A dangerous decision by LSU (I think)

percussiondad · April 15, 2010, 3:19pm

[LSU</a> removes tough professor, raises students’ grades - USATODAY.com](<a href=“http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2010-04-15-IHE-tough-prof-removed-LSU-15_ST_N.htm?csp=YahooModule_News]LSU”>http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2010-04-15-IHE-tough-prof-removed-LSU-15_ST_N.htm?csp=YahooModule_News)

I hope this works but if not, search for LSU removing a tough prof. I have mixed feelings about this turn of events because on one hand perhaps the teacher was being a bit over the top with freshmen but on the other side my D was at the top of one class in first semester and the prof told her that he may have to drop her marks by raising the the rest to an acceptable level. I have a problem with this because she worked hard and earned her grades and as she said, none of the students were slackers but for some reason it all clicked for her and not for them. She was lucky that her grade went from 3.94 to 3.90 so there was no significant change. I am interested in reading other peoples opinions on this type of thing.

bigtrees · April 15, 2010, 3:27pm

I think it’s fair that she was removed and grades were increased.

Curving is essential to many college classes because the professors don’t have a handle on how to give a challenging test yet make sure students can pass. By curving the exam, it allows professors to set a high bar yet not have to fail students for the course.

Daily quizzes to ensure attendance and reading the material isn’t typical of college classes. Class is usually optional and some universities have policies that prohibit grading on attendance. It can also be hard to keep on on reading prior to every lecture because you have to balance many different classes, labs, personal life, and other activities.

There’s nothing wrong with being a hard professor. But be an unfair professor - that’s asking for trouble.

arabrab · April 15, 2010, 3:36pm

Virtually any large college class where 90% of the students are getting failing grades is an indictment of the teacher, not the students. Good for LSU.

bigtrees · April 15, 2010, 3:45pm

The instructor swam upstream. Daily quizzes. Announced class would not be curved. Made multiple choice have 10 possible answers instead of 4.

Did you know that prison inmates stay in prison by choice? Yes, they do. If they ever really wanted out, they could get out because there are a whole lot more inmates than guards. But if the guards keep the inmates reasonably happy, they stay there.

Same goes for college students. You can challenge them and they like that. But be a jerk to them, and well, something is bound to happen.

skrlvr · April 15, 2010, 3:46pm

This is a very bad decision.

Part of the problems lies in student expectation. Here’s a NYT article about what students expect to receive in relation to what amount of work they have to do.

<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/18/education/18college.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=student%20expectations%20cause%20grade%20disputes&st=cse[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/18/education/18college.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=student%20expectations%20cause%20grade%20disputes&st=cse</a>

An excerpt from that article:

Most students do not understand what college level work is like when they are a first year student.

Is it that most professors don’t know how to make a challenging exam that students can pass or is it that most students don’t know how much work they have to do in order not to fail?

Most universities expect students to work every night outside of class to be prepared. If you have done the work, the daily quizzes should not be a problem. And yes, there may be the occasional time in which you can’t get to the work, but since they are given each lecture, it shouldn’t be a problem if you occasionally have an issue which prevents you from doing the work. There will be more than enough quizzes for you to pass and maybe even do well. When you say “It can also be hard to keep on on reading prior to every lecture because you have to balance many different classes, labs, personal life, and other activities.” what you are saying is that most of the time, students shouldn’t have to do the work.

There is a reason why a full-time load is only about 15 credits (5 classes) and you aren’t always in class from 8-3 every day as you were in high school. You need to spend that time not in class working on your own.

We are not preparing our students for high level work.

Northstarmom · April 15, 2010, 3:49pm

"Dominique G. Homberger won’t apologize for setting high expectations for her students. The biology professor at Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge gives brief quizzes at the beginning of every class, to assure attendance and to make sure students are doing the reading. On her tests, she doesn’t use a curve, as she believes that students must achieve mastery of the subject matter, not just achieve more mastery than the worst students in the course. For multiple choice questions, she gives 10 possible answers, not the expected 4, as she doesn’t want students to get very far with guessing.
Students in introductory biology don’t need to worry about meeting her standards anymore. LSU removed her from teaching, mid-semester, and raised the grades of students in the class. In so doing, the university’s administration has set off a debate about grade inflation, due process and a professor’s right to set standards in her own course.

To Homberger and her supporters, the university’s action has violated principles of academic freedom and weakened the faculty."

I agree with Homberger and her supporters. She doesn’t sound like a jerk to me. She sounds like she has been working her tail off to try to get the students to learn the material. Believe me, it takes a lot of work to give and grade daily quizzes particularly quizzes that have 10-choice answers. It would be far easier for her to curve, and to, for instance, give A grades to students who knew 40% of the material on a test.

I used to have to do similar things while teaching journalism at a similarly-ranked public school. Without having quizzes at class beginnings, students simply wouldn’t come to class or study.

