A dangerous decision by LSU (I think)

Parents Forum
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<p>To my knowledge there are no curving of grades at my school. </p>

<p>I personally do not think the teacher did anything wrong. Teachers of any level should not be forced to curve grades just to pacify students because they think the tests or class is to hard.</p>

<p>On students complaining about tests and classes. I am in a class right now where we are reading two to three chapters a week, upwards of 60 pages a week. We just had the first test of the quarter where the average grade on that test is a 64. It was a 60 minute, 45 questions test. Of the 45 6 was a 10-15 option matching questions. It was an open book, open notes test and already mass emails have been sent by students in the class because they ran out of time before answering all the questions and failed. I made a low A on the test and had 15 minutes to spare at the end. </p>

<p>Now my college is different we really do not have a lot of lectures, it is a hands on school where you are excepted to read and learn the material on your own and ask for help as needed. Most of these students are not reading the material really and just wants to look up all the answers in the book come test time.</p>

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<p>"Why should Student B’s grade have any bearing on Student A’s grade? An “A” should mean “exceptional understanding of the subject matter,” not “there happen to be a lot of slackers in my class and I really shine by comparison.”</p>

<p>I fully agree, and this is what I told my students when I taught college. In the real world, employers don’t curve expectations. If a group of employees doesn’t perform, they don’t get bonuses because they all are doing badly. They get fired and people are hired who are able to do the job.</p>

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<p>I am an RN and throughout my courses as a declared nursing major NONE of my exams or course grades were curved. The simple given explanation was that you cannot curve a patient’s life. Always made sense to me.
So can we curve how well a bridge is constructed? or even something less tangible like our justice system? our expressions of the truth? and so many things which (to my middle age eyes and ears) seem to be being watered down as we progress?
Whether this professor went too far, I don’t know; I do know that the sense of entitlement from students, from the people that pay the students bills and so on has grown, IMHO, to be as super-sized as stadium seats, which are now bigger to fit our expanding rears.</p>

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<p>I think goaliedad has it right here. Again, it’s not that 90% failed, it’s that 90% failed or dropped the course. Since it was most likely a gen-ed course, student expectations in terms of how much work they had to do was probably very low. And when the class didn’t meet those expectations, most of them shopped around for a course that did.</p>

<p>In many ways, I think overall we have very low expectations in terms of requirements for what constitutes even passing a college class, especially if it’s part of the core curriculum or gen-ed requirements for the university. </p>

<p>I find this very interesting. Only 50-60% of future middle school teachers have taken courses such as linear algebra and calculus. While I do realize that middle school teachers are unlikely to actually be teaching these kinds of courses, I still think that we have low expectations when even 1/2 of our math teachers have not taken calculus.</p>

<p>[U.S&lt;/a&gt;. Falls Short in Measure of Future Math Teachers - NYTimes.com](<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/15/education/15math.html?ref=education]U.S”>http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/15/education/15math.html?ref=education)</p>

<p>If overall we don’t expect our math teachers to know calculus, then overall what are our expectations for passing gen-ed intro courses?</p>

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You are on a very slippery slope here, where the end result is a college version of ‘no child left behind’ aka NCLB.</p>

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<p>Have any of you ever had daily pop quizzes in class? (I actually have only had 1 pop quiz in 20 years of education. That instructor was mad at students and wanted to make a point).</p>

<p>Have any of you actually solved multiple choice problems that have “too many facts” and “10 options to choose from”?</p>

<p>If not, then I’m sure how you can say that she was being reasonable.</p>

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<p>Many, many large employers do give raises and judge performance in comparison to your peers.</p>

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<p>In the “real world” a lot of employers muddle along with a lot of dumb, lazy and not too productive employees.</p>

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<p>“A dangerous decision…” Dangerous for who? I mean, honestly, DANGEROUS???</p>

<p>That’s some serious hyperbole for an introduction to bio class for non-science majors.</p>

<p>90% of the class was failing??? But she thought she was having an effect because some of them would be able to pass with a D? Riiiiiiiight. :wink: Must be the students. That lazy 90% of college students? </p>

<p>What I love best is when someone like this, who is failing 90% of the class, complains that THEY weren’t being graded fairly. LOL></p>

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<p>Dangerous precedent, I took the sentence to mean. I fully agree, that putting curriculum in the hands of administration is a dangerous move if you view NCLB diploma mills to be a <em>bad</em> idea.</p>

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<p>I think it is ridiculous to believe that a teacher who is failing 90% of thier students, and in this case I mean the teacher is failing the students and not that the students are failing the class, being removed from that position is dangerous. It is dangerous to allow ineffective teachers to continue to teach classes for which they are not suited under your logic. I respectfully disagree that the collective bargaining power of the professor class should trump the collective voice of the students, in this case.</p>

<p>Note: I think the word dangerous is misused here. I think perhaps the word might be “misguided” and even there, I think the decision is sound.</p>

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<p>From the newspaper coverage, I’m inclined to be sympathetic to the professor and to think that LSU has made a mistake. Of course, the reality might be different from the newspaper article, but:</p>

<p>At the time the professor was removed from the course, she stated that every student in the class could have passed the course, based on remaining tests and quizzes. She did say that “some students” could wind up with a D at most.</p>

<p>The professor apparently said that she took improvement during the semester into account in grading.</p>

