Seems like a really poor way of doing things. If a course has actual prerequisites that cannot be assumed for students who have been admitted to the college (which this course definitely does), they should be listed. Letting students take a course that they are doomed to fail due to insufficient preparation is a waste of everyone’s time and money.
Perhaps you should write in the syllabus that you hand out in the first day of class what your recommended prerequisites are (e.g. “high school precalculus or MATH xxx at the college or equivalent, and high school physics or PHYSICS xxx at the college or equivalent” or whatever you think is appropriate). That may help get students who would otherwise be doomed to fail to go back and take the prerequisites and come back later when they are ready.
Speaking honestly, I think your strategy is great and one that would have really benefited me. I ended up teaching myself all of the second half of engineering level E & M for a multitude of reasons by basically reading the textbook, doing the conceptual questions listed at the end of every chapter, and then doing problems. Sometimes, I would go over the material with a friend of mine. This drastically improved both my performance and understanding, and I think it would have been especially nice to have the professor take questions and do harder examples in class because it would be secondary reinforcement. There’s a biochem course at my school that’s taught similarly. I feel most learning happens out of the classroom, anyway, in science courses.
That being said, the initial reading stuff can be challenging and often required a lot of re-reading, and that is a lot of HW. If you’re taking 5 additional classes to this (typical of my school), I can see why people would be annoyed. At the same time, students also like to complain about everything, and I say this as a current one.
@Pizzagirl : Of course, as I took care to acknowledge in my post (so that no one would have to go to the trouble you did to point it out), Yale, Stanford Law, and Penn Law are not appropriate models for what the OP is doing. But I was reacting to the spate of posts that followed her first post – before she had identified the nonstandard issues in her class – where people like @skieurope (whose personal background is not so different from mine, I believe), not to mention you, reacted immediately to the effect of “You are making them read and do problems on a concept before you lecture on it in class? That’s wrong!” There were at least half a dozen of them. And the people who approved of what she was doing clearly saw it as bucking conventional methods, or something that would only be appropriate for students who had been raised that way, etc. I was kind of flabbergasted, because I thought what she was describing was the norm, not an exception.
I don’t think it’s “wrong” so much as it was apparently not getting her the results she wanted, which is why we were questioning why she was so hot on it.
You had a previous thread on dealing with the course being over enrolled and students trying to get into the course.
Why not announce on the first day of class that you will give a test on the prerequisite material on the second day of class? On the third day, return the graded test. Then drop all students who failed the test and tell them to enroll in the prerequisite courses. Then enroll wait listed students who passed the test.
^That’s actually not a bad idea, ucbalumnus, although I can’t force students to drop the course. I CAN give them a “math quiz” in the first lab and strongly suggest that those below a certain level will be more likely to succeed if they take more math first. Kids that age are prone to “magical thinking” as we all know, so not sure how many would actually take the advice.
The worst thing of it is, if I could get them to ACTUALLY DO WHAT I TELL THEM, most of them would survive the course. Leading horses to water, as they say.
Each year, students at the college where I work seem to require more and more spoon-feeding. They don’t read instructions, they don’t read communications, they don’t listen to voice mails, they don’t believe deadlines apply to them … it’s unbelievably frustrating. They seem to want me to come to find them and to help them do whatever it is that needs to get done - or to fix it for them if they missed out on something because of their lack of attention. I honestly believe it is just getting worse by the year (I checked with my younger coworkers, who agree - so it isn’t just my old-lady grumpiness that makes me feel this way!). I can sympathize with the fact that your students are not doing what you tell them to do, because I experience it on the administrative side every day.
^Kelsmom, I have heard other faculty say the same things - “this year’s class is weaker than ever”, that sort of thing. Also, more and more they are stuck in their phones and disconnected from everything else.
Is this year’s class weaker in academic preparation and prerequisite completion, or is it weaker in terms of things like being able to pay attention, or both?
@Pizzagirl --No. you can’t dumb a course down because people can’t get it. the course is designed to impart a particular body of knowledge, not physics for middle schoolers. It certifies they’ve been able to understand enough of that and then move on to the next level.
If they really “can’t” learn enough to pass, then the option is failure, or dropping the course. Obviously, I get why @sylvan8798 is looking for another approach that will work, but not teaching what the course is designed to teach subverts everything a college education is supposed to be.
The fault there lies in the admissions department, and/or advising, or some level where this disconnect between ability level and mastery of subject occurs.
It’s an aside, but I would also fault the current push for STEM majors everywhere. A lot of these kids are just not cut out for Engineering Tech, and would (hopefully WILL) find more meaningful paths for themselves elsewhere. But it seems like we are pushing STEM on as many kids as possible, so much so that everyone thinks that is where they should be going, even if they have no interest or aptitude whatsoever. I truly believe that everyone has something to offer (even if it is collecting garbage, because where would we be without them?). But just pushing people this way and that at random isn’t serving them or the needs of the rest of us either.
The fault appears to be mostly at the physics department of the college, since it apparently refuses to list the prerequisites for the course in question. Lots of colleges have open admission or only minimally selective admission to the college, but list prerequisites for specific courses that require prerequisite knowledge that is not assumed by admission to the college. Indeed, at many such colleges, math placement testing is mandatory before enrolling in a math course or one with a math prerequisite.
An introductory general physics course for engineering technology and biology majors and pre-meds typically needs math skill at the high school algebra 2 or precalculus level; at some colleges, such a course requires calculus. If a student with only first grade level math skills can register for the course, that is a predictable waste of time and money for all involved, since such a student is unlikely to succeed in the course. It is unlikely that the OP’s experiments with teaching methodology will have any significant effect on success rates for such unprepared students who really should take the necessary remedial math courses before taking this physics course.
Sylvan, if someone held a gun to your head, would you say that x% of your students shouldn’t be engineering techs in the first place, that they simply don’t have the academic chops to do so?
^Absolutely, although it’s complicated. Some of them would be fine if they matured some and got their math skills up to par. In fact, that happens. I had a student a couple of years ago who seemed so clueless that I actually suggested he change majors (I NEVER do that). He decided to drop the Fall course and returned in the Spring and actually got a B. It was exciting to see him actually succeeding, and I’m not sure how he got there. He is struggling with the follow-on courses, but maybe he will get through. I would never have thought so that first semester.
How is that view regarded within your institution as a whole? Would it be agreed with, or would you be a pariah? Who are the “impediments” to requiring higher level of ingoing prep, math prerequisites, etc.? Because I suspect your real problem isn’t at all your teaching technique - it’s that you’re being asked to make silk purses out of sow’s ears (metaphorically of course - I don’t mean disrespect to your students, but they don’t appear to be on the level to learn what you think they need to be taught).
I’ll also ask the question a different way. Whoever is the mucky-muck of the engineering tech program - do they agree that their students “need” the level of rigor you propose teaching, or do they think you’re providing overkill? Do they see you as an impediment to getting kids through the program?
As Rumsfeld said, “you go to war with the army you have, not the army you wish you had”. It seems like the faculty struggle to make it work, while the institution “fills seats” often regardless of qualifications. Advising does not seem great to me, as I see students advised to fulfill their science requirement with my class despite having, for example, 320 SAT math scores.
As for the Tech program, I think they are counting on us to weed out the weakest students. They want their program to improve credibility in the community (which sees Engineers from the local research U as “real” and our majors as “weak”. The texts we use for Statics, Dynamics, Thermodynamics, etc. are the same as those used in Engineering programs around the country, so the students are supposed to get a solid grounding. As such, they probably think I don’t enforce ENOUGH rigor, since I have students passing who are likely to sink in the next semester.
I have heard faculty in several departments complain about the quality of the incoming classes, but the college is on a tear to expand and admits students to fill the seats.
"As for the Tech program, I think they are counting on us to weed out the weakest students. They want their program to improve credibility in the community (which sees Engineers from the local research U as “real” and our majors as “weak”. "
Ok. So if they are counting on you to weed out the weaker students, and apparently you are doing so, are you uncomfortable being in that position?
I think it’s the demoralization after the semester when you feel like you put in a herculean effort (on an adjunct salary) trying to drag a large class of recalcitrant students up a hill and not only did 40% of them basically fall down the hill, but they whined and complained in their evaluations and blamed it on you, after not really doing what you told them to do in the first place.
In reality, any of a variety of methods will work if the students hold up their end of the effort. They should be motivated by the fact that this is what they need to do in order to get where they want to be. Or by the undesirability of the alternatives, for the large contingent of disadvantaged minority students.
In some of my RMP reviews, students have used the phrase “she doesn’t know how to teach the material”, which is true in the sense that I don’t know how to teach it in the way that they seem to want it taught. I don’t think ANYONE knows how to do that, but they are too young/inexperienced to realize that what they want is not possible.
“In some of my RMP reviews, students have used the phrase “she doesn’t know how to teach the material”, which is true in the sense that I don’t know how to teach it in the way that they seem to want it taught. I don’t think ANYONE knows how to do that, but they are too young/inexperienced to realize that what they want is not possible.”
Do you have any students who have written positive words about you? The balance would seem to be needed if there is a mounting body of complaints, and you don’t have a great ‘pass’ rate. Topple on the lack of prepared students who move on to the next course and slow things down there, how is it that you have been able to keep your position?
I feel for you. Years ago in college almost everyone but me hated one professor. My fellow students were vehement enough in their dislike and distaste of him that they wrote the most awful reviews ever for him. I think they conspired. (He was odd, but good humored. All he asked was that we engage with the material, and come to class ready to dissect, compare, offer up points of analysis, and have formed some really good questions for him.)
The university wanted to release him from his duties as a result. He teared up a little, and did not know how to stifle his impulse to want to hug (though he did), when he told me that the review I’d written of his course was so glowing and so affirming of his work that it meant quite a great deal to him. It also helped him to keep his job.
I hope you have some of these types of reviews.
FWIW, if you are working with adults who have returned to school as well as with recent HS grads, even thinking of them as recalcitrant is just starting you on the wrong path for connecting with them.
You’re in a really tough position. I’m sorry we couldn’t be more helpful. It seems like there needs to be some come-to-Jesus discussions with other people to figure out how to best meet the students’ needs AND your (understandable) desire to want to do well by them.