C/P: Interesting article about college standards and student behavior

[Innisfree]

Quote

In the field of organic chemistry, Maitland Jones Jr. has a storied reputation. He taught the subject for decades, first at Princeton and then at New York University, and wrote an influential textbook. He received awards for his teaching, as well as recognition as one of N.Y.U.’s coolestprofessors.

But last spring, as the campus emerged from pandemic restrictions, 82 of his 350 students signed a petition against him.

Students said the high-stakes course — notorious for ending many a dream of medical school — was too hard, blaming Dr. Jones for their poor test scores.

The professor defended his standards. But just before the start of the fall semester, university deans terminated Dr. Jones’s contract.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/03/us/nyu-organic-chemistry-petition.html?unlocked_article_code=maXHYAuOOz-CaJNrHuyP_N3ftE2IMPHg5ygYMN5Pz86U7EbJOUIy8nzcVymcVlIG8N02L_ry2MrWQyhywm09zJ6JzfX_KHIUAEeB8Pj0FFa4GZurGVhdo7IF8oHDciwRdoJMqMFIBXFUg839FNXkWW1oQ54GF0kP5Mb1Y-LtQq_ZrK1WZJaIvYs22hD8Zgmx0lY_ETFloP23BU2WjzbbUwxH3HrQ4ntRbueUqSU7J1qDubBedtpBboh5vG-bLXYC6dxIMLOBokIdIEmb-4TfGXCqhDgk14dg7vByDPb8c533Lua--BCAyApUrnulvQgUdRCsjOI9FJoA2fv5StFkt8jx6bI&smid=share-url

I’ve cross posted this on the College Board, but thought more people might see it here. The article is gifted, so there shouldn’t be a paywall. 

The article describes a shift in student behavior, both in their study skills and habits, and in their expectations of faculty. The change seems to predate Covid disruptions. I found it interesting, and wondered what folks here would think.

Fwiw, my dd at college has described an environment where a large subset of students don’t invest much effort in their classes. I guess that leaves me predisposed to feel for the professor in this scenario, but I’m open to other perspectives. At a minimum, it sounds like lots of students are getting to college without understanding how to study, or how much effort they need to expend. But maybe this professor needed to update elements of his class…? I’m curious what others are seeing.

[Murphy101]

“We are very concerned about our scores, and find that they are not an accurate reflection of the time and effort put into this class,” the petition said.

This quote stood out to me.  It’s a core problem with children being lied to from day one in school. You can be anything if you just do what YOU think is a lot of time and effort into something. And if that doesn’t result in a desired achievement, then it wasn’t a fair deal. And that’s just not true. The score doesn’t reflect effort. It reflects, or should, knowledge attained and ability shown. Whatever time and effort they put in either wasn’t enough or they are flat out not suited to a science or medical profession. It would be best for them and everyone else if they got out to do something else.

And frankly it looks poorly on the school that they even considered lowering their standards.

I see this as another notch in the slow erosion of civilization.  We literally are not passing on knowledge for the next generation to build on. And the next generation (which includes mine and my kids) have no idea of the price they are going to pay for this kind of thing  

 

Edited October 4, 2022 by Murphy101

[Dmmetler]

Most majors have a foundational course that tends to be on the hard side and leads to students changing majors. And it's usually a course that cannot be simplified much due to the fact that it is needed for higher level work. Most schools have a lot of support, student tutoring centers, etc provided BECAUSE these courses are hard. I have little doubt that COVID has impacted kids hitting it now because they very likely had watered down high school courses because labs virtually aren't the same. I suspect some are struggling with long COVID effects as well. But the answer isn't to water down organic chem, or any other class. It might be that in the short term, colleges need to add an extra semester into the course sequence to pick up on some of the slack high schoolers missed, or add more time to the classes so they can spend part of the semester working on those skills. 

As my father puts it, one thing most kids don't realize is that college is an exponential curve. Freshman year isn't that different from high school, but sophomore year (which is usually when those foundational courses show up) is a big, big jump, and so on after that. It's also why he's not in favor of AP classes being used for placement, because combining the executive functioning jump of college vs high school with the exponential jump of sophomore or junior classes all at once at age 17-18 is just plain more than most kids can handle. And kids who spent their senior year remote have an even harder jump. 

[Murphy101]

And I’m doing some basic math here. 82/350 = 23.4% of student can’t make the grade for whatever reason and decided to pitch a hissy fit.

Honestly?  That’s pretty darn good rate judging by this article.

https://medicalaid.org/is-organic-chemistry-hard/
 

One survey ranks organic chemistry as the hardest class in college. By some studies, nearly one in every two organic chemistry students fail or drop the class. For those who fall in this category, the dreams of a medical career come to a crashing halt.

To be sure, organic chemistry is difficult. However, it does not have to strike fear nor quell your aspirations of becoming a doctor or other type of healthcare professional. Success in organic chemistry requires that you embrace different ways of learning and greater time commitments to practice and study.

Which makes sense bc good medical professionals also have to embrace different ways of learning and be willing to give greater sacrifices of time to practice and study.  Those who aren’t up to it for organic chemistry really are not med school material.

We often see these gateway courses or moments in many endeavors in life.  It’s not that it isn’t fair. It’s that it’s a lie that we can be anything we want to be.

[Faith-manor]

20 minutes ago, Murphy101 said:

“We are very concerned about our scores, and find that they are not an accurate reflection of the time and effort put into this class,” the petition said.

This quote stood out to me.  It’s a core problem with children being lied to from day one in school. You can be anything if you just do what YOU think is a lot of time and effort into something. And if that doesn’t result in a desired achievement, then it wasn’t a fair deal. And that’s just not true. The score doesn’t reflect effort. It reflects, or should, knowledge attained and ability shown. Whatever time and effort they put in either wasn’t enough or they are flat out not suited to a science or medical profession. It would be best for them and everyone else if they got out to do something else.

And frankly it looks poorly on the school that they even considered lowering their standards.

I see this as another notch in the slow erosion of civilization.  We literally are not passing on knowledge for the next generation to build on. And the next generation (which includes mine and my kids) have no idea of the price they are going to pay for this kind of thing  

 

Yes. I also think that four year colleges are excepting too many unqualified students. Entrance requirements to many state universities have gone down. Too many kids from high school that should be in remedial coursework at the CC are getting into four year institutions, especially if the parents can afford to pay so no financial aid has to be offered to woo the student. They have had grade inflation in high school and think they are ready despite a not very good SAT or ACT score or lack of AP exams or taking DE, etc.

Science and mathematics are often 100% about public health and safety, from medicine to engineering to environmental and biological sciences to a host of other disciplines within these departments. So we are going to seriously hurt ourselves as a nation if we demand low standards in order for Buford and Petunia to not fail a class. You are right that the price this nation is paying and will pay in the future is disastrous.

That said, sometimes there is a real bum/jerk on faculty. My son and a bunch of his classmates banded together to get a professor fired who openly mocked students in class, made sexually suggestive comments, and came to class drunk twice. They videotaped, created a petition, and had a sit in at the Dean's office. The guy had tenure, but that didn't protect him once the students organized. However, it was not an academic issue. When sober, the instruction was adequate, and the syllabus was followed. I will admit though, I have personally witnessed absolute incompetency even when I was in college from a biology professor, and frankly, there is something very wrong with having to pay tuition for a class with someone at the helm that is worthless as a teacher. There needs to be some sort of balance int he way this stuff is evaluated. However, when colleges decided to operate like businesses instead of institutions of education, they set down the path to the very thing the article is about.