Unlike Harvard, where I went to college, the students at the college where I taught either weren’t able to or didn’t try to catch up on work that they missed by not showing up in class. Harvard didn’t tie grades into attendance, but the students were motivated enough and had high enough reading comprehension that they could successfully study on their own if they missed class.

I found at the college where I taught that students would test professors to find out how little work the students could do to pass (not get “As” – pass!). The students had been so spoiled by professors who’d curve that students discouraged their peers from doing well on tests because the students figured if noone bothered to study and do well, the prof would pass everyone.

I would give practice tests in class that were based on the tests that I would give, and I would go over those tests carefully. The students still wouldn’t study and wouldn’t learn material that I told them would be on the test.

Students didn’t start taking me seriously until I literally gave F final grades to the majority of students in the class (a required one), and the students learned that yes, they really had to learn the material.

I always told students that since I didn’t curve, their grades wouldn’t be based on how their classmates did. If everyone got “A” grades, I would give the entire class “As.” That almost happened once when all students except one in one of my classes got As. The exception got a “B.”

Just as knowing biology is essential for students who are premed, the class I taught included information that was essential for prospective journalists. Students kveched about my grading standards, but many thanked me after they had gone on internships or worked in the field, and some of the students who complained the loudest years ago are my Facebook friends and friends in real life now.

In my present life, for fun, I’m taking a community college course in acting. I – and several of the other hard working, interested students – are ticked off at the professor for giving blanket excused absences to students who had skipped classes (with no reason) and who as a result had hurt the performances of others who had been assigned to perform in class with them.

The professor thinks he is being nice, but what he’s doing is hurting all of the hard working students who paid their money to learn skills that they can’t learn because the professor is catering to the students who don’t bother to show up or learn their lines. He announced yesterday that he’s not even going to grade our final performance, which is like giving free reign to the students who don’t bother to do the work. Since we’re all in sketches together, when some students don’t bother to learn their parts, it hurts everyone in the class.

I e-mailed him expressing concern about this, and am awaiting his reply as I write this post.

arabrab · April 15, 2010, 3:53pm

skrlvr – I don’t know how you can make the leap that 90% of the students in the course were failing because we aren’t preparing our students for high level work. I can make up a test that few students will pass, but it doesn’t mean that they’re unprepared; more, that I am a very bad teacher.

I took many engineering classes where the average grade was 45% or thereabouts, and where that average grade was then curved by the professor up to a B- or a B.

I’m sorry, but I would expect that even in science classes for non-science majors at LSU, you would be very hard pressed to find ANY other professors where even 30% of the students failed. 90% is ridiculous, and more indicative of a professor punishing students than educating them.

Northstarmom · April 15, 2010, 4:02pm

I may be wrong, but I would bet that the class is a required general education class that attracts a lot of freshmen, and that particular class attracted a lot of freshmen who are slackers.

Sometimes classes really do have a lot of students who refuse to do the work, and it’s not the prof’s fault at all. This is going to be more likely in gen ed classes that freshmen have to take than it is going to be likely in select majors such as in engineering.

For instance, I took an acting improvisation course at my local community college. It was a very easy class that was an elective for all but theater students. We played improv games, and had to write two one-page papers about plays we’d seen at the college: All we had to do was say what we liked and disliked about the plays. The prof was fun, the games were fun. Grading was based on simply turning in papers of the required length and participating in the games.

About 3/4 the students had to be forced to participate in the games and some didn’t write their papers. Some in the class even said (when the prof was out of the room) that they didn’t like theater and didn’t like games!

Psi · April 15, 2010, 4:11pm

Unfortunately,an objective evaluation of this situation may never come to light because the university did not follow due process. The faculty member most likely has a good case to pursue an appeal; if she does, it will be quite telling to see how that case is handled by LSU.

bigtrees · April 15, 2010, 4:19pm

What for? She still is employed by the university and receives the same pay as before.

skrlvr · April 15, 2010, 4:20pm

I guess it is true we don’t really know why the students were failing the class. It could be that they were all trying hard and still not meeting a ridiculously high standard. Or it could be that they weren’t working at all. No one bothered to find out.

But realize that the instructor was removed not because 90% of the students were failing but that 90% of the students were failing OR dropped the class. It is entirely possible that after the first exam, most students decided they didn’t want to do that much work and dropped because there might have been an easier instructor out there.

What is interesting is that students did improve! And in spite of that, the university removed the instructor. Who knows what the final grades would have been?

I am a college instructor. I know what happens with the first assignment in my class. For the first paper, I ask students to hand in a rough draft. It’s part of their grade to hand in a complete draft, as I want them to learn something about the writing process. I go over what the writing process is in class. I look over the draft and make comments for revision. I give students at least a week between handing out the assignment and the due date for the draft, and then another week between when I hand back the rough draft and the due date for the final draft.

