even required to take a science course for his major!)

No, they don't.  This would solve some of the pass problems, but would not solve the problem of adequately preparing nurses and allied health professionals (they really do need to know math and be capable of learning large amounts of material to hack nursing school and pass state boards).  It also highlights the troubling trend of not holding students responsible for their own learning, which is a much larger problem than my piddling paycheck.

[Jean in Newcastle]

Ds' school had a chemistry test that all students had to pass before being placed in the first college level chem class.  Those who did not pass had to take a remedial chem class, much like someone who did not pass the math test has to take a remedial math class before being able to take the college level math classes. 

[katilac]

17 minutes ago, texasmom33 said:

I think that you’re assuming that students who are struggling want help. If they aren’t actively seeking out the prof’s assistance and tutoring outside of the class already, dumbing down the rest of the class to make up for their lack of initiative is only hurting the students who actually care. There are tons of resources for struggling students now. 

I don’t think students need to be coerced into performing by the college level. It’s insulting.  I also would not think any professional industry who depended on coddling and jumping through hoops for employees to accomplish a standard training would be anything to celebrate either. That can’t bode well for a bottom line. And I don’t see why we would want to prepare college students in a way that would encourage them to continue expecting life to cater to them. 

 

 

No, I'm not assuming that at all. I am surrounded by far too many college and high school students to assume that, lol. People tend to have very strong reactions to altering educational models, and I'm always curious as to why they strongly support or oppose certain changes. In this case, I am trying to suss out why people are opposing certain changes like memory work in the classroom. Do they just think it doesn't work (keeping to the same standards)? Those are the people who might be on board with the change if they saw specific examples of more students reaching the expected level of mastery. Do they think it is the wrong approach even if it does work for that particular class, for reasons you and other posters have mentioned? Then showing them successful models is not going to change their mind. It's very interesting.  

10 minutes ago, SereneHome said:

US education system confuses me to no end....

We push and push and push 5 yr olds to read but then we make it easier for college students??  Shouldn't it be the other way around??

 

Don't be going all sensible on us. 

[kiwik]

I am not in the US.  Do you have + and - grades?  If so I would give all the D students C- grades and make it clear that although it would show as a pass they would NOT be able to manage the next level of study in the subject.  I would shuffle the other C students up a bit so there were more C+/B- and maintain standards on B+ and up.  People would soon grasp the C- is a fail grade in your class.

I would also work on having the withdrawal without academic penalty extended and failure due to non attendance etc excluded from consideration unless there is a level that suggests the lecturer is at fault.

[Reefgazer]

1 hour ago, Twolittleboys said:

Okay, I do not work in this field at all but just a thought (probably not doable but you never know): Could something be done with the course offerings? I don't know what classes you teach but would it help if different classes were offered, a more introductory/easier one and one that is more advanced? Especially at a community college I could imagine that the level of ability of the students might differ quite a bit. Also, are all the students taking the class majoring in the subject? I think lowering standards seems less of a problem for a general requirement class.

They do have a General Biology class that would be perfect as an introduction to A+P and my course, but it is not required and if it's not required, students don't want to spend the time and money to take it (even though not taking it costs many of them much more later on).

[katilac]

1 minute ago, kiwik said:

I am not in the US.  Do you have + and - grades?   

 

That varies from school to school, like most things do in the US. Otherwise, people might start figuring out the system. 

[Liz CA]

1 hour ago, Bluegoat said:

 

No, chemistry isn't inherently more difficult.  THey've just already done to the humanities what they are trying to do now in this college to the sciences.

Which is the point.

In this country, critical thinking skills are not taught well. Many students manage to pass history with minimal effort even if it's only marginally but would fail chem unless they expended more effort. There are some that would rather take anything to do with math than any kind of writing but they seem to be in the minority in this area. 

However, the OP is facing a different dilemma it seems.

Edited October 28, 2018 by Liz CA

[Reefgazer]

1 hour ago, texasmom33 said:

I find it ironic that universities and cc’s administrators are constantly shifting the bar for professors’ performance higher and higher and instituting all sorts of hoop jumping, all while dumbing down what the students are required to do or be held accountable for. I can’t even fathom what the next generation of academians will be at this rate  

It’s like the issues of the public schools and what they’ve turned public school teachers into with so much crap to wade though- which is anything but teaching content  at this point- has trickled UP. Ridiculous. 

This is exactly the case - it's becoming public school.  I teach at a community college, but I see this same issue  at 4 year unis where I have friends teaching.  Our family was able to walk away from the idiocy of public school and exercise another option.  But at the university level, where do you go to get an actual education?  Not just a degree, but a real honest-to-goodness, solid education?  I drove home from class one day after a particularly discouraging day wondering how low student capabilities would go before students became completely non-functional. 

Edited October 28, 2018 by Reefgazer

[kiwik]

5 minutes ago, katilac said:

 

That varies from school to school, like most things do in the US. Otherwise, people might start figuring out the system. 