[vonfirmath]

8 minutes ago, Dmmetler said:

Most majors have a foundational course that tends to be on the hard side and leads to students changing majors. And it's usually a course that cannot be simplified much due to the fact that it is needed for higher level work. Most schools have a lot of support, student tutoring centers, etc provided BECAUSE these courses are hard. I have little doubt that COVID has impacted kids hitting it now because they very likely had watered down high school courses because labs virtually aren't the same. I suspect some are struggling with long COVID effects as well. But the answer isn't to water down organic chem, or any other class. It might be that in the short term, colleges need to add an extra semester into the course sequence to pick up on some of the slack high schoolers missed, or add more time to the classes so they can spend part of the semester working on those skills. 

As my father puts it, one thing most kids don't realize is that college is an exponential curve. Freshman year isn't that different from high school, but sophomore year (which is usually when those foundational courses show up) is a big, big jump, and so on after that. It's also why he's not in favor of AP classes being used for placement, because combining the executive functioning jump of college vs high school with the exponential jump of sophomore or junior classes all at once at age 17-18 is just plain more than most kids can handle. And kids who spent their senior year remote have an even harder jump. 

The only classes I'd use AP classes to test out of at the college level would be those that are not central to the degree plan. So for me, testing out of English made sense because my degree was science/math focused. But not the prerequisite classes for my major.

 

[Faith-manor]

5 minutes ago, Dmmetler said:

Most majors have a foundational course that tends to be on the hard side and leads to students changing majors. And it's usually a course that cannot be simplified much due to the fact that it is needed for higher level work. Most schools have a lot of support, student tutoring centers, etc provided BECAUSE these courses are hard. I have little doubt that COVID has impacted kids hitting it now because they very likely had watered down high school courses because labs virtually aren't the same. I suspect some are struggling with long COVID effects as well. But the answer isn't to water down organic chem, or any other class. It might be that in the short term, colleges need to add an extra semester into the course sequence to pick up on some of the slack high schoolers missed, or add more time to the classes so they can spend part of the semester working on those skills. 

As my father puts it, one thing most kids don't realize is that college is an exponential curve. Freshman year isn't that different from high school, but sophomore year (which is usually when those foundational courses show up) is a big, big jump, and so on after that. It's also why he's not in favor of AP classes being used for placement, because combining the executive functioning jump of college vs high school with the exponential jump of sophomore or junior classes all at once at age 17-18 is just plain more than most kids can handle. And kids who spent their senior year remote have an even harder jump. 

Yup, weeder courses. For music, Theory 2. Medicine and Chem, Organic chem. Calc 1 and 2 for math, etc. I can't remember what my son said was the weeded to electrical engineering. But I remember him saying that it was first semester freshman year. He earned an A in the class, however, 25% of the class failed, and after the second semester, only half the intended electrical engineers were left. All of them made it through the program and graduated with only one graduating lower than Cum Laude. So the weeded classes did their job helping people realize that E.E. was not a good fit.

When I went to college back in '84, my high school principle warned the graduates that there would be weeded classes and to be prepared with the follow up that each successive year would require more intensive study, that it would not get easier. I don't think students are being told these things currently.

[Faith-manor]

1 minute ago, vonfirmath said:

The only classes I'd use AP classes to test out of at the college level would be those that are not central to the degree plan. So for me, testing out of English made sense because my degree was science/math focused. But not the prerequisite classes for my major.

 

Right. Ds could have been placed in Calc 2 because of DE Calc 1 at the CC, but we told him not to do it because the CC probably wasn't quite as tough as his four year uni would be, and to take it again. He got an A, and was also glad that he did that because it served him very well in Calc 2. But, he did use his AP bio for credit for an elective science so he didn't have to take something else to fill those remaining credits before graduating.

 

[gardenmom5]

I thought it very notable some of the complaints were he wouldnt' give "extra credit", classes weren't available via zoom, and he only had two mid-terms instead of three.

 I have a kid who majored in chem.  I'm sorry to see this.  (eta: the complaints, not the standards).

On another site where I was reading about this - at least two commenters had kids/themselves who had him for orgo and thought he was a wonderful teacher and very thorough.

Edited October 4, 2022 by gardenmom5

[Dmmetler]

12 minutes ago, gardenmom5 said:

I thought it very notable some of the complaints were he wouldnt' give "extra credit", classes weren't available via zoom, and he only had two mid-terms instead of three.

 I have a kid who majored in chem.  I'm sorry to see this.

On another site where I was reading about this - at least two commenters had kids/themselves who had him for orgo and thought he was a wonderful teacher and very thorough.

Chemistry really has put a lot of focus on the education side and improving education and textbooks over time, and has also really focused on improving K-12 education going into college. And Maitland Jones has a reputation for being at the forefront of that. As in, he’s a name I recognize just by virtue of having discussions on education with science professors. 

 

It’s entirely possible he didn’t adapt to being online well. A lot of senior faculty didn’t (my then 12th grader was getting frantic emails from bio folks who needed to put Herpetology classes online, because at the time, L’s middle school level class was one of the only examples out there). But I think that it’s also entirely possible that the students got used to having ready extra credit of the sort of “fill out this study guide verbatim from the book” and substituting numbers into online simulations and weren’t ready for a problem solving based course that actually required developing a different skill set. Because that’s what a lot of high school classes are, and that’s what college classes that are using the Pearson “My X lab” are. And that, instead of doing what generations of science majors in the past have done-changing their major-they chose to attack the professor instead.  
 

 

[gardenmom5]

27 minutes ago, Murphy101 said:

And I’m doing some basic math here. 82/350 = 23.4% of student can’t make the grade for whatever reason and decided to pitch a hissy fit.

Honestly?  That’s pretty darn good rate judging by this article.

https://medicalaid.org/is-organic-chemistry-hard/
 

One survey ranks organic chemistry as the hardest class in college. By some studies, nearly one in every two organic chemistry students fail or drop the class. For those who fall in this category, the dreams of a medical career come to a crashing halt.

To be sure, organic chemistry is difficult. However, it does not have to strike fear nor quell your aspirations of becoming a doctor or other type of healthcare professional. Success in organic chemistry requires that you embrace different ways of learning and greater time commitments to practice and study.

Which makes sense bc good medical professionals also have to embrace different ways of learning and be willing to give greater sacrifices of time to practice and study.  Those who aren’t up to it for organic chemistry really are not med school material.

We often see these gateway courses or moments in many endeavors in life.  It’s not that it isn’t fair. It’s that it’s a lie that we can be anything we want to be.

I was working in a medical clinic when 1dd was doing "basic" orgo in IB chem (her teacher had his MS in chem).  Every dr I talked to talked about how it was their hardest class.   There is a lot of memorization.  2dd (chem major) got her molecule kit for that class.

I talked to a family friend when 2dd was doing orgo and having a hard time.  He said "orgo was so fun".  He's an endocrinologist.  makes sense. . . . 

25 minutes ago, Faith-manor said:

Yes. I also think that four year colleges are excepting too many unqualified students. Entrance requirements to many state universities have gone down. Too many kids from high school that should be in remedial coursework at the CC are getting into four year institutions, especially if the parents can afford to pay so no financial aid has to be offered to woo the student. They have had grade inflation in high school and think they are ready despite a not very good SAT or ACT score or lack of AP exams or taking DE, etc.

Science and mathematics are often 100% about public health and safety, from medicine to engineering to environmental and biological sciences to a host of other disciplines within these departments. So we are going to seriously hurt ourselves as a nation if we demand low standards in order for Buford and Petunia to not fail a class. You are right that the price this nation is paying and will pay in the future is disastrous.

