Last time I taught software engineering, I had weekly quizzes, a term project, and a final exam. The weekly quizzes were online and tested the students on the material in the lectures and readings. Since the quizzes were online, they were necessarily open-book, open-notes. I warned the kids that the final would be closed-book, closed-notes and would count for 30% of their final grade. Most of them got As on the projects, which were handed in in five deliverables over the course of the semester and did well on the quizzes. I told them that the final was going to be harder, much harder. I told them that I considered the final exam the most important evaluative exercise of the class and told them what I expected to see in the essays on the final. I gave them 55-page study guides for the final exams, having the print shop slaughter some trees so that I could hand them out.
One third of the class failed the final. When I say fail, I mean failed abysmally. By contrast there were a number of exams with grades in the high nineties and one perfect exam. Because of the quiz and project grades, only one kid failed the class (he didn't do the quizzes), but I and my department chair got a lot of angry emails protesting the Cs that students had earned for the course when they thought that they would get As. They hadn't studied for the final. It was clear that they hadn't even looked at my study guide. What do they think would have happened on the job if they completely failed to prepare for something so critical? I decided that next time, I am going to put in the syllabus that you can't pass the class without passing the final. Maybe that will get their attention.
My anthro prof warned us right at the beginning of his forensics class that the first time he taught it, the ENTIRE class failed the midterm. When he taught it to my class, one half failed it. He very generously allowed those who failed to correct their work for half credit. As he said, forensics is based on knowing what the bones look like. If, by the midterm, you don't know that, no one looks good, not you, not him. (By the way, I studied my azz off and got the second highest grade in the class, and I'm NOT one who learns by rote very well--witness my abominable performance with French verb endings.)
ReplyDeleteSee, College Boy, you're all backwards.
ReplyDeleteThe NEW PEDAGOGY {TM} is all about participatory learning {TM}! That's why the cherubs did so well on their projects!
And quizzes...BAH! Simple rote work. You treated them like children with those petty little assignments that probably carefully tracked them through difficult material. (BAH@ tracking too!) How could you expect that one special snowflake to do those boring, old-fