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<p>I know I certainly used to learn during quizzes what I should have been paying attention to.</p>
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<p>How does curving a test benefit those that cheat?</p>
<p>I want to point out again that it’s not that 90% of the students were failing–it’s that 90% of the students were failing OR dropped the course.</p>
<p>It’s entirely possible that a good number of those 90% dropped the course not because they were failing, but because they had expected an easy course, found out that the course was more difficult than expected, didn’t get the grade they expected, and just dropped. For all we know, many of those students could have passed the course at the end with a C, even the majority.</p>
<p>Well, some folks seem to have taken umbrage at my suggestion that intro to biology for non-majors at CalTech is probably different than into to biology for non majors at a school like LSU with ACT 25th-75th math scores of 21-29. </p>
<p>I don’t think it is conceit to acknowledge that students bring varied levels of preparation to college. To an enormous degree, students going to Cal Tech bring tremendous math background, as seen in very, very high math scores, and, most commonly, several science AP or IB tests, mostly at the level of 4s and 5s. Very few Cal Tech students have not already had calculus and at least four years of lab science by the time they get to Cal Tech; many have had much more than that. There are probably few incoming CalTech freshmen who haven’t already had chemistry, and if their school offered it, it was probably honors or AP chemistry. </p>
<p>So, even your Cal Tech student majoring in economics is likely to come to school with rather significant science and math background. E.D. Hirsch, Jr. would call this “mental velcro” – the more you know, the more you can learn. They start from a different place than your typical non-science LSU freshman, they have a very different set of math skills than your typical non-science LSU freshman, and the teacher can assume that they already have a very strong understanding of basic chemistry. Their class needs to be taught differently than the LSU class for non-science majors, and probably uses a textbook that may emphasize more biochemistry, cellular, and molecular biology. This isn’t a lot different than an honors Algebra II class moving at a faster pace and covering more material, in more depth, than a regular Algebra II class. It isn’t an insult. It isn’t suggesting that majors at LSU get less of a class than biology majors elsewhere. But one of the reasons that there are different colleges out there is that kids have different strengths and weaknesses. Teaching to those strengths and weaknesses is the sign of a good teacher.</p>
<p>After teaching at the college level for more than 20 years, my take on this is: </p>
<p>If you have 90% failing/dropping the course, you aren’t teaching the material in a meaningful way. Period. The goal is to get the information inside their heads and lay a solid foundation for further studies in the subject area. </p>
<p>When I taught college, even the 180-students-per-class courses, I gave quizzes on the material, brought it up again on the midterm, and one more time on the final. I went over each quiz and exam in class, dropped any questions that more than 70% missed (bad question on my part - hey, it happens), and held reviews before the midterm and final. I actually WANTED my students to learn the material. My bell curve remained constant over a 20+ year span indicating that the vast majority of students passed the course and, hopefully, learned something they could take with them after the class was over.</p>
<p>On top of all that, an Intro to Biology class is probably filled with freshman. Cut them some slack, for goodness sake. The transition to college is hard. There’s no need to treat them like they’re grad students. There’s plenty of time for them to move into the next level of thinking about the material. How about laying a solid foundation first?!</p>
<p>I have watched my son struggle through some courses with 100+ students in them during his freshman year. It is almost as if the profs aren’t even remotely interested in the students learning the material. It really makes me angry. The profs have to wildly curve the classes to make it look like they actually taught something instead of ACTUALLY teaching something. Where is the foundation for future learning? My DS is a NMS so it’s not like he isn’t capable of learning the material - they aren’t teaching it. He ends up with good grades in these courses, but I know the truth about what he really made on the exams - he did not learn a high percentage of information about the subject. It is totally his loss and such a shame. He really wanted to know the information.</p>
<p>And what is with these departmental tests? One prof writes the exams for all sections of the course, regardless of who teaches it. Needless to say, his/her students do much better on the exams than the students who have other profs teaching the same subject. Hmmm . . .</p>
<p>Quote from D’s 2nd yr PhD Chem Prof</p>
<p>“I am not here to teach you, I am hear to facilitate your learning.”</p>
<p>Why exactly are you being paid? To tell students to read the book chapters 1-2 and then when they ask questions, tell them to re-read the material, it’s all there in front of them? That’s the response she’s gotten when she’s asked questions in class or at the prof’s office.</p>
<p>Students do not get their exams/quizzes back, they just get a score. Hard to know where you need to work. Profs are apparently concerned with people copying tests for next term, etc. I don’t care if you are worried kids might hve last term’s test to cheat off of - change some questions - it’s your job! I want my kid to be able to learn what she’s missing.</p>
<p>Surely, all of the profs here on these boards are the caring, nurturing types that help students that want to succeed reach their goals. Believe it or not, there are profs who really have no apparent interest in helping anyone learn.</p>
<p>I love this discussion! So many thoughtful opinions.</p>
<p>It’s impossible to define the meanings of grades absolutely, but isn’t it pretty much universally understood that C means “average”? And that, therefore, if you are of average intelligence, attend class most of the time, make a good-faith effort to learn the material, and seek help when you don’t understand, that you should expect at least a C more often than not?</p>
<p>I think this is a perfectly reasonable and flexible standard, and that a teacher who willfully ignores it probably shouldn’t be teaching. That doesn’t mean the teacher is bad necessarily, but it does mean that the professor is out of touch with the institution’s standards.</p>
<p>Think of it this way: If you are admitted to a college, it means that you have been judged sufficiently academically capable to succeed there. There is room for error; maybe 10% or even 20% of admitted students aren’t as good as their high school records indicate. But the notion that the Admissions Office got it wrong 90% of the time is ludicrous.</p>