That said, sometimes there is a real bum/jerk on faculty. My son and a bunch of his classmates banded together to get a professor fired who openly mocked students in class, made sexually suggestive comments, and came to class drunk twice. They videotaped, created a petition, and had a sit in at the Dean's office. The guy had tenure, but that didn't protect him once the students organized. However, it was not an academic issue. When sober, the instruction was adequate, and the syllabus was followed. I will admit though, I have personally witnessed absolute incompetency even when I was in college from a biology professor, and frankly, there is something very wrong with having to pay tuition for a class with someone at the helm that is worthless as a teacher. There needs to be some sort of balance int he way this stuff is evaluated. However, when colleges decided to operate like businesses instead of institutions of education, they set down the path to the very thing the article is about.

for one of 1ds's jr year engineering classes, they had a new professor who came from another country.  Even the grad student TA was complaining about his teaching.  (IN class!) A group of seniors went to the head of the dept to complain, and I think she basically took over when she finally understood what was happening.  ds's class was supposed to be an introductory class to the subject - but he was teaching it at a much higher level (re: not following the syllabus).  and not explaining the material very well either.  He didn't stick around.  ds was happy about that - as he didn't have to have him for the required sr year class.

18 minutes ago, Faith-manor said:

Yup, weeder courses. For music, Theory 2. Medicine and Chem, Organic chem. Calc 1 and 2 for math, etc. I can't remember what my son said was the weeded to electrical engineering. But I remember him saying that it was first semester freshman year. He earned an A in the class, however, 25% of the class failed, and after the second semester, only half the intended electrical engineers were left. All of them made it through the program and graduated with only one graduating lower than Cum Laude. So the weeded classes did their job helping people realize that E.E. was not a good fit.

When I went to college back in '84, my high school principle warned the graduates that there would be weeded classes and to be prepared with the follow up that each successive year would require more intensive study, that it would not get easier. I don't think students are being told these things currently.

ds took a ?plasma? physics class as an elective.   He said "there was no curve".  There were those who understood - and everyone else.  It was the only class he dropped.

But even 1dd's history of english class (which was an elective) - mostly classics majors and english majors took it.  The classics majors found it easy, and the english majors struggled.  it's all about how they focused on language in their core classes.  --- trivia, after graduating and working, a comp sci major thought it was the most useful class he took in college.

[gardenmom5]

1 minute ago, Dmmetler said:

Chemistry really has put a lot of focus on the education side and improving education and textbooks over time, and has also really focused on improving K-12 education going into college. And Maitland Jones has a reputation for being at the forefront of that. As in, he’s a name I recognize just by virtue of having discussions on education with science professors. 

 

It’s entirely possible he didn’t adapt to being online well. A lot of senior faculty didn’t (my then 12th grader was getting frantic emails from bio folks who needed to put Herpetology classes online, because at the time, L’s middle school level class was one of the only examples out there). But I think that it’s also entirely possible that the students got used to having ready extra credit of the sort of “fill out this study guide verbatim from the book” and substituting numbers into online simulations and weren’t ready for a problem solving based course that actually required developing a different skill set. Because that’s what a lot of high school classes are, and that’s what college classes that are using the Pearson “My X lab” are. And that, instead of doing what generations of science majors in the past have done-changing their major-they chose to attack the professor instead.  
 

 

I wasn't clear in my comment.  - I was sorry to see how petty their complaints were *and that the school backed up the whining students!*.  I fully support his teaching standards.  

An article I was reading about this had comments from a couple former students/parents who thought he was wonderful.

 

Years ago, 2dd had a math teacher who kept postponing the test so the stragglers could "catch up".   I pointed out that the kids who were ready for the test were being punished by dragging things out. They weren't getting the education the syllabus for the class said they were supposed to get.

[Bootsie]

I have been teaching at the university level since the mid 80s.  I think the average college student in the US is less-prepared to do college-level work than the average student was several decades ago.  The students may come in with high SAT scores and AP credit, but they lack basic study skills, reading skills, note taking skills, writing skills, and math skills.  Although they have taken calculus, I find students struggling with how to find a percentage change, how to find 5% of $200, and knowing whether 1/3 or 1/2 is larger. 

Social media has exacerbated some problems.  For students who do come to class, the entertainment their phones provide is a big distraction.  Many are unaware of how little time they are spending truly engaged in coursework.  When they sit down to do homework, they are being interupted by instagram, tik-tok, etc.  These platforms also serve as a forum for a few disgruntled students to voice their opinion and gather steam.  I have even had a student start on a discussion board, "i think the exam should be open book..."  followed by another student "I agree..."  and then another "let's vote..."  until finally I was receiving emails from students "I saw that the class voted for the exam to be open book..."  and then when I didn't make the exam open book there was the "you don't care about our learning  because we would have done better if it had been open book like we voted..."   

[Arcadia]

56 minutes ago, Faith-manor said:

Yup, weeder courses. For music, Theory 2. Medicine and Chem, Organic chem. Calc 1 and 2 for math, etc. I can't remember what my son said was the weeded to electrical engineering. But I remember him saying that it was first semester freshman year. He earned an A in the class, however, 25% of the class failed, and after the second semester, only half the intended electrical engineers were left. All of them made it through the program and graduated with only one graduating lower than Cum Laude. So the weeded classes did their job helping people realize that E.E. was not a good fit.

 

Circuit Analysis and math were weeder classes for electrical engineering. Math was weeder for all engineering majors. For my alma mater, the requirement was calc BC but many entered with completion of multivariable calculus and linear algebra. So my husband had to put in a lot of effort to get his A. Math lectures were close to 300 people while tutorials were 24 people. 
 

My teens are taking community college classes and every class would have some people expecting extra credit work to pull up their grades. There would be people asking if the class would have a high chance of A. High school students are very focused on their GPA. Many community college students are also very focused on their GPA because they want to transfer to UCLA, UCB. I have seen students drop classes where the teachers answered that As (above 93) aren’t guaranteed unless you understand what you are doing. 

[Arcadia]

1 minute ago, Bootsie said:

.  I have even had a student start on a discussion board, "i think the exam should be open book..."  followed by another student "I agree..."  and then another "let's vote..."  until finally I was receiving emails from students "I saw that the class voted for the exam to be open book..."  and then when I didn't make the exam open book there was the "you don't care about our learning  because we would have done better if it had been open book like we voted..."   

Engineering open book exams were the hardest compared to close book exams. My lecturers wrote the questions to test whether we could apply what we learn. 

[Carrie12345]

I can’t speak from a huge amount of experience, but I do believe STRONGLY that common core standards have failed us, with too high expectations on early ed and too low on high school.   
And I say that as a parent of 4 previous and current high schoolers, one incredibly intelligent and 3 “lazy” smarties. (Using the term lazy as the colloquial usage in the appearance kids of various motivations and issues give to the general public… as I also did in high school.). My standards are not sky high, but they can beat CC with a stick.

I was unable to manage college in the 90s for a combination of not learning how to learn, having a knack for testing and BSing, and some courses being way too easy in high school even then, plus undiagnosed ADHD with EF issues and a crippling fear of failure.

My dds are a year apart, raised and taught almost like one person.  One leaped into DE with terrific grades and the other has yet to step foot (or keyboard) into a college course out of fear.  Personality plays an enormous part, and I think kids are leaning more and more toward fears of being challenged.

I think high school has to include more preparation and more… practice in failing without high stakes consequences.  Room to tough it out, yk?  
In the meantime, it may be wise for some professors to reevaluate certain aspects. Not dumbing down or letting a lack of knowledge slide; that wouldn’t help. But all the “learning styles” and accommodations being yanked all at once WILL mean more kids getting weeded out… or complaining.

I don’t know the perfect solution for colleges, because I do mostly blame the high schools with some parenting and lifestyle stuff sprinkled in. 

[Bootsie]

38 minutes ago, Arcadia said:

Engineering open book exams were the hardest compared to close book exams. My lecturers wrote the questions to test whether we could apply what we learn. 