Of course silly me! It seems like most of the OPs problem is with late withdrawals so that may need to be the focus.

[Liz CA]

43 minutes ago, Reefgazer said:

No, they don't.  This would solve some of the pass problems, but would not solve the problem of adequately preparing nurses and allied health professionals (they really do need to know math and be capable of learning large amounts of material to hack nursing school and pass state boards).  It also highlights the troubling trend of not holding students responsible for their own learning, which is a much larger problem than my piddling paycheck.

 

This was going to be my next question. Are you teaching a middle of the road chem class that non-science majors don't want to spend time on because it would require more effort for them perhaps = therefore the dropping of the class or withdrawal? If your college does not offer the "Let's make peanut butter brittle" class for chem, they are now asking professors to somehow magically motivate non-science majors or do what? Offer remediation classes so they can pass your chem class? Oh, and holding people responsible for their behavior or learning has gone out during the last decade. ? It's all backwards IMHO.

Edited October 28, 2018 by Liz CA

[Reefgazer]

47 minutes ago, Jean in Newcastle said:

I am a bit confused.  Is there a set pass rate set by the administration?  Are you just in jeopardy of not meeting that pass rate because statistically with such a low number in the class, you pretty much have to have all students passing?  Can you point out the ramifications of the pass rate on such a small class to the administration?  Is there any room for negotiation? 

(I was thinking that there was a much bigger class with a lot more room for some students to withdraw, fail etc.) 

This is actually an exceptionally small class; most of my classes are not this small and so one student usually doesn't have that huge an impact.  I teach 3 different science classes, and I have little variation within a class type, but a pretty big swing between say, Microbiology and General Biology II (that one 14%  pass rate was an anomaly). 

That said, the administration has not said what their "acceptable" pass rate is and if the pass rate will be different for one science class than for the other.  They claim they do not have a pass rate quota, but the instituting an acceptable pass rate results in a quota, no matter how much lipstick they put on that pig.  I suspect that instituting a pass rate is more a scare tactic to get the science departments to up their pass rates (remember, they have been after us for this for years), and they will keep it a mystery and use the threat of job loss as a bludgeon for this purpose.  At any rate, the acceptable pass rate and how it will be handled has not been disclosed yet.

Edited October 28, 2018 by Reefgazer

[Reefgazer]

24 minutes ago, kiwik said:

I am not in the US.  Do you have + and - grades?  If so I would give all the D students C- grades and make it clear that although it would show as a pass they would NOT be able to manage the next level of study in the subject.  I would shuffle the other C students up a bit so there were more C+/B- and maintain standards on B+ and up.  People would soon grasp the C- is a fail grade in your class.

I would also work on having the withdrawal without academic penalty extended and failure due to non attendance etc excluded from consideration unless there is a level that suggests the lecturer is at fault.

No + or - grades at this school. 

[katilac]

1 hour ago, texasmom33 said:

 What was most alarming is that this was a graduate school completely focused on health care and the medical sciences- nursing, epidemiology, public health, etc. AND WE WENT TO PASS/FAIL. That should terrify people.  

 

But even with grades, C's get degrees, right? Did they not require a C score to pass? 

[Bootsie]

Is this a situation that faculty senate would address?  Has the school differentiated pass rates for online classes versus  in-person classes?  I don't have statistics on hand, but I have seen a lot of research that online classes have extremely high withdrawal and failure rates compared to in-person classes.  I would gather some of that data.  

How supportive is your department chair?  I would consider going in to the department chair with the class grade distribution and the graded component materials and saying "What do you suggest I do with this?"

 

[Catwoman]

2 hours ago, Reefgazer said:

Ha.  FERPA means we can't share anything with parents unless the student gives us explicit written permission to do so.  Also, many of our students are adults out from under their parents' wings.

 

I would also wonder if many of the parents would care, even if they knew what was going on. Many parents are very concerned with their kids’ grades, so if they found out the college was making it easier for their kids to pass their courses, they might consider that to be a good thing. 

[SereneHome]

2 hours ago, texasmom33 said:

Yeah, my graduate school went around the bend over 20 years ago. Maybe we were groundbreakers of the worst type. My undergrad Uni was far more stringent and academically challenging- it was great. But my grad school instituted a Pass/Fail system the year I started and did away with grades and GPAs. You had an option to no longer do a thesis, but instead do a publishable paper- it didn't have to be published, it just had to be deemed "publishable" by your committee which made that bar completely open to their whim so they could crank up the graduation rate. They discovered the money influx of foreign students right around then so I think integrity took a back seat to profit.

What was most alarming is that this was a graduate school completely focused on health care and the medical sciences- nursing, epidemiology, public health, etc. AND WE WENT TO PASS/FAIL. That should terrify people. I hated every minute of it. It felt like kindy grad school. You couldn't flunk a person for plagiarism, which at the time seemed insane, but now it's even trickled over to the peer-reviewed journals. They no longer bear the same standard they used to. I think it's so sad- it's definitely spread across so much of academia. But that's what propelled me into pharma, which was good for me. I just couldn't take it at the Uni anymore. No one wants to work somewhere they perceive as a joke and that is how I came to regard my school- as a student and as an employee for far too long. 

