– all exams from previous years are made available for studying. It is department policy.
– mid 70 is extremely typical for an average exam score for the department. Mid 80s would indicate that the exam was a bit too easy. These kids are paying top dollar to get a major from the from what is pretty much regarded as the #1 department in the world for what they study. They’re getting what they’re paying for. We will not water down the challenge of the degree since there is reputation to uphold and it would be dishonest on our part to give these kids flimsy degrees not worth the 6 figure paper they’re written on.
Of course you don’t say ‘suck it up’ to someone crying over an exam(even though we feel like it), we are more professional than that. We tell them where they went wrong, give them a list of habits and stufy tips successful students from before have used, reiterate office hours, and finally also recommend tutoring sessions through learning resources–it is free in many cases.
Therefore, this class and this exam were nothing unusual (things could have been perceived differently if it had been). The students had every resource at their disposal to pass and knew what to expect. So it’s a case of late adolescent wishful thinking “surely this won’t apply to me”.
“Of course you don’t”… oh, don’t overestimate your fellow TA’s or professors. It’s happened.
Mentioning resources and tutoring is especially useful as some students really may not know how to handle the new level of academics.
Most college Profs I’ve encountered…especially the old-school ones and even some strong undergrads would disagree and find such expectations/faculty who practice such to be “too touchy feely” and excessive coddling when applied to undergrad students who are supposed to be regarded as adults…even if they are young ones at 18 or sometimes even younger. Not legal minors in K-12.
Worse, it’s not how most employers/supervisors IME would treat their employees in practice or sometimes even Profs in grad school. Especially if one’s work performance fell short of expectations.
You screw up and you’re more likely to get a response closer to the “shape up/fix the problem and don’t do it again or else” side of the spectrum. And that’s even assuming the employer/supervisor won’t immediately institute punitive measures as a few grad Profs did to a college classmate by refusing to write/rescinding offers to wrote LORs for PhD programs. And the rescinding Profs seemed to have timed their rescinding of LORs such that said classmate had practically no time to seek out other Profs for LORs even assuming they were willing to write him one.
I’ve had a few college/grad school Profs and moreso, some HS teachers who wouldn’t hesitate to tell a student reacting to a poor grade/harsh critique by crying or otherwise acting highly emotional to “suck it up and deal!”
In fact, I’ve experienced this much more in HS and depending on how the instructor was in other situational contexts…either cause students to regard him/her as an out and out jerk or as a no-nonsense teacher who while harsh merits a higher level of respect for maintaining high standards while otherwise being helpful when asked seriously by students.
I really do NOT think “tough love and caring love” applies here. Those are college students. You have to be compassionate and encourage them by giving them the resources at their disposal, but then it’s up to them. (For excessive distress, referral to Health Services is also a must). There’s a difference between remembering these are teenagers (so, don’t go out of your way to crush them - and, no you’re not their employer and they’re not 25 year olds employees yet) … and coddling them.
Posts 137 and 140 provide excellent advice from seasoned academicians, who indicate that its not just what you teach, but how you teach. Just as students have a learning curve and learn from their academic mistakes, so too TAs have a learning curve and learn from theirs. Just as some of the TA’s students came to him/her to complain, so too it seems the TA came here to complain. Most TA’s don’t have backgrounds in education. Do they get any training in teaching skills or putting a syllabus together, or how to respond to students concerns, whether the student’s request/behavior is totally over the top outrageous or has a modicum of merit? Maybe its unreasonable to expect a green TA who has just graded their first midterm to have the tools or skills to know how to manage some students unreasonable reactions with grace and aplomb. Lots of teachable moments on bot sides of the equation.
Although it might be thought that having a perfect bell curve for test score is the desired result, not all educators would agree. My daughter had a college math teacher who when he gave back the student’s quiz grades and the results were that something like 90% of the class got A’s - he was jumping for joy and told them how wonderful it was that they did so well and how it made his day and that he was delighted that everybody had learned and understood the concepts on the test. (this was an upper level math class which was taken mostly by math majors). This certainly endeared him to my daughter who appreciated a teacher who wanted to have his students succeed and wanted them to learn and understand the material he taught.
It seems these days that a C is not considered average, it is considered a bad grade. That must mean that many tests are graded with a B as the average grade, not a C. That would mean it is really not possible for any student to get an A. Should that be the goal? Should a test be made not to ensure mastery and understanding at a good, deep level, but to be tricky enough that the average student only gets a 75? Is it really correct to design a test where the same percentage of students fail as get an A?
If everyone were on the same page, that would be fine. A C would be acceptable at a top university meaning the student mastered the material to an average level. But when most schools (and even most classes in most schools) grade on a higher average, it seems to put kids at a disadvantage for internships (where a B average may be required).
In my graduate school, a course with a grade of C did not count. Therefore, the average had to be higher than a C or most of the students would not have passed.