I agree that open book exams can be the harder.  In a small, upper-level applied course, I often given open book, take home exams.  In other classes, I have pedagogical reasons for NOT having an open book exams.  I have found that many students do not study or prepare when they know that the exam will be open book; they are expecting to be able to look on P 42 (or on wikepedia) and copy a sentence completion-type of question; these students will fail miserably on a open book, applied type of exam because they do not have time druing the exam to LEARN the material and how to apply it.  My general approach in these types of courses is students can bring in one page of notes to the exam--this forces them to review, summarize, pick out the formulas they are worried that they will forget; preparing that sheet is a lot of studying and exam prep.  Two groups of students do poorly on these exams:  students who come in without having prepared a page of notes and students who come in with as much crammed on the page as possible.  I have students how have copes of my old exams and will put the old multiple choice questions on their page--but they don't have a clue what to do when the same material is tested but the question is not identical.  If one year I ask which color is in the US flag--a. red b. purple, c. green  and then the next year I ask which color is in the US flag a. blue b. yellow c. pink--they can't answer the question.  

Edited October 4, 2022 by Bootsie

[vonfirmath]

I did love the classes that let us bring in one (somethng) of notes. (though I seem to recall it used to be an index card) It seemed to help me get to the heart of what we were learning without having to worry about if I memorized the equation well

 

When I was in Trigonometry and got a test paper, the first thing I'd do is write the equivalencies on the top of the page so I could refer to it while working the rest (Sine=O/H, Cos=A/H, Tan=O/A etc)

Edited October 4, 2022 by vonfirmath

[JennyD]

38 minutes ago, Bootsie said:

Many are unaware of how little time they are spending truly engaged in coursework.

I posted on the thread in the College forum, but I completely agree with this.   I have on occasion suggested to students that they actually track their work time and they are inevitably horrified by the results.  (I also do this myself sometimes, and I've made my kids do it as well.)

[Bootsie]

25 minutes ago, Bootsie said:

 

 

Edited October 4, 2022 by Bootsie
double post

[klmama]

Many students don't grasp that to do well in some classes one actually must read the massive textbook... and go to the chem/writing/math/foreign language tutoring lab... and visit the prof during office hours to discuss questions... and watch the Organic Chemistry Tutor, etc., on YouTube for additional explanations... and get into a study group with serious students... and sometimes buy the student solutions manual for worked solutions to the problems that already have answers in the back of the book, just to see the processes needed to solve them.  Some classes are relatively easy, and some classes require being willing to give up all your free time.  That's just how it goes.  

[Clarita]

27 minutes ago, Bootsie said:

I agree that open book exams can be the harder.  In a small, upper-level applied course, I often given open book, take home exams.  In other classes, I have pedagogical reasons for NOT having an open book exams.  I have found that many students do not study or prepare when they know that the exam will be open book; they are expecting to be able to look on P 42 (or on wikepedia) and copy a sentence completion-type of question; these students will fail miserably on a open book, applied type of exam because they do not have time druing the exam to LEARN the material and how to apply it.  My general approach in these types of courses is students can bring in one page of notes to the exam--this forces them to review, summarize, pick out the formulas they are worried that they will forget; preparing that sheet is a lot of studying and exam prep.  Two groups of students do poorly on these exams:  students who come in without having prepared a page of notes and students who come in with as much crammed on the page as possible.  I have students how have copes of my old exams and will put the old multiple choice questions on their page--but they don't have a clue what to do when the same material is tested but the question is identical.  If one year I ask which color is in the US flag--a. red b. purple, c. green  and then the next year I ask which color is in the US flag a. blue b. yellow c. pink--they can't answer the question.  

I remember students in other majors jealous of my open book, open notes or 1-2 page cheat sheet exams because they thought then they wouldn't have to study. I would show them my textbook going into the open book exam. It was fully tabbed with extra notes inside. I spent a lot of time studying for open everything exams. I dreaded take home exams.

[Dmmetler]

20 minutes ago, vonfirmath said:

I did love the classes that let us bring in one (somethng) of notes. (though I seem to recall it used to be an index card) It seemed to help me get to the heart of what we were learning without having to worry about if I memorized the equation well

 

When I was in Trigonometry and got a test paper, the first thing I'd do is write the equivalencies on the top of the page so I could refer to it while working the rest (Sine=O/H, Cos=A/H, Tan=O/A etc)

I like this strategy because in order to get the most important stuff on an index card, you have to a)filter down to what is important and b) probably wrote it multiple times as you changed your mind as to what you needed. Making the card IS studying, and by the time you get to the test, you don't need it. 

 

[EKS]

Quote

“We are very concerned about our scores, and find that they are not an accurate reflection of the time and effort put into this class,” the petition said.

Time and effort do not necessarily translate to high scores.

I honestly have no sympathy for these students.  O-chem is hard.  You can either memorize your way through, or you can learn the principles.  I'm stunned that it looks as though this particular professor recognized this and actually allowed students to choose their poison by having two pathways through the course.  That right there shows me that he probably has a clue about how to teach the material.

[fairfarmhand]

2 hours ago, Faith-manor said:

Yes. I also think that four year colleges are excepting too many unqualified students. Entrance requirements to many state universities have gone down. Too many kids from high school that should be in remedial coursework at the CC are getting into four year institutions, especially if the parents can afford to pay so no financial aid has to be offered to woo the student. They have had grade inflation in high school and think they are ready despite a not very good SAT or ACT score or lack of AP exams or taking DE, etc.

t.

My oldest dd talked about how sorry she felt for the students in the Calculus class who were way over their heads because their high school stuff was so poor. The saddest thing was when they came to the realization that they had previously THOUGHT they were good at math because they had straight As in high school. And they were having to reevaluate their whole college plan/major/hoped for career because it was made upon false assumptions.

[Murphy101]

2 hours ago, Faith-manor said:

That said, sometimes there is a real bum/jerk on faculty.

Yes but no one is even claiming anywhere near that about this professor. Not his students. Not his peers. Not even the school.  This is literally just a complaint that he isn’t giving mediocre participation grades.

No one is denying that bad/unprofessional teachers prevent learning and should be weeded out.

This is a case of weeding out the good teachers so that only bad ones remain and sending a clear message that teachers of integrity are not wanted and won’t be backed by the administration.

 

2 hours ago, vonfirmath said:

The only classes I'd use AP classes to test out of at the college level would be those that are not central to the degree plan. So for me, testing out of English made sense because my degree was science/math focused. But not the prerequisite classes for my major.

Yes. That’s always been the best practices use of testing out in any form - only do it for courses unrelated to the major. 

1 hour ago, Dmmetler said:

It’s entirely possible he didn’t adapt to being online well.

It is possible but it does not seem to be the case. 

But more likely imo, he actually did it well and that made it harder for them to cheat.  They likely opted for online thinking they could raise their grade via cheating and then when their efforts were thwarted - they got ticked off. 

And also, I’m so done with everything being online.  Online just does not replace in person learning in so many ways that I’ve come to think of online best practice of usage as the same as testing out - only go that route for non-major related courses.

1 hour ago, Dmmetler said:

Because that’s what a lot of high school classes are, and that’s what college classes that are using the Pearson “My X lab” are. And that, instead of doing what generations of science majors in the past have done-changing their major-they chose to attack the professor instead.  

I agree that expectation of what study and work is, is a problem that most high schools breed into the system.  

1 hour ago, Bootsie said:

I have been teaching at the university level since the mid 80s.  I think the average college student in the US is less-prepared to do college-level work than the average student was several decades ago.  The students may come in with high SAT scores and AP credit, but they lack basic study skills, reading skills, note taking skills, writing skills, and math skills.  Although they have taken calculus, I find students struggling with how to find a percentage change, how to find 5% of $200, and knowing whether 1/3 or 1/2 is larger. 