I'm going to keep positive thoughts for you and hope something gives and that this whole thing will lead you into a new and fulfilling direction, wherever that is. 

 

I should NOT have read your post before going to bed!!!  I don't know if I am more pissed or terrified!

[regentrude]

6 hours ago, katilac said:

Why does it necessarily require less subject mastery? If you can demand the same level of mastery at the end of the course, do you still oppose doing memory work and such in class? If so, why? Sincere questions. 

If you actually require a certain level of mastery for an A, that mastery needs to be demonstrated in tests.

If you give bonus points for "easy" assignments like memory work to inflate the grade,  a student who does not demonstrate A-level mastery will have his grade inflated to an A. That is dumbing down the course, because you no longer actually require mastery.

Edited October 28, 2018 by regentrude

[Scarlett]

This is just blowing my mind. 

My very smart but very scattered college freshman has made me so proud his first semester....I mean it isn’t over but he has worked super hard and has all As......he is gobsmacked by the students who are completely unprepared for college.....they don’t turn in assignments, don’t come to class....don’t seem to understand that it is a BAD thing to get a zero....engineering majors failing English comp....or government class. He just can’t understand it. Or the kid who tried to come to class for the third of 4 math tests for the semester.....the teacher told him, ‘I haven’t seen you all semester.... You can’t show up now and take a test’.   Seriously it doesn’t need to be easier.  

[Scarlett]

Oh but to answer your questions......I would most likely go along to get along because I try to do what is best for my family instead of trying to change the world.  I would however inform my students....just because you pass this easy course doesn’t mean you will be prepared.  

[creekland]

I suspect I'd be recording all of my DFWs and why they ended up as they did (didn't show up, didn't do well on tests or take tests or whatever) and turn that in with my evaluation.

I'd also start being sure I had various online quizzes students had to do between mid terms and finals.  It is pretty proven that more kids will keep up when they have to vs just for the end.  Granted this might not be the school of hard knocks many would prefer, but if it turns out better overall and helped my "proof," I see no harm.

My tippy top lad was fortunate enough to have a teacher who was willing to change his ways in teaching first graders how to read.  His brain wasn't wired normally when he was young and he needed a different style of teaching.  His speech teacher went to his first grade teacher (a brand new teacher that year) to show him different ways and he was open to change.  He was eager to do it.  That made a huge difference with my guy.  I'm glad he wasn't an old and "set in his ways" teacher - eternally grateful.  Since then I've learned to be mindful of all that brain science has taught us over the years.  Just because something has been done one way since Adam and Eve doesn't mean it's the best way to do things.  It may or may not be.

Dumbing down or eliminating material?  Horrid.  Tweaking to better fit learning?  Understandable and desirable.  With online quizzes students can take by a deadline on their own time nothing has to differ with actual class time.

I can understand wanting a decent pass rate for students who put forth some effort.  I know even at my own school there are terrific teachers, so-so teachers, and teachers who should have chosen a different profession. The same student who fails with the last could do very well with the first. This all goes back to my beginning statement saying I'd be documenting those who didn't pass muster.  You shouldn't be responsible for those who don't show up or try and a paper trail could easily show that.

[ktgrok]

I love the idea of an online quiz!!!! I'm someone with ADHD who focuses on the urgent more than the important. A quiz is urgent, so I'd study for it. A long term deadline like a final exam is important, but not urgent, so I may get behind. If nothing else a quiz would be a wake up call to anyone who was in denial about their understanding of the material before it is too late. Maybe failing a quiz would be incentive to hit that tutoring center. And it wouldn't take up class time. And the students who don't NEED it, and are already studying, would get a chance to see how you word test questions, etc which would be a benefit to them. 

 

[regentrude]

11 minutes ago, creekland said:

I'd also start being sure I had various online quizzes students had to do between mid terms and finals....  With online quizzes students can take by a deadline on their own time nothing has to differ with actual class time.

but it creates a ton of busywork for the instructor and uses time the instructor could spend on more useful things - like actually teaching at help sessions, for example.

Writing online quizzes with suitable answer options, assigning them, handling grades and transferring them to possibly a variety of sections is a huge time sink. I can't believe how much time I am saving since we have dropped online quizzes for our course.

Or you can force the students to pay an additional $150 for an auto graded system by Pearson. (My students hate Mastering Chemistry with a passion. ) Making them spend all this extra money just because some students cannot be bothered to do their work? I object to that.

Edited October 28, 2018 by regentrude

[katilac]

25 minutes ago, regentrude said:

If you actually require a certain level of mastery for an A, that mastery needs to be demonstrated in tests.