<p>The professor had failed no one–the course hadn’t ended. I’m inclined to believe the professor’s statement that the students–at least some of them–stepped up to the challenge of the course, and could have done well. End of semester grades coming out as badly as portrayed = big, big problem. Mid-semester grades coming out badly = potentially minor problem.</p>

<p>bigtrees makes a good point that one doesn’t need ten choices per question to reduce the odds of scoring 70% or above by chance, just a reasonable number of questions. However, it’s possible that the professor had heard a lot of student statements about guessing on multiple choice tests, or about regarding multiple choice tests as inherently easy (there are plenty of those on CC alone), and just wanted to communicate the idea that her course was different.</p>

<p>Wow, too many facts . . . in a biology course . . .<br>
What did the students expect?</p>

<p>I think the actions at LSU tend to undercut professorial requirements that students find uncomfortable. In most subjects, really learning something new is hard, actually. Students collectively–as in this case–can exercise their power to make any professor’s expectations for learning seem unreasonable. I curve tests, but I am aware that I am in effect yielding to some extent to the students’ decisions about how much time and effort they will spend on the course.</p>

<p>And then I have lunch with colleagues, and one of my foreign-born colleagues says that he doesn’t like to accept American students into his group because they don’t know anything and they are not willing to work hard. (Hey, buddy, I’m American! And I outrank you!) </p>

<p>Or I’m advising a foreign-born student about the level of a physics course to take. When I show her a college junior/senior level text, she laughs and says, “I think this is easy. I learned this in high school.”</p>

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<p>Quantmech-- I really respect almost any post I’ve ever seen of yours on CC.</p>

<p>However, I would respectfully suggest that it is the teacher who is failing the students when 90% can’t pass the tests, and not vice-versa. If we have a dearth of great teaching in this country? Maybe that needs to be addressed.</p>

<p>However, I simply cannot agree that a teacher is doing thier job when this is the outcome.</p>

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<p>poetgrl, I would agree with you completely if the issue were about the final, or the end of semester grades. My university would not permit a professor to fail 90% of the students, I am essentially certain!</p>

<p>Also, if 90% of the students really couldn’t pass the tests, again that is a problem with the professor. On the other hand, if 90% of the students didn’t expend enough effort to pass the first mid-term, I’d be inclined to classify that as a “slightly weird professor trick,” intended to get the students to put out more effort. I’ve known of a few cases where professors have thrown out the results of mid-terms, if the finals are better.</p>

<p>There is a separate issue of sensitivity to the expectations/needs of freshman, where I do fault the professor.</p>

<p>Oh, and thanks, poetgrl! Appreciated your comment!</p>

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<p>So, would it make a difference in attitude toward the teacher’s techniques if she’d given a 10 minute essay question every day?</p>

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Or … you could reserve judgement until you saw examples of the test, the quizzes, and the daily reading requirement.</p>

<p>This way would have the advantage of having some basis, perhaps even merit, to your current vacuous opinion.</p>

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<p>Spending 20% of your classroom time writing essays instead of listening to the teacher teach sounds like a waste of previous classroom time to me.</p>

<p>I’d complain to administration about that if I had a teacher like that. Students come to class to learn. Generally, most students don’t learn much during quizzes and exams.</p>

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<p>“Your current vacuous opinion…” I would refer you to the TOS of this site.</p>

<p>I would also state that having a PhD and having taught at the college level for quite a while, I do not in any way consider my opinion to be uneducated.</p>

<p>But thank you for your concern.</p>

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<p>I did say dangerous and perhaps that is the wrong word but I think a decision like the one by LSU could have serious repercussion for all Professors. I agree with everyone that first and formeost professors need to be monitored and yes removed if they are not effective in teaching. My problem is that from what I have seen is that (some, not all) students have a habit of expecting to do really well without putting in the effort. Attendance is only part of the requirement to pass but the ability to do the work is most important. If the Prof can legitimately prove that the students are not working then why should they pass. My D knows that she has to take ownership of her grades, I cannot be blamed if she does not do well and I cannot be credited if she does do well. If the Prof is that bad or ineffective she has the right to complain and if enough students do then that is when I believe the school has a responsibility to review the teaching practices and act accordingly. I do not have a really defendable opinion on this whole subject other than to say I think caution needs to prevail when a college makes this type of decision because of the perception that if enough of us dont like the Prof < we can get rid of them>. Both sides need to be heard out and the decision based on review not complaints. My whole thing with this is that fairness to all involved is important.</p>

<p>ps. when I was in technical college many many years ago I did have daily quizzes in all subjects and I graduated with an 87%</p>

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<p>perdussiondad…thank you for that clarification.</p>

<p>I’m a little bit word crazy. But I will acknowledge that the decision could be a misguided one…I’m unsure.</p>

<p>I agree there needs to be oversight. Professors need to be held accountable for their teaching just as students need to be held accountable for doing the work.</p>

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<p>Tests shouldn’t be curved in college because it is a practice that punishes students that don’t cheat. On the other hand tests should not have 40% pass rates; questions are supposed to differentiate between the students that know the material and the ones that don’t. Questions that fail to do that, should be thrown out (either bad teaching, bad question, on not covered material). </p>

<p>Students in college are still subscribing to we are owed rewards for showing up. Rampant cheating takes place in college, so I’m sure teaching to unprepared students must be incredibly frustrating. Unfortunately during prefrosh days, students were talking about whose psets to copy.</p>