Social media has exacerbated some problems.  For students who do come to class, the entertainment their phones provide is a big distraction.  Many are unaware of how little time they are spending truly engaged in coursework.  When they sit down to do homework, they are being interupted by instagram, tik-tok, etc.  These platforms also serve as a forum for a few disgruntled students to voice their opinion and gather steam.  I have even had a student start on a discussion board, "i think the exam should be open book..."  followed by another student "I agree..."  and then another "let's vote..."  until finally I was receiving emails from students "I saw that the class voted for the exam to be open book..."  and then when I didn't make the exam open book there was the "you don't care about our learning  because we would have done better if it had been open book like we voted..."   

All this. The bottom line is 1.5-2 generations have been cheated of the basic k-12 education that our laws say is their right.  We know this crime has happened bc this scenario keeps happening. A or B student graduated high school thinking they worked heard and learned what they needed to participate in building their future and then they get slapped silly with the reality of actually barely having above a 7th grade education in the 3 Rs.

And they are right that they should be livid about that bc it’s true it was not all their fault.

But they are wrong that the solution is to continue the lie through college.

I’m not sure what the solution is. But I KNOW it isn’t that.   Because that is flat out dangerous to everyone’s future. 

[Faith-manor]

54 minutes ago, Murphy101 said:

Yes but no one is even claiming anywhere near that about this professor. Not his students. Not his peers. Not even the school.  

I did not mean to i.ply that it was the issue in this particular case, but that it is one issue wrapped up in several like the above case of coddling students that is causing some serious failure of higher education. I should have made that clear.

[Laura Corin]

I have definitely seen lack of acceptance that not everyone is suited for every degree. I suspect it is partly a small-fish-big-pond problem  - the students at the selective university where I work were used to being top of the class at their high school. 

Recently a student was told by their academic advisor that they had failed a prerequisite module  - on the second attempt  - and would have to change major. They contacted many members of staff and cried in their offices, unable to accept that if they couldn't pass this module, they wouldn't pass the next and the one after. We were doing them a favour by saying 'No'.

The University has walked the precipice between being sympathetic about pandemic disruption and holding the line on academic standards. In general the proportion of grade levels has not changed too much.

[Bambam]

I started seeing issues with a local charter school (run by a university) with their dual credit classes. I had a full time college student taking a Chemistry 1 class and lab. The University-run-Charter-School students were also taking the same class but as a dual credit class - and there were only that school's dc students in their session.  Come time for finals - all the full time regular college students and regular DC students have to take a national Chemistry exam as their final - a super tough exam. The University-run-Charter-School students take one made up by their instructor. Now this charter school advertises that their DC classes are the same as regular college classes, but they are not - their exam was much easier - and let's just say they really started sweating when they thought the University Chemistry department might make them take the national exam too. 

This lack of preparation/effort/whatever is starting to be seen in one major that is a tough one at a local school. Very few of the students are prepared for the tough/weed-out class in that major. The instructors have tried to figure out way to help, implemented those, and they aren't seeing the results they would like to. It's sad - so many of these kids just don't seem to know how to work/study to succeed. 

[Murphy101]

1 hour ago, Bambam said:

I started seeing issues with a local charter school (run by a university) with their dual credit classes. I had a full time college student taking a Chemistry 1 class and lab. The University-run-Charter-School students were also taking the same class but as a dual credit class - and there were only that school's dc students in their session.  Come time for finals - all the full time regular college students and regular DC students have to take a national Chemistry exam as their final - a super tough exam. The University-run-Charter-School students take one made up by their instructor. Now this charter school advertises that their DC classes are the same as regular college classes, but they are not - their exam was much easier - and let's just say they really started sweating when they thought the University Chemistry department might make them take the national exam too. 

This lack of preparation/effort/whatever is starting to be seen in one major that is a tough one at a local school. Very few of the students are prepared for the tough/weed-out class in that major. The instructors have tried to figure out way to help, implemented those, and they aren't seeing the results they would like to. It's sad - so many of these kids just don't seem to know how to work/study to succeed. 

I hate this development of CC and UNIs offering in house DE options. I feel strongly that it’s just fraud wrapped in pretty sentiment.

I have seen it slowly happen here too and I’ve reached a point the last 4 years, for many reasons, that I will not allow my kids to enroll in any supposedly college/trade program unless there’s a mix of non-DE in the class.  Every. Single. Time. It’s restricted to high school kids only - it’s no where near what it claims to be.

And while I understand that the profs can’t help the demographic of students they get - at some point we have got to stop this madness.

As others have pointed out, this problem doesn’t start in college. It starts in k.

[Ausmumof3]

I have been doing some work vaguely related to this. Unis here are trialling different learning models to improve success for lower/performing students. A couple of things flagged was trying to get professors to move more toward alternative assessment models (less essays and tests) and more other forms of assessment, more variety, more reflective of real life. One issue for the unis is that very few students are just there to study, having family support. Most are working pretty close to full time hours or have kids and part time jobs, and they just don’t have the time available. 

[gardenmom5]

51 minutes ago, Ausmumof3 said:

I have been doing some work vaguely related to this. Unis here are trialling different learning models to improve success for lower/performing students. A couple of things flagged was trying to get professors to move more toward alternative assessment models (less essays and tests) and more other forms of assessment, more variety, more reflective of real life. One issue for the unis is that very few students are just there to study, having family support. Most are working pretty close to full time hours or have kids and part time jobs, and they just don’t have the time available. 

what does that have to do with learning the material?  If they don't have time for a full load - then they can stretch it out over a longer time period.   I don't have a problem with a student doing half-time instead of full-time. (for most majors.) They still need to learn the material as required to pass the course - please don't lower standards any more than they already have. 

Not requiring learning the material because "they don't have time" - isn't doing them, or the future employers (and future customers/patients) any favors.

 

 

back to the original post - these were orgo students, most of whom are probably pre-med. - I don't want a dr (or dentist or pharmacist) who doesn't understand the material. And I don't want them (re: someone who doesn't understand the material) taking space in a graduate professional program and preventing someone who does understand the material from getting in.

[Ausmumof3]

4 minutes ago, gardenmom5 said:

what does that have to do with learning the material?  If they don't have time for a full load - then they can stretch it out over a longer time period.   I don't have a problem with a student doing half-time instead of full-time. (for most majors.) They still need to learn the material as required to pass the course - please don't lower standards any more than they already have. 

Not requiring learning the material because "they don't have time" - isn't doing them, or the future employers (and future customers/patients) any favors.

 

 

back to the original post - these were orgo students, most of whom are probably pre-med. - I don't want a dr (or dentist or pharmacist) who doesn't understand the material. And I don't want them (re: someone who doesn't understand the material) taking space in a graduate professional program and preventing someone who does understand the material from getting in.

Yes. It’s difficult to describe, but it was focused on making sure the material required was specific and relevant and the assessment process was varied to show proficiency. Basically looking at maximising the outcomes for the effort going in. It was mostly identifying issues not providing answers though.

[kbutton]

6 hours ago, Bootsie said:

I have been teaching at the university level since the mid 80s.  I think the average college student in the US is less-prepared to do college-level work than the average student was several decades ago.  The students may come in with high SAT scores and AP credit, but they lack basic study skills, reading skills, note taking skills, writing skills, and math skills.  Although they have taken calculus, I find students struggling with how to find a percentage change, how to find 5% of $200, and knowing whether 1/3 or 1/2 is larger. 

I do think that this is common, but it's common in high school too--my old neighbor is a calculus teacher in high school, and she pulls out her hair with students like this that are the best in her school. It's a really highly rated school district where a lot of the kids have engineers and chemists for parents (the local employment options run hard that direction).