If you give bonus points for "easy" assignments like memory work to inflate the grade,  a student who does not demonstrate A-level mastery will have his grade inflated to an A. That is dumbing down the course, because you no longer actually require mastery.

 

Agreed, That is why I specifically specified mastery over the same material, and not an A in the course.  

If 'easy' assignments throughout the semester resulted in mastery from more students according to your terms (high grades on test and final), would you be open to that or do you think that there are more overarching reasons to oppose it? 

[katilac]

6 minutes ago, Ktgrok said:

I love the idea of an online quiz!!!! I'm someone with ADHD who focuses on the urgent more than the important. A quiz is urgent, so I'd study for it. A long term deadline like a final exam is important, but not urgent, so I may get behind. If nothing else a quiz would be a wake up call to anyone who was in denial about their understanding of the material before it is too late. Maybe failing a quiz would be incentive to hit that tutoring center. And it wouldn't take up class time. And the students who don't NEED it, and are already studying, would get a chance to see how you word test questions, etc which would be a benefit to them. 

 

 

You have hit on many of the points listed by people in favor of this approach. 

[regentrude]

12 minutes ago, katilac said:

Agreed, That is why I specifically specified mastery over the same material, and not an A in the course.  

If 'easy' assignments throughout the semester resulted in mastery from more students according to your terms (high grades on test and final), would you be open to that or do you think that there are more overarching reasons to oppose it? 

It has not been my experience that the tons of little assignments do anything to increase actual mastery. They give bonus points and bump students' grades up beyond what the students can achieve on an actual test - so a student with B tests who diligently does all the little stuff ends up with an A in the class. And they have the negative side effect that good students without strong executive function now have more moving pieces and can drop the ball more easily, which results in students who excel at exam to end up with lower final grades because they forget a bunch of those little assignments. So I am no longer testing physics mastery, but executive function skills.

I would much prefer to base the entire grade on one comprehensive oral final examinations which allows the examiner to really evaluate a student's mastery. That's how it was done where I went to university. 

Edited October 28, 2018 by regentrude

[regentrude]

15 minutes ago, Ktgrok said:

I love the idea of an online quiz!!!! I'm someone with ADHD who focuses on the urgent more than the important.

Actually, the approach of dozens of little assignments is particularly detrimental to smart students with ADHD. While they can perform well on exams, they inevitably forget several of the little assignments (quizzes, homework, online stuff) and end up with lower grades that do not reflect their mastery of the material, but rather their executive functioning difficulties. Because they simply forget to jump through all these hoops. They forget which day the quiz is due, don't remember to take it before it closes, forget that they have quizzes at all, think it's not every week, log onto the wrong website.... trust me, for people with ADHD, that's a pretty sure way to lose lots of points. I had online quizzes due every single Friday, and the number of students who were incapable of logging on to take the quiz within the 24 hour window that was also the same every week was staggering.

Edited October 28, 2018 by regentrude

[Bluegoat]

10 minutes ago, regentrude said:

It has not been my experience that the tons of little assignments do anything to increase actual mastery. They give bonus points and bump students' grades up beyond what the students can achieve on an actual test - so a student with B tests who diligently does all the little stuff ends up with an A in the class. And they have the negative side effect that good students without strong executive function now have more moving pieces and can drop the ball more easily, which results in students who excel at exam to end up with lower final grades because they forget a bunch of those little assignments. So I am no longer testing physics mastery, but executive function skills.

I would much prefer to base the entire grade on one comprehensive oral final examinations which allows the examiner to really evaluate a student's mastery. That's how it was done where I went to university. 

 

I had oral exams in my first year of university here in Canada.  There were also papers as it was a writing course as well, but the final exams were done orally with two faculty examiners.

It was really interesting, and generally I think very effective.

Edited October 28, 2018 by Bluegoat

[Frances]

3 minutes ago, regentrude said:

It has not been my experience that the tons of little assignments do anything to increase actual mastery. They give bonus points and bump students' grades up beyond what the students can achieve on an actual test - so a student with B tests who diligently does all the little stuff ends up with an A. And they have the negative side effect that good students without strong executive function now have more moving pieces and can drop the ball more easily, which results in students who excel at exam to end up with lower final grades because they forget a bunch of those little assignments. So I am no longer testing physics mastery, but executive function skills.

I would much prefer to base the entire grade on one comprehensive oral final examinations which allows the examiner to really evaluate a student's mastery. That's how it was done where I went to university. 

And strong students often find all of the little assignments and online quizzes seriously annoying. Many of my son’s college friends were Human Physiology majors. Before they took 20 credits of rigorous A & P their junior year, they had to take two other courses in the Human Physiology department (medical terminology and a special stats course), in addition to general bio, chemistry, physics, and calculus. The medical terminology course was full of numerous assignments, online quizzes, tests, etc. that the profs said would ensure students kept up with the class and mastered the material. My son’s friends found it ridiculous and annoying that after mastering chemistry, biology, physics, and calculus, it was thought they couldn’t be responsible for basically memorizing some terms on their own. Many ended up taking it at the local community college instead to avoid all of the busy work.