Absolutely true that ‘average work’ these days is scaled to a B/B+, which in my opinion, is ridiculous. If I had any say in how grades were distributed, you would bet your butt average work would equate to C. That’s exactly what a C is supposed to mean. B means you did pretty good work and A is outstanding.
In high school my math teacher worked on a 7 point scale meaning 93 was an A- at best and anything below 70-78 was a D- to D+. Below a 70 was F. Sadly we’ve lost not only tough teachers like these, departments seem to be too whimpy these days to stringently apply what standards actually constitute what it means for C, B, or A grade work. There would be too many parents calling up professors, the dean, or department chairs complaining that their kid is a C student, employment numbers wouldn’t look as rosy, and professors would get hammered on reviews simply because they removed the wool from their student’s eyes to show that them that they’re just C students.
mom2and,
Meaning of C is very different from major to major and from one UG track to another. Occasional C maybe be OK for an engineering major, the hardest UG major of them all. However, if the engineering major student happens to be on the pre-med track (not advisable, but occurs from time to time), then C may derail this student from this track. It may make his goal of being accepted to a Med. School unattainable. I said “it may” because if the other grades are all As, then the GPA would be still reasonable for Med. School. If there are many Bs, even in a absence of grades lower than B, the Med. School plan may be out of window. One got to have college GAP of at least 3.6 to have a reasonable chance of applying to Med. School. I used pre-med track only because I am most familiar with it, I am sure that there are plenty of others where college kids could not afford even many Bs, let alone Cs.
So, C may mean not much… or may mean basically a tragedy. For some, C does not mean average at all, it means a failure.
So are you saying that the average grade in the course you are TAing for is actually a B or a C?
It seems, however, that in some cases the test is designed to force a C to be the mean grade. If the students are studying hard and most can achieve 80%+ mastery on a well-designed, challenging test, is that really a problem? Is it really necessary to make a test that is so hard that the mean has to be a C?
Are there professors who WANT to have their students fail and not learn and understand the material they teach? I’ve known a few who didn’t seem to care one way or the other, but I’ve yet to meet any who actively WANT to be failures at what they do. The fact that these were upper division courses makes your D’s situation completely different from that of the freshman intro courses.
Yes, Miami, that is partly my point, The OP was complaining that a C is not average any more. If this TA and the professor feel that the average MUST be a C in this class, regardless of how well the students understand the material, that seems pointless. If other sections, or every other course or most other colleges would award a B for the same level of mastery, the C does not compare. To me, the test should be designed to measure what the students understand. The goal should certainly be for MOST of the students to master more than 75% of the material, especially at a top college and especially when the cost is so high.
I was in one of those hard majors. It mattered for things like honors. It certainly didn’t feel fair when a professor would not award any As in a course, even when several us had 89.4 (literally!) averages and friends took “contract psych” where as along as you did x, y and z you got an automatic A.
Are you advocating that grading should be equal/universal across all institutions? Is a C from Harvard (which often gets a reputation for grade inflation) the same as a C from Slippery Rock?
I don’t actually know anyone who grades on a true bell curve. In my department, there are usually more B’s than A’s in each class (though not necessarily), probably fewer C’s than A’s, and D’s or F’s only in unusual circumstances.
I think many law schools probably still grade on a true curve. A brother-in-law who is a lawyer mentioned once that in law school, he got every possible passing grade in different classes–the full range of them.
Most colleges allow students to access student ratings of classes, don’t they? In which case, students should know what they’re getting into.
I do not think sophomore classes for a major should be required to be taught so that most of the students master 80% of the material. That would anchor the material covered to the slowest 80% of the class. In a college course, that’s not appropriate.
It is appropriate for colleges to provide realistic career advice to enrolled students. Some majors are out of reach for most students, no matter how hard they work. There are a plethora of other majors at the same elite college. For some people, that B- on a sophomore midterm will help them convince mom and dad that they aren’t cut out for med school.
ETA: @jym626, a seasoned high school teacher is not a college professor. High school students have to be masters of all subjects. College students don’t.
No matter how you look at it, this really comes down to human behavior more than grading policies. I had two classes as an undergrad that exhibit this perfectly. Freshman Chemistry - two professors, same book, virtually identical tests. Both used a 10 point scale, except one had 80-100 as an A. Well guess what, the average in the 80-100 class was right at a 65, in the other it was right at 75. This is a several hundred student lecture hall, so it a pretty good sample size. Second example was engineering physics. You could literally buy from the local print shop a set of test questions, but no answers. It was broken into sets of about 250 for each test. All you had to do was work the problems. It was amazing how many folks just read through them and then were upset about the test grade
So for all complaints the TA may have had from students, the ugly truth is that some students can’t or won’t get everything perfect. And I will never believe for a second that a class is designed from the outset to depress grades, or even fail students.