On the other hand, at some point, colleges are going to have to figure out what to do with unprepared students because that's the way things are going.

5 hours ago, EKS said:

I'm stunned that it looks as though this particular professor recognized this and actually allowed students to choose their poison by having two pathways through the course.  That right there shows me that he probably has a clue about how to teach the material.

Me too, but there were some other things in the article that made it sound to me like he has some blame as well. 

5 hours ago, Murphy101 said:

Yes but no one is even claiming anywhere near that about this professor. Not his students. Not his peers. Not even the school.  This is literally just a complaint that he isn’t giving mediocre participation grades.

People were complaining that he had a bad attitude.

My guess is that there is element or two of the following, based partly on the article and based partly on experience:

• He was getting frustrated with the growing ignorance of students in college that we're all talking about, and it was starting to show in his attitude, and he started growing less flexible as he neared retirement (it's not unusual to watch people near retirement focus on certain things and have zero patience with and/or neglect/ignore aspects of their job they don't like).
• His high performing students liked him, and the article mentioned attitudes of condescension. I've seen many instances of teachers treating some students well and being utterly rude and inaccessible to others, often on the basis of whether they think that student will pass or fail and/or on whether students affirm their particular approach to teacher or not (my friend had you for class and just loved it--he's in grad school and doing really well now...).
• There are genuine efforts being made to work with him that can't be talked about for contractual reasons.

Honestly, there was a super competent professor or two in college that could really just be rude to students, and who didn't like feedback. It would only change if a favorite student or a super competent student with the right personality intervened, and when there was no intervention, it was miserable for large swaths of the class. My husband was in a weed out program and kept surviving by the skin of his teeth. His advisor, who taught several of the hard classes, was unconscionably mean to him, mocked him, and refused to help him when my husband would go to office hours and such. He said my DH didn't belong there and set out to make it a self-fulfilling prophecy. Other students liked him (ETA: they liked the professor). That was undergrad. Similar story in his graduate program at a different school--some of the professors were horribly mean, but they didn't necessarily single him out. But now my husband is an excellent mid-level clinician--there might be complaints about pacing or something from time to time, but never about his clinical skills, and he's excellent with patients, including and maybe even especially with difficult patients. I have revenge fantasies about his college advisor ending up in my DH's care with an abscess on his rear end, TBH. He was such a mean SOB.  

So, I vote that this goes both ways--students are part of the problem, and so is the professor. Things don't usually come to a head when it's just one direction.

Edited October 4, 2022 by kbutton

[ktgrok]

9 hours ago, Murphy101 said:

“We are very concerned about our scores, and find that they are not an accurate reflection of the time and effort put into this class,” the petition said.

This quote stood out to me.  It’s a core problem with children being lied to from day one in school. You can be anything if you just do what YOU think is a lot of time and effort into something. And if that doesn’t result in a desired achievement, then it wasn’t a fair deal. And that’s just not true. The score doesn’t reflect effort. It reflects, or should, knowledge attained and ability shown. Whatever time and effort they put in either wasn’t enough or they are flat out not suited to a science or medical profession. It would be best for them and everyone else if they got out to do something else.

And frankly it looks poorly on the school that they even considered lowering their standards.

I see this as another notch in the slow erosion of civilization.  We literally are not passing on knowledge for the next generation to build on. And the next generation (which includes mine and my kids) have no idea of the price they are going to pay for this kind of thing  

 

I will say, sometimes it IS the professor, not the students. 

When I took regular old college chemistry the first time, I failed. I found him terrible at explaining things, and when I tried to go to his office hours for help he ignored me and spent the whole time chatting happily with his higher level students and research interns. I tried multiple times. I SHOULD have dropped the class. I didn't. I failed. 

I retook the class the next semester, different professor. It made total sense. I got an A+ in the class. I never even needed the office hours, but had I gone to them I'm sure he would have assisted me. 

Later on in my college career I took Organic Chemistry at a different school. I was warned by MANY people that the professor was "crazy" and had lost his ability to teach after too many acid trips or something. No idea how much of that explanation was true, but I should have listened. The teacher WAS crazy. Also, he flat out said, "The textbook is structured in the order that helps this make the most sense. However, after teaching it for so long, I get too bored doing that, so we will skip around based on what I want to talk about." Then, he proceeded to have us memorize stuff that was not even IN the textbook, and memorize dozens of organic compounds that  that no other students in the other sections of organic chemistry had to memorize. That, on top of trying to make sense of of the subject when explained out of order meant most people failed. I ended up leaving the class and yes, changing my major. Because the whole thing was ridiculous, and if the department knew this was how he "taught" and didn't see a problem with it I didn't want to stay in that department. 

So, yeah, sometimes it is not that the material itself is impossible to understand but that the professor is not actually TEACHING the material effectively. Now, some can self teach it, but if that is the goal, why pay money for a professor at all?

that said, given it was 25%, probably not the case here. (In that organic chemistry class 2/3 of students with that professor failed, on average). 

[Murphy101]

1 hour ago, Ausmumof3 said:

I have been doing some work vaguely related to this. Unis here are trialling different learning models to improve success for lower/performing students. A couple of things flagged was trying to get professors to move more toward alternative assessment models (less essays and tests) and more other forms of assessment, more variety, more reflective of real life. One issue for the unis is that very few students are just there to study, having family support. Most are working pretty close to full time hours or have kids and part time jobs, and they just don’t have the time available. 

And I don’t know how to combat that. This is my husband right now. This has been all our children while in classes. Millions of students in America do not have the funding to devote themselves 100% or even 50% to college.  It’s easy to say those students should only be part time or whatever but that drags the torture out for a freaking decade or more likely, they end up just quitting entirely. 

And our nation is needs people to learn the information in these programs. We need people who know history and math and literacy and science.  We cannot maintain our civilization or advance it without them. 

40 minutes ago, kbutton said:

On the other hand, at some point, colleges are going to have to figure out what to do with unprepared students because that's the way things are going.

I agree. I have some thoughts on what I would like to see. But no one listens to me so 🤷‍♀️

40 minutes ago, kbutton said:

Me too, but there were some other things in the article that made it sound to me like he has some blame as well. 

People were complaining that he had a bad attitude.

My guess is that there is element or two of the following, based partly on the article and based partly on experience:

• He was getting frustrated with the growing ignorance of students in college that we're all talking about, and it was starting to show in his attitude,

There was another thread shortly ago about a child in a foreign school and the parent felt the teacher was terribly harsh for saying point blank that if the child didn’t know XYZ, then they shouldn’t be in the class and should leave to get in a different one.

I’d be very curious to know if this is what is being called “bad attitude” for this professor. Because I do not think that is bad attitude at all.  I think students should be evaluated repeatedly so they aren’t advanced to courses/levels they are not ready for.  I think it should happen in first grade.  Well the first thing I’d want to see happen is to do away with grade levels. But again no one listens to me and that’s another subject. 

40 minutes ago, kbutton said:

• and he started growing less flexible as he neared retirement (it's not unusual to watch people near retirement focus on certain things and have zero patience with and/or neglect/ignore aspects of their job they don't like)

certainly possible. But also the more experienced and the older we get the less BS most are willing to flex for too. 

40 minutes ago, kbutton said:

• His high performing students liked him, and the article mentioned attitudes of condescension. I've seen many instances of teachers treating some students well and being utterly rude and inaccessible to others, often on the basis of whether they think that student will pass or fail and/or on whether students affirm their particular approach to teacher or not (my friend had you for class and just loved it--he's in grad school and doing really well now...)