Some students don’t bother writing a draft, hoping to simply get a good enough on the final draft. I see some students writing their draft about an hour before the class in our department’s computer lab. So what they are writing isn’t usually well-thought out. Some don’t hand in a complete draft, but maybe just a few paragraphs (after all, it’s just a rough draft, right?)

Most students get a C or below on their first paper. It’s a real shock. And trust me, it’s not that I am particularly strict. Most of the time, their writing isn’t college level.

Several students will drop the class. It’s not unusual at all, and our department expects that. But our department is very strict on grade inflation, and I have seen instructors whose contracts have not been renewed because of grade inflation.

But again, when you expect a B just for showing up, you have to wonder what is contributing to that attitude.

And what happens when you’re a student and you don’t get that B for showing up? You just might end up dropping that class.

And if enough of your fellow students drop the class, your instructor may be removed for not meeting that expectation.

Psi · April 15, 2010, 4:30pm

bigtrees, the faculty member’s advancement, pay raises, etc. depend on her academic performance, including teaching. If she is removed from teaching, it could be the first step toward an adverse impact on her career at LSU. It’s possible that teaching duties are written into her contract, as well, thus the university may have a case for reducing her future pay if she is removed from those duties. It is quite possible she could appeal this decision.

Ray192 · April 15, 2010, 4:30pm

I believe every teacher should make the first assignment/test extra-hard to make sure only the people who want to learn remain in the course. But that’s just me.

skrlvr · April 15, 2010, 4:36pm

It’s not that the first assignments for first year students are purposely made particularly hard.

It’s that those assignments have a different level of expectation than what most first year students have had previously. It’s a hard period of adjustment. Many students are not used to working so much on their own outside the classroom.

father05 · April 15, 2010, 4:45pm

I feel for the students some in that I once had a similar experience with a professor who had not taught an undergraduate course in over 10 years.

It was a major only class in a science where everyone was there for a reason, and I was about mid level in the group.

It was a bloodbath. The prof routinely droned on and on about topics as if we were 3 years into our PhD. Out of about 40 majors, I don’t think one of us really understood 10 % of what he said. When asked to clarify anything, he would just repeat the same thing verbatim.

It was a senior year course and everyone needed it to graduate. I know I got about a 65/200 on the final. Thank God he actually did curve. That was one of the highest scores and I got out alive with a C or C-. The only reason I got the 65 was that the final was open book and open note - anything you wanted to bring you could. I happened to go to the library and photocopy every final from the previous 5 years. One of the questions was on our final, verbatim. I copied the exact answer word for word for 40 points. I got 25/160 on the rest.

The point is that if the prof wants to make a contest to see if they know more that the student, it is a no win situation for the kids. We all liked being challenged, but at some point it can become too much. A non-major should not be expected to study hours per night every night as a freshman to pass an intro Bio course for non majors. When you have six classes, there are not 12 hours per night available to study every night.

Ultimately, the kids do have some power. If no one signs up for the prof’s class because of the reputation, then the prof isn’t really doing the university any good. Trying to make biologists out of English majors might not be the way to entice more students to your school. It is the kids that pay the bills.

skrlvr · April 15, 2010, 4:51pm

Most universities expect students to study 2-3 hours outside of class for every hour in the class room.

Classes don’t meet every day. So there is significant periods of time outside of class for students to be doing the work.

And the idea that ‘it’s the kids who pay the bills’ again suggests a very consumerist approach to education. If I don’t get my B, I’ll go elsewhere to get it. That’s a very dangerous thing.

goaliedad · April 15, 2010, 5:27pm

There are a lot of things missing from the article that are necessary to make a judgement on the case.

First, the article doesn’t mention whether Professor Homberger had taught the course before. Teaching is an art. You have to take your pupils from where the are to where they need to be. If he is unfamiliar with where these students were when they walked in the door, he probably wasted his first 2 or 3 weeks talking over their heads.

If this wasn’t his first stab at teaching the intro course, it doesn’t mention whether he has a history of hard grading, or whether he had gotten sick and tired of dealing with the situation at hand and decided to change how business was being conducted.

Next issue - Intro Biology. At many schools, the department decides what is to be taught (specifying the text book et al) in all lower division courses and what is necessary to be demonstrated for a passing grade (enough to prepare the student for the next course). We don’t know if he was trying to cram more than the departmental expectation out of these students or not. Biology 101 is supposed to be pretty much the same across the department.

As to his teaching method - that is well within his right to have daily pop-quizzes, have 10 selections on his multiple guess questions, etc. As to whether he clearly outlined the material necessary to answer the multiple guess questions, that is another issue. Yes, there are a lot of facts in a biology textbook, but not unmanageable by all of the students. His questions may have required a certain degree of applying principles that he clearly didn’t do enough teaching on, which would be entirely his job. We don’t know the nature of the questions to make this distinction.