[chiguirre]

On a practical level, will your local universities accept transfer students into nursing, PA and allied health majors with a C in your course? If not, give your weaker students Cs. They won't be able to transfer unless they retake the class. If they could transfer into competitive majors with such poor grades in core classes, the problem goes a lot deeper than just your CC and you won't be able to fix it on your own.

[Pen]

13 hours ago, Jean in Newcastle said:

I know that you said to assume that pass rates won't change unless standards are lowered but is there really no way to incorporate some memory/ knowledge drill in classes and other ways to pull up grades?

 

Memory drills seem like something the students should be doing outside of the class, but maybe ways to connect in groups to help each other, and more group and active hands on learning could help. 

I have been reading a lot about the brain and learning and there are types of learning/ teaching that are far more effective than traditional teaching methods. According to what I have read and apparently with research to back it up. 

[Twolittleboys]

8 hours ago, Reefgazer said:

They do have a General Biology class that would be perfect as an introduction to A+P and my course, but it is not required and if it's not required, students don't want to spend the time and money to take it (even though not taking it costs many of them much more later on).

 

Could you require  a talk/intro session for students that want to sign up for your class in which you emphasize the difficulty (i.e. scare them a bit) and recommend them taking the General Biology class first?  Maybe it would sway at least a couple of kids.

[creekland]

It hasn't been at all difficult to set up online quizzing at my high school.  There is a time sink in the beginning to figure it out, but once that's done, it's easy to shift questions (or keep them and just reuse them periodically).  Some kids will inevitably forget, but I'm one who believes executive functioning is just as important as knowing the material when it comes to being out in the real world.  So is learning to put up with various little details that might be boring for one, but vastly important for another... 

There are tons of life lessons one should learn from experiencing life.  Sink or swim isn't really one of them.

[TechWife]

1 hour ago, creekland said:

It hasn't been at all difficult to set up online quizzing at my high school.  There is a time sink in the beginning to figure it out, but once that's done, it's easy to shift questions (or keep them and just reuse them periodically).  Some kids will inevitably forget, but I'm one who believes executive functioning is just as important as knowing the material when it comes to being out in the real world.  So is learning to put up with various little details that might be boring for one, but vastly important for another... 

There are tons of life lessons one should learn from experiencing life.  Sink or swim isn't really one of them.

That’s high school, though. We’re taking about university. I don’t have a sink or swim attitude when it comes to parenting in any way. I don’t expect a university to parent my son. My son has severe EF deficits and had access to an EF tutor through the student disability service office. It was helpful when he remembered to go. In no way would I expect course content or delivery to be adjusted to accommodate his poor skills. His EF tutor helped him organize his study time and helped him with study strategies. That would have been a waste of time for a professor with a PhD. A professor with a PhD (or an MA or an MS) needs to be teaching the subject matter. 

[creekland]

10 minutes ago, TechWife said:

That’s high school, though. We’re taking about university. I don’t have a sink or swim attitude when it comes to parenting in any way. I don’t expect a university to parent my son. My son has severe EF deficits and had access to an EF tutor through the student disability service office. It was helpful when he remembered to go. In no way would I expect course content or delivery to be adjusted to accommodate his poor skills. His EF tutor helped him organize his study time and helped him with study strategies. That would have been a waste of time for a professor with a PhD. A professor with a PhD (or an MA or an MS) needs to be teaching the subject matter. 

 

I'm not talking at all about changing the content of the classes.  That should only update as knowledge of the subject changes.

If our goal as a society is to have better knowledge across more of the population, then our teaching and assessing styles should also change as our knowledge of how people learn gets updated.  Why would we be open to using the Periodic Table of Elements instead of sticking with the four Elements the Greeks proposed (earth, wind/air, fire, water)?  For the same reason, our understanding of the brain and how it works has changed tremendously.  Yes, some humans did just fine with older methods, but more could do just as well with updating our methods.  It's not dumbing down if the content doesn't change.  The two are not connected.

When we're hiring, executive function is as important to us as knowledge of the job. It a big help for many that both schools and colleges have worked to address this as we've (collective) learned more.

YMMV

[scrapbookbuzz]

What's the evaluation process for instructors now, before they institute the new stuff?

[Amy in NH]

Work with other faculty and student leaders to institute study groups and tutoring services?

[TechWife]

9 minutes ago, creekland said:

 

I'm not talking at all about changing the content of the classes.  That should only update as knowledge of the subject changes.

If our goal as a society is to have better knowledge across more of the population, then our teaching and assessing styles should also change as our knowledge of how people learn gets updated.  Why would we be open to using the Periodic Table of Elements instead of sticking with the four Elements the Greeks proposed (earth, wind/air, fire, water)?  For the same reason, our understanding of the brain and how it works has changed tremendously.  Yes, some humans did just fine with older methods, but more could do just as well with updating our methods.  It's not dumbing down if the content doesn't change.  The two are not connected.