I’m not a fan of jerks either. Especially unprofessional ones. Btdt. But again, I wonder how much of that is accurate and how much of it is a stressed student feeling incompetent and stupid too.  I’m willing to give the benefit of the doubt if for no other reason than it seems he has a reputation that suggests he hasn’t been a total a-hole  and even if he was an a-hole, it doesn’t change that dumbing down the grade to worthless isn’t the solution.

 

[Arcadia]

From the article, I am guessing that Prof Jones did do whatever he could to adjust to online teaching during the pandemic and I think the onus is on the college to help their students get decent internet availability whether it is through the free low income xfinitywifi program or other ways.

“To ease pandemic stress, Dr. Jones and two other professors taped 52 organic chemistry lectures. Dr. Jones said that he personally paid more than $5,000 for the videos and that they are still used by the university.

That was not enough. In 2020, some 30 students out of 475 filed a petition asking for more help, said Dr. Arora, who taught that class with Dr. Jones. “They were really struggling,” he explained. “They didn’t have good internet coverage at home. All sorts of things.””

Then there is the issue of cheating and instead of being thankfully that they were not kick out of the class with a disciplinary record, they were upset that the professors are affecting their grades for medical school applications. 

“Many students were having other problems. Kent Kirshenbaum, another chemistry professor at N.Y.U., said he discovered cheating during online tests.

When he pushed students’ grades down, noting the egregious misconduct, he said they protested that “they were not given grades that would allow them to get into medical school.””

I have had lecturers that favor students who are smart and/or very hardworking. I had a math teacher in 9th and 10th grade who is rude to anyone she deems as “stupid”.  So the prof may really be annoyed and condescending to some students because he feels they are wasting his time. I do think that there is a mismatch between prof and students in that the prof should have been assigned to teaching upper class students who are majoring in chem instead of pre-med students. I know quite a few lecturers who are bad at teaching lower class students because they are used to teaching students who are enthusiastic about the subject and has already done well in the freshman and sophomore classes. I also know lecturers who only teach postgraduate classes because they aren’t good at “simplifying” stuff.  

[ktgrok]

3 minutes ago, Arcadia said:

 

Then there is the issue of cheating and instead of being thankfully that they were not kick out of the class with a disciplinary record, they were upset that the professors are affecting their grades for medical school applications. 

“Many students were having other problems. Kent Kirshenbaum, another chemistry professor at N.Y.U., said he discovered cheating during online tests.

When he pushed students’ grades down, noting the egregious misconduct, he said they protested that “they were not given grades that would allow them to get into medical school.””

 

I'm wondering - as it isn't totally clear - did he just push down the students who were caught cheating? Or did he decide to say, change the curve because people were cheating, and the kids who didn't cheat ended up angry?

[EKS]

I will say that it used to be that all professors (the ones in math and science, at any rate) graded on a curve.  If "everyone" got a low score, then doing so eliminated a lot of angst.  I had professors where the average was in the 20s.  You could literally get a score in the single digits and still pass.

My impression is, from both my own classes as well as those my sons have taken, that grading on a curve is no longer common.  

[Arcadia]

11 minutes ago, ktgrok said:

I'm wondering - as it isn't totally clear - did he just push down the students who were caught cheating? Or did he decide to say, change the curve because people were cheating, and the kids who didn't cheat ended up angry?

The prof that mentioned cheating was Prof Kent Kirshenbaum and it isn’t clear from the article how the grades were pushed down.

[Frances]

41 minutes ago, EKS said:

I will say that it used to be that all professors (the ones in math and science, at any rate) graded on a curve.  If "everyone" got a low score, then doing so eliminated a lot of angst.  I had professors where the average was in the 20s.  You could literally get a score in the single digits and still pass.

My impression is, from both my own classes as well as those my sons have taken, that grading on a curve is no longer common.  

Depending on how it’s done, it can actually hurt good students. The most common sense way to do it, taught to me by my stats profs, is to look for natural breaks in the score distribution and assign grades to each group. And not give any grades lower than percentages would indicate. So for example, 90% and above is some type of A. The way my son’s first honors organic chemistry professor did it was to declare that only 5% of the class could get an A regardless of their test score, then 20% Bs, 50% Cs, 20% Ds, and 5% Fs, with no consideration of actual percentages. So there were students scoring 90% and above who got Bs in the class and it trickled down from there. Fortunately, he had a much, much better prof in every way for his last two terms of orgo and ended up taking an advanced orgo class from him his sophomore year.

Edited October 5, 2022 by Frances

[EKS]

24 minutes ago, Frances said:

Depending on how it’s done, it can actually hurt good students. The most common sense way to do it, taught to me by my stats profs, is to look for natural breaks in the score distribution and assign grades to each group. And not give any grades lower than percentages would indicate. So for example, 90% and above is some type of A. The way my son’s first honors organic chemistry professor did it was to declare that only 5% of the class could get an A regardless of their test score, then 20% Bs, 50% Cs, 20% Ds, and 5% Fs, with no consideration of actual percentages. So there were students scoring 90% and above who got Bs in the class and it trickled down from there. Fortunately, he had a much, much better prof in every way for his last two terms of orgo and ended up taking an advanced orgo class from him his sophomore year.

It only hurts good students if the whole class is clustered at the top, and the professor insists on doing the 5%-can-get-As thing anyway.  That would not seem to be the case with this o-chem class.

That said, if the class is clustered at the top, it probably means that the exams are too easy.

[Frances]

9 minutes ago, EKS said:

It only hurts good students if the whole class is clustered at the top, and the professor insists on doing the 5%-can-get-As thing anyway.  That would not seem to be the case with this o-chem class.

That said, if the class is clustered at the top, it probably means that the exams are too easy.

I’m not sure I agree. Let’s say for example there are 100 students in the class and 10 of them have scores of 90 and above and then the rest of the scores are clustered around 50-70. Under the scenario I described, 5 students would get an A and 20 would get a B, but of those Bs, 5 would have scored 90% or better and the remaining 15 would have scored around 70%. Arbitrarily saying x % of students will get a certain grade regardless of the distribution of scores or actual percentages makes no sense and is just plan stupid, in my opinion.

[Heartstrings]

2 hours ago, Arcadia said:

To ease pandemic stress, Dr. Jones and two other professors taped 52 organic chemistry lectures. Dr. Jones said that he personally paid more than $5,000 for the videos and that they are still used by the university.

I’ve being thinking a lot of this sort of thing and the teachers complaining about students ability to comprehend and being prepared for the next level.  All schools and teachers, at every level are incorporating more and more tech into classes.  What if that’s just not good for learning?  All the emphasis on iPads and apps and Google classroom in k-12, more hybrid type classes in college.  It can’t be a coincidence that kids are struggling all at the same time that we’ve drastically changed teaching methods.  It’s a huge social experiment that our country is trying with no idea how it will turn out.  
 

I know my son took a pre-Calc class at the community college, regular DE he was the only high school kid, pre Covid.  I thought it would be great to have a teacher available to him.  Turned out that 100% of the work and tests was Pearson online and the teacher had no control over it or insight into how it worked. When he repeatedly ran into the same issue, an error saying “answer is correct but in the wrong format” she shrugged and said she didn’t know what it wanted either. The math lab tutoring couldn’t help either because he had the correct answers.  The online part wouldn’t give him credit unless he got the format right. He had to withdraw before he failed as did many others.  An old school class with pen and paper would have been much better.  That instructor probably complained about how many kids weren’t prepared for her class and had to drop mid term.  
 

I don’t have much of a conclusion on my thoughts on this really.  I’m still turning it all around in my head. Maybe kids really aren’t being prepared for the next level and maybe it’s not their fault.  That might be my conclusion for now.  