All of this being said, I had 2 adjunct professors for upper-division classes when I was an undergrad in the business school at Cal who did not grade on a curve. One was for the intro to Marketing class. He actually taught only the second half of the course. The first half was taught by another adjunct who had graded the students not needing a curve to end up with a pretty neat 20/50/30 distribution of grades (A/B/C). I happened to have the highest B+ in the class after that first half. The second half was graded almost entirely on one paper (due at the beginning of the last week of class IIRC) and the final exam. Everyone got the paper back at the last class session, with pretty much the entire class failing except a couple of D’s. The final went similarly. The curve at the end had 2 C- grades, 15 D grades, and the rest (about 30) F’s. My eyes fell out of my head when I saw the D on my grades. I had other finals to tend to, so by the time I got to the department to ask questions, it appears that the rest of the class showed up to protest (the final grades looked like the final exam). The Business school adjusted everyone’s grades up 2/3 of a letter grade, so I ended up with a C-. The high grade in the class were 2 B’s. It left about 30 kids with D’s. Ugly. This was a first-time adjunct who was politely asked never to step back in the building.

And to this day I don’t remember a darn thing I learned from the second half of that class.

The other class I took without a curve from an adjunct was the business law class. This guy told us day one that he had been teaching the course for 10 years and had yet to give out an A grade of any flavor. However, the man could teach and it was quite obvious from the first lecture, so I stuck it out and worked my tail off. I talked to him after the final. I had come the closest to an A that he had in 10 years.

There is so much that I remember from the class, that when I recently had to deal with an attorney on a small civil matter, I was asked whether I worked in the courts (I’ve spent a grand total of 4 hours in a courtroom in a jury pool once).

What I am saying here is that harsh grading in and of itself is not a problem. It is the matching of the expectation of the instructor and the students that is critical to having a good experience.

I suspect Professor Homberger didn’t clearly spell out how difficult it was going to be nor how much work was expected up front. And that is entirely on him.

bigtrees · April 15, 2010, 5:34pm

Perhaps. Or perhaps not.

If the professor had 10 selction on multiple guess instead of 4, but kept the exam length the same, far more students would fail because a 10 selection multiple choice would be much more time consuming than a 4 option multiple choice. This is especially true if the instructor said “pick the best answer” which means you have to read all 4.

(By the way, who else thinks that creating a 10 option multiple choice is simply trying to make a political point that kids guess their way through college. We all can agree that student grades shouldn’t suffer because the professor wants to make a political point.)

Daily pop quizzes also mean that a certain amount of classroom time is being dedicated to testing the students knowledge rather than teaching them. Students don’t go to school to read everything out of a book and have a proctor test them on it. They go to class to learn knowledge that they wouldn’t have gotten on their own. Daily testing takes time away from actually teaching students the material.

Again, it sounds like he may have been trying to make the point that students don’t read the required reading material. While it’s probably true, pop quizzes shouldn’t be used to make a point. Everything a professor does for and with students in a class should be designed to help them learn.

father05 · April 15, 2010, 5:45pm

skrlvr,

I am well aware of how classes work. I would assume the kids would too since this is second semester.

I am all for 2-3 hours of self study per hour of instruction. In the article, one student says that my “reaction in this course is that I need to study for this course every night to make a good grade. I must also attend class, take good notes, and have study sessions with others.” To me, that seems like more than that.

Really, I don’t think it’s the prof’s fault. The University should have reviewed the profs plan for the course when the prof had not taught something like this for 15 years. There is no reason in the second semester that 90% of LSU freshman are failing an intro to Bio class. If 90% of the kids can’t pass or need to drop a freshman non-major course, then either the admissions office admitted unqualified students or the course is being taught incorrectly. My interpretation of comments in the article is that the prof set out with the intention of making the course difficult to do well in, planning on giving the students a wake up call. I wonder why the prof assumed that these kids all needed a wake up call? Maybe she felt all the other professors on campus weren’t giving it.

The prof may have had good intentions and just been out of touch, and the way LSU handled things seems to have been pretty shady. But I certainly understand the dropping of the class. No one wants a D or F in a class like a freshman Gen Ed class, and if the kids have a scholarship or major requirement for GPA, they would be crazy not to drop. The scholarship money could be thousands, tens of thousands a year. So yeah, maybe consumerism comes into play. When the school ties cost to attend to grades, as is done with merit scholarships, it’s not hard to understand why some would so many would bail out of this class.

Goaliedad, it states right in the article that it had been 15 years since she taught an intro course.

bluebayou · April 15, 2010, 5:47pm

Exactly. And the ONLY thing I want to know is how many, if any, recruited athletes were in that class. If Coach was about to lose his star running back…

A dangerous decision by LSU (I think)

CONNECT WITH US