When we're hiring, executive function is as important to us as knowledge of the job. It a big help for many that both schools and colleges have worked to address this as we've (collective) learned more.

YMMV

Executive function is not a university level concern. It is something that should be addressed in elementary, high school at the latest. Those who need accommodations and additional help with these skills should be taught those skills and how to access those services before they reach college. Adding in busywork, which is what low stakes quizzes are, does change the content and delivery of the material due to time constraints. Time spent on devising and delivering these quizzes is lost instruction time/prep time for the professor and lost study time for the students who must take them, regardless of whether or not they need a grade bump. Employing phonics and grammar level instructional methods (which is where the previously mentioned memory work and quizzes fall) at the university level isn’t updating teaching methods, it’s dumbing down teaching methods. University students should be busy learning content for the purpose of making connections between the various aspects of the same subject and connections accross subject matter, not taking quizzes. When students arrive at uni, executive function skills and basic rhetorical skills should already be in their wheel house. That’s the work of childhood and adolescence. Failure of that basic knowledge is not and should not be the responsibility of the university system. To make it so is to dumb down the system. Dumbing down the system results in dumbing down people. I heartily stand against it. 

[creekland]

1 minute ago, TechWife said:

Executive function is not a university level concern. It is something that should be addressed in elementary, high school at the latest. Those who need accommodations and additional help with these skills should be taught those skills and how to access those services before they reach college. Adding in busywork, which is what low stakes quizzes are, does change the content and delivery of the material due to time constraints. Time spent on devising and delivering these quizzes is lost instruction time/prep time for the professor and lost study time for the students who must take them, regardless of whether or not they need a grade bump. Employing phonics and grammar level instructional methods (which is where the previously mentioned memory work and quizzes fall) at the university level isn’t updating teaching methods, it’s dumbing down teaching methods. University students should be busy learning content for the purpose of making connections between the various aspects of the same subject and connections accross subject matter, not taking quizzes. When students arrive at uni, executive function skills and basic rhetorical skills should already be in their wheel house. That’s the work of childhood and adolescence. Failure of that basic knowledge is not and should not be the responsibility of the university system. To make it so is to dumb down the system. Dumbing down the system results in dumbing down people. I heartily stand against it. 

 

The human brain usually doesn't finish "growing" until ages 21-25.  For most people, that falls within their college years.  There's nothing at all I've seen that shows Executive Function skills are always mastered by age 18 or so, but I firmly agree that those skills are best taught along the way and feel that our society has benefited by having these changes made in our school systems.

We disagree on the value of quizzes.  In my classes at high school (both math and science) I always had a daily quiz accomplished as students were coming in. It was written on the board and students did it on a scrap sheet of paper.  My opening about a minute after the "sit down" bell was asking the correct answer with a quick reinforcing explanation.  Occasionally these counted for a grade, but usually they didn't (grading by hand was time consuming).  They were always on either the material taught the day before or material students were supposed to have read.  What happened?  Kids made an effort to anticipate what would be asked. It was considered a terrific thing to get these right and a bummer if they missed. They made sure they knew the material taught the day before and made sure to read anything I assigned as that could be "it."  They never knew if it would be graded or not (something also shown to have better results), but they didn't seem to "bet" on it one way or the other.

My pass rates on our state tests (Alg 1, Bio) are extremely high when I've had full time classes... and I have a standing offer for a total full time job if I ever want one.  Is it all due to those quizzes?  Of course not, but they certainly helped students retain what I taught.  My teaching style didn't change.  The material didn't either.  What happened is learning - true learning - became fun rather than a chore - esp with the tone I set.  Students were literally bummed the day or two when I didn't do one for whatever reason.

Other teachers have often asked me why/how I get the results I do.  Naturally I've mentioned this.  A couple have adopted it (always great results).  The rest don't want to "waste their time" and feel students should study "just because."  Such is life.  All of our students get the same state tests.  No material in my classes was eliminated - I actually put more in than most of my peers as I like rabbit trails.  Nothing was dumbed down.

Yes, this is high school, but there's no magical reason the retention from regular recall review stops there.  The more the brain sees/experiences something the more likely it is to remember things.  Each time something is brought up the memory neuron is rewritten and strengthened.

[EmseB]

If someone cannot pass a college-level chemistry course because the instructor is not offering memory work in class or low-stakes quizzes, the problem is not with the instructor.

Especially if this class is foundational to pre-med and science majors going on to higher levels of science.

[creekland]

28 minutes ago, EmseB said:

If someone cannot pass a college-level chemistry course because the instructor is not offering memory work in class or low-stakes quizzes, the problem is not with the instructor.

Especially if this class is foundational to pre-med and science majors going on to higher levels of science.