<p>So, I’m all for challenging students to meet high standards, but in this case, good for LSU.</p>
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<p>After all, 54% of college students manage to get a four-year degree in six years.</p>
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<p>While I would agree with you here, given what you describe above, it is my experience that the most students would expect at least a B in this situation or higher.</p>
<p>I wanted to add that a lot of students failing/withdrawing isn’t necessarily an indicator that the teacher’s class is too hard. Last quarter I took a general biology class that was easy, so, so easy. The teacher told students exactly what to study–as specific as “I will choose three of the ten questions on page 128 for the test”–didn’t put any essay questions on her test (mostly multiple choice, even some MATCHING), and offered extra credit opportunities almost every week. And almost twenty percent of the class withdrew . . . Some other students (I don’t know how many) failed. This was the easiest science class I’ve taken (and I have taken A LOT) but nevertheless there were students moaning about how haaaard it was and they hoped the next science class they took would be easier. (Ha ha, fat chance.)</p>
<p>Anyway, having witnessed this, I have no trouble believing that a teacher who has higher expectations would have a lot of students fleeing/failing, especially a teacher whose class a) attracts freshmen who haven’t yet processed how college is different from high school and b) attracting people who only want to check off “one science class taken” from their core requirements list, rather than ones who have a deep interest in the subject matter.</p>
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Average intelligence for the class ? the college ? the country ? Or perhaps Louisiana ?</p>
<p>Same questions, but framed as average performance. Now we are back to the problem of grade curves. Should we expect a ‘C’ to imply competency, an ‘A’ mastery, and a ‘B’ somewhere in between ? I think so.</p>
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<p>Could be any of those. As I said, it’s a flexible standard, but I think that’s better than no standard. (My choice would be “the college” if it’s a general-ed requirement, or “students in that major” for something more specialized. Or the teacher’s best estimates thereof.)</p>
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<p>Sure, that seems reasonable. Again, a flexible standard, but a standard nonetheless.</p>
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<p>We’re not talking about 46% of students failing to make it in 6 years. We’re talking about 90% of students failing to pass a single class. The two seem barely related.</p>
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<p>I agree! Maybe students here and there may not understand what you’re teaching, but when 90% don’t get it, it’s you. It’s hard to believe that 90% of the students at LSU in that class could all be slackers.</p>
<p>One thing I have noticed–a friend’s son is taking first year chemistry, the one that the pre-meds take. The tests are multiple choice, 25 questions long and the kids are allowed 70 minutes–less than 3 minutes a question. And these questions are often involved! When I went to college, the tests were difficult and you had to know your stuff, but there wasn’t this artificial time crunch on top of everything else and you got to show your work, so you could get partial credit it you made some dumbo math mistake that sent you down the wrong path. </p>
<p>I am not a big fan of weed out classes.</p>
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<p>Exactly. One of the best ways to learn is to make mistakes IF the mistakes are used as a teaching tool. My DS has two classes right now that don’t return tests/homework. Hard to know what you don’t know if you don’t know what you missed.</p>
<p>When I was teaching, I had 5 or 6 versions of the same test so I could send that semester’s test home with each student who, hopefully, took notes in class on what they missed when I went over the exam and had corrected material to study for the midterm and final. Even then, I had a bell curve - meaning that going over the material three times only helped students retain 70-79% of the material, on average. Lots of material to learn so I was happy they retained that much of the info.</p>
<p>So much focus on the professor! Anyone here think the administrator was doing his job? The most disturbing thing about the story is not that the professor was removed from the course – I can see reasonable arguments for and against that – but that she was removed without any prior discussion of what she was doing.</p>
<p>There’s no way around this being a horrible, self-inflicted black eye for LSU. Of all the parties involved – the teacher, the students, and the dean – it’s the dean who really has no defense for how he handled things.</p>
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<p>JHS,</p>
<p>On that we agree. As much as I believe the professor was not doing a good job in this class, I don’t think that if the article is indicative of what happened that LSU handled it correctly. To me, that’s the key issue from the Prof’s point.</p>
<p>The Prof may be a wonderful grad and upper level undergrad teacher. She should not have been humiliated in this fashion, but something needed to be done.</p>
<p>Agreed here as well. I can’t imagine the justification for not giving her a chance to change. It sounds like she was just expecting too much out of non-majors in a class that was probably meant to be a survey course. Another chance after a good talking-to would have been reasonable.</p>
<p>And I love the point that the Duke professor made: “How many times has Dean Carman removed a professor from a class who was giving more than 90% As?” I agree wholeheartedly that giving everyone high grades is just as much a disservice as giving everyone low grades. Lack of standards and excessive standards both lead to the result that no one really learns.</p>
<p>I highly suspect that the decision to remove her from the classroom was made only after great decision, and with much more knowledge that the university is able to release.</p>
<p>The professor is the only one talking right now other than a brief statement written by the university. There is more than meets the eye on this one.</p>
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<p>Where do you get THAT information? I strongly doubt she can legitimately claim that all this came out of a clear blue sky. This situation is illustrative of the fact that tenure and its associated non-accountability is harmful to the interests of the students and the institutions that teachers supposedly serve.</p>
<p>Does anyone know what the rationale is for tenure? Is there a reason for it, specifically? For some reason I don’t know the history of that practice.</p>