Edited October 5, 2022 by Heartstrings

[Mom_to3]

I have now taught long enough to be quite confident that the material has been watered down. There is a core course that I have been teaching, and exams that I was able to give 20 years ago I would get major complaints about today. The entire grade distribution has shifted quite substantially, too, both in my courses and at the university level. There is also the attitude that what matters most these days are teaching evaluations; colleagues up for tenure or promotion have literally told me that they made their classes easier to get better evaluations. Unfortunately, my department has recently also watered down requirements for the PhD. It really is quite frightening. I do not know how we (the US) will be able to keep attracting the top talent of the world (it is quite paradoxical that getting into college is more difficult than ever, but once you are actually in, the courses are dumbed down compared to 10 or 20 years ago).

That said, there are still amazing, hard working and brilliant students in my classes, who are being shortchanged by the drop in overall standards.

[Frances]

53 minutes ago, Heartstrings said:

I’ve being thinking a lot of this sort of thing and the teachers complaining about students ability to comprehend and being prepared for the next level.  All schools and teachers, at every level are incorporating more and more tech into classes.  What if that’s just not good for learning?  All the emphasis on iPads and apps and Google classroom in k-12, more hybrid type classes in college.  It can’t be a coincidence that kids are struggling all at the same time that we’ve drastically changed teaching methods.  It’s a huge social experiment that our country is trying with no idea how it will turn out.  
 

I know my son took a pre-Calc class at the community college, regular DE he was the only high school kid, pre Covid.  I thought it would be great to have a teacher available to him.  Turned out that 100% of the work and tests was Pearson online and the teacher had no control over it or insight into how it worked. When he repeatedly ran into the same issue, an error saying “answer is correct but in the wrong format” she shrugged and said she didn’t know what it wanted either. The math lab tutoring couldn’t help either because he had the correct answers.  The online part wouldn’t give him credit unless he got the format right. He had to withdraw before he failed as did many others.  An old school class with pen and paper would have been much better.  That instructor probably complained about how many kids weren’t prepared for her class and had to drop mid term.  
 

I don’t have much of a conclusion on my thoughts on this really.  I’m still turning it all around in my head. Maybe kids really aren’t being prepared for the next level and maybe it’s not their fault.  That might be my conclusion for now.  

My son also took a CC math class during high school that used Pearsons or another one of the major vendors. The problems used ridiculously complicated numbers, rather than focusing on basic principles. I was able to help him with the wrong format issues due to my background and he got an A, but the whole thing was an incredible waste and it was the one and only CC class he took.

As for recorded videos, it seems to me that for something so standard like organic chemistry, calculus, etc., that it hardly makes sense for lots of different professors out there to be making them from scratch. Aren’t their profs who are considered the best in the world at teaching certain subjects? Why not just use a flipped classroom and have students watch videos by Star teachers before class and then use class time for problem solving and questions.

I will have to say that I don’t remotely understand things technological advancements not having math textbooks anymore for k12, especially at the high school level. So much instruction these days just seems very disjointed and pieced together, rather than sequentially progressing through a standard curriculum. 

[Murphy101]

1 hour ago, Heartstrings said:

I’ve being thinking a lot of this sort of thing and the teachers complaining about students ability to comprehend and being prepared for the next level.  All schools and teachers, at every level are incorporating more and more tech into classes.  What if that’s just not good for learning?  All the emphasis on iPads and apps and Google classroom in k-12, more hybrid type classes in college.  It can’t be a coincidence that kids are struggling all at the same time that we’ve drastically changed teaching methods.  It’s a huge social experiment that our country is trying with no idea how it will turn out. 

I think it’s a horrible thing to introduce any of it before age 15 as a primary mode of education imo. 

1 hour ago, Heartstrings said:

I know my son took a pre-Calc class at the community college, regular DE he was the only high school kid, pre Covid.  I thought it would be great to have a teacher available to him.  Turned out that 100% of the work and tests was Pearson online and the teacher had no control over it or insight into how it worked. When he repeatedly ran into the same issue, an error saying “answer is correct but in the wrong format” she shrugged and said she didn’t know what it wanted either. The math lab tutoring couldn’t help either because he had the correct answers.  The online part wouldn’t give him credit unless he got the format right. He had to withdraw before he failed as did many others.  An old school class with pen and paper would have been much better.  That instructor probably complained about how many kids weren’t prepared for her class and had to drop mid term.

Actually I bet the teacher did complain about the POC program. Fat lot of good it did her bc I bet her superiors are having the same response to her as she had to the student.

1 hour ago, Heartstrings said:

I don’t have much of a conclusion on my thoughts on this really.  I’m still turning it all around in my head. Maybe kids really aren’t being prepared for the next level and maybe it’s not their fault.  That might be my conclusion for now.  

I do not think anyone on this board is going to disagree with that. It isn’t all their fault bc I think it’s all just rampant institutional fraud.  They are not getting a k-12 education.  But the solution cannot be to just continue to have any educational standards at all even into adulthood. 

[Murphy101]

1 hour ago, Frances said:

As for recorded videos, it seems to me that for something so standard like organic chemistry, calculus, etc., that it hardly makes sense for lots of different professors out there to be making them from scratch. Aren’t their profs who are considered the best in the world at teaching certain subjects? Why not just use a flipped classroom and have students watch videos by Star teachers before class and then use class time for problem solving and questions.

Um. This guy IS arguably one of the best in this subject!  And I bet he wishes he’d never made a single video and had instead retired jan 2020.  And seeing this kind of thing repeat pattern in higher education - why would anyone else do it?!   These are really smart people and a smart person is going to see this trend and think, no thanks.

The combination of retiring/dying and lowering of standards/incentives has created a literal brain drain.

1 hour ago, Frances said:

I will have to say that I don’t remotely understand things technological advancements not having math textbooks anymore for k12, especially at the high school level. So much instruction these days just seems very disjointed and pieced together, rather than sequentially progressing through a standard curriculum. 

It is. It’s awful. It’s awful for the students. It’s awful for the teachers. It’s awful for the parents.  I have so many friends and family who have kids in k-12 and it’s a daily every single class PITA stress for all parties. But every year they pump millions into the same scrap metal education plan.

Edited October 5, 2022 by Murphy101

[Laura Corin]

5 hours ago, ktgrok said:

I'm wondering - as it isn't totally clear - did he just push down the students who were caught cheating? Or did he decide to say, change the curve because people were cheating, and the kids who didn't cheat ended up angry?

Also - what is the process for this? It seems quite ad hoc.

At the university where I work, someone accused of cheating would be called to an academic misconduct board. Evidence is presented on both sides, then the determination is made by three independent academics. The student has the right to be accompanied and supported by a representative - not a lawyer but a student advocate. Only after all this can the mark for this one student be changed. It happens often, but the process is transparent. 

[Ausmumof3]

4 hours ago, Frances said:

My son also took a CC math class during high school that used Pearsons or another one of the major vendors. The problems used ridiculously complicated numbers, rather than focusing on basic principles. I was able to help him with the wrong format issues due to my background and he got an A, but the whole thing was an incredible waste and it was the one and only CC class he took.

As for recorded videos, it seems to me that for something so standard like organic chemistry, calculus, etc., that it hardly makes sense for lots of different professors out there to be making them from scratch. Aren’t their profs who are considered the best in the world at teaching certain subjects? Why not just use a flipped classroom and have students watch videos by Star teachers before class and then use class time for problem solving and questions.

I will have to say that I don’t remotely understand things technological advancements not having math textbooks anymore for k12, especially at the high school level. So much instruction these days just seems very disjointed and pieced together, rather than sequentially progressing through a standard curriculum. 

Yes this was a thing that was flagged - there’s a lot of excellent video content that could be curated instead of creating from scratch. The only question I guess is how that IP gets managed and having someone edit often to check links etc all work (although that can be worked around maybe with persistent identifiers?)