 

The problem, as I see it, is that the state the OP is in is tying state money to pass rates.  Her college is tying pass rates to instructor review.  Should she keep doing things the way things are in some sort of protest that "this should be all that is needed!!!," should she eliminate the tough content making it easier for students to pass but shorting the content they could very well need in the future, or is there a better way that can help more students and keep the content merely by adapting how it's done.

Personally, I'd go with the last option, but then again, I'm one who changed based upon studies merely because I believe the content of studies rather than "the old way is BEST!"  No studies to back it up (feel free to link to any if you have them)... but who needs those?

ETA:  Note that all of this goes along with documenting why those who fail, failed.  The OP can't fix many of the problems involved like students showing up and not all students will pass any in depth class. (I even had a couple of failures and there were always other issues involved that were documented.)  Documenting can help Powers That Be see what is going in instead of just seeing stats and numbers.

Edited October 28, 2018 by creekland

[Bluegoat]

2 hours ago, creekland said:

 

I'm not talking at all about changing the content of the classes.  That should only update as knowledge of the subject changes.

If our goal as a society is to have better knowledge across more of the population, then our teaching and assessing styles should also change as our knowledge of how people learn gets updated.  Why would we be open to using the Periodic Table of Elements instead of sticking with the four Elements the Greeks proposed (earth, wind/air, fire, water)?  For the same reason, our understanding of the brain and how it works has changed tremendously.  Yes, some humans did just fine with older methods, but more could do just as well with updating our methods.  It's not dumbing down if the content doesn't change.  The two are not connected.

When we're hiring, executive function is as important to us as knowledge of the job. It a big help for many that both schools and colleges have worked to address this as we've (collective) learned more.

YMMV

 

I don't think this is necessarily true.  Certainly in the humanities, the method - lectures or seminars generally - and the traditional methods of assessment - papers, either set as an exam or not, and oral exams - are very much connected to the content.  

[StephanieZ]

Well, your employer is telling you what they expect. They expect some higher number of passing grades.

If you want the job, sounds like your choice is to increase your pass rate. 

Grades are not moral things. They're just convenient markers of achievement. It's not WRONG to grade inflate. You haven't morally failed if you grade inflate, and apparently, your bosses want you to grade inflate. So, if you want the job, that's what you need to do. Just because you don't like it and prefer not to do it doesn't mean it's wrong to do it . . 

Personally, as a compromise, I'd probably keep it hard to get an A or B but make it (much) easier to manage a C. 

I'd also invest more time/effort into making it possible for folks to improve their grades with effort. Allow re-taking of exams. Allow extra credit. Promote study sessions. Offer study guides. Re-teach the basics. . . 

When I was a TA in grad school for my major professor who was really a smart cookie and tough grader . . . She was freaking out because so many of her 300 level (JR year) science majors couldn't do the basic math (unit conversion) to pass her exams . . . and she didn't have tenure yet . . . She did everything under the sun to teach those kids how to do this basic math  . . .  She had me give endless study sessions, tutorials, extra credit work sheets, re-taking exams, office hours . . . most kids didn't take her up on any of the offerings and her fail rate was still very high.

After several similar semesters, she gave up on teaching them unit conversion, rewrote her exams to not require it, and moved on with her life. She got tenure. She likely wouldn't have if she'd kept up with her (rightful) expectations that science majors should be able to do fundamental arithmetic/algebra . . . 

That experience led me to make sure MY KIDS could do complex unit conversions easily by 7th grade, lol. 

If you don't want to do that sort of thing, then prepare to lose your job. You could get active in unionizing your workplace. That could be productive and might enable you to NOT grade inflate while still keeping your job. It'll also be a lot of work for no pay and might also help you lose your job, depending on how labor friendly your state is. 

 

[Bluegoat]

I haven't said what I'd do practically - I think I would look for another kind of work.  And make darn sure they, and the community at large, knew why I left.

[creekland]

2 hours ago, Bluegoat said:

I don't think this is necessarily true.  Certainly in the humanities, the method - lectures or seminars generally - and the traditional methods of assessment - papers, either set as an exam or not, and oral exams - are very much connected to the content.  

 

Who said or implied that this would have to change?  I don't see where anyone has suggested changing the overall traditional methods of assessment.  I still gave projects and exams and those were certainly based upon the content of the course.

[forty-two]

As a practical matter, I suppose I'd document, document, document.  Give a pre-test, so I had documentation of who had the necessary pre-req knowledge.  Keep track of absences and missed assignments.  Keep track of who sought outside help.  As much as possible, front-load assignments and such so that I'd maximized my ability to drop students in line with university policy who aren't likely to do the work.  Maybe give second chances to struggling students who are faithfully attending and turning in work and otherwise using all available avenues.  On entirely different lines, I had a professor who allowed our score on the comprehensive final to be our score for the class if it was better than the average of all our scores (aka your class score could be higher than your final, but never lower) - it allowed for students to catch up and have their final grade reflect their final knowledge.  I don't know how many students took advantage of that, but I did.  I skated along the (low) average most of the class, but then got myself together, worked through the whole book, and aced the final. 

As a philosophical matter, I'm finding the debate fascinating over whether using "easier on the student" methods to boost mastery of the same (hopefully challenging) content is "lowering standards" (a bad thing) or "increasing access to mastery" (a good thing) or doing both.  I suppose it depends on how much college learning is about mastering high-level content and how much it's about mastering (or exhibiting) high-level learning skills.  And how much the content and the learning skills are intertwined.  I think it's clarifying the issues in my personal concerns about how much my "the teacher is the bridge between the student and the subject" approach might accidentally lead to stunted growth (aka become the sort of spoon-feeding of the content that undermines the developing of the intertwined skills).  In general, I think I'm in favor of teachers deliberately working to *facilitate* the needed skills mastery in their students just as much as to facilitate the needed content mastery.  So modifications that function to "teach a student to fish" wrt needed learning skills (instead of leaving them to sink or swim wrt skill mastery) would be increasing access in a good way; but modifications that function as *giving* the students a "skills fish" each class, and thus not requiring them to develop those skills on their own, would be lowering standards in a bad way.

Of course, there's a whole 'nother practical issue at play: when a large number of your students really *ought* to have mastered certain needed skills by the time they got to you, but they haven't, and so as a practical matter, you have to deal with it.  My dh is facing this in his confirmation classes.  His confirmads just don't have the writing skills or the thinking skills or the learning skills they ought to have.  He has to either explicitly teach them the lacking skills (and thus take up valuable class time) or drop the things requiring those skills (and thus have a lower level of learning) or keep expecting them to be able to do things they *should* be able to do but that he knows full well they can't do (and have a lot of frustrated and failing kids who aren't learning anything).  Honestly, in his case, I've been strongly encouraging option 1: to explicitly teach them the lacking skills.  That seems to be the path that leads to maximum learning.  I know the situations are different: junior highers versus college students.  As well, confirmation is for all kids, while college is optional.  So, philosophically, dh has to deal with the kids he has, because "flunking" a bunch of them is just not an option - not just for pragmatic reasons (parental outcry), but also for the sake of the kids - it's better to modify confirmation to fit the kids than it is to declare a bunch of kids as "not confirmation material".  (But at the same time as he is working to teach the needed skills as well as the need content, he does require active participation on the part of the kids.  If they are failing despite sincere effort, he needs to figure out what needs to change so that their effort yields good results.  But if they aren't trying, they aren't getting confirmed - they will have to repeat a year.) 

But college - especially community college - is becoming more and more a "for everyone" thing.  I sympathize with all the arguments that say it *shouldn't* be that way, but what do you do as an individual when the system *is* that way anyway?  Maybe it's for some to uphold the old standards, come hell or high water, so that we as a society don't forget what is possible.  And it's for others to do their level best to help their students get higher up Mount Parnassus - to genuinely increase their students' knowledge, whatever the starting point, and to get them as close as possible to where they need to be.  IDK, I'm sympathetic with arguments that the latter approach is what is appropriate for elementary and secondary education, but post-secondary education simply requires students to be at a certain starting point, and that's that.  But so much of community college is about offering a second chance at secondary education - is it fair to hold them to tertiary educational standards?  But another big part of community college is offering the early stages of tertiary education, and if tertiary education requires a certain level of skills as well as content, then it does.  But when so many students have the content (sort of) but not the skills, is it so awful to just go ahead and teach the needed skills instead of turning them away?  Where else would they improve their lacking learning skills, if not at community college?  (But as a person who hopes my kids could utilize community colleges for the early parts of college ed, I certainly don't want to dilute the quality and rep of college-level courses at community colleges.)

[regentrude]

9 hours ago, creekland said:

It hasn't been at all difficult to set up online quizzing at my high school.  There is a time sink in the beginning to figure it out, but once that's done, it's easy to shift questions (or keep them and just reuse them periodically). 

To be effective for an online (not in class) quiz, the questions would have to be different for every student because they do it in groups; one acts as the sacrificial lamb and guesses the answers, the others copy the answer. And with all students in the class now being on a group-me chat, it takes one person to solve the problem and disseminate the answer to the rest of the class.It is not feasible for an instructor to write different questions for all students. That is only possible with an expensive automated system (that charges the students to the tune of $150), and even that reuses the question and just changes the numbers, and the students spend more effort gaming that system than learning the material. Online quizzes that give the same questions to all students are pretty pointless and mainly test whether the student remembers to log in.

(No to mention that handling the 600 resulting grades for each quiz and making sure they get to the correct people who keep the section's grades is a logistic nightmare.)

ETA: the only reason I gave online quizzes at all was to create points for my online section that are equivalent to the points the in seat classes get for in-class paper quizzes which serve as motivator for attendance. Our department has now abolished both, for all intro classes, because the instructor effort to handle the paper quizzes and merge the online grades far surpassed their value.

 

Edited October 28, 2018 by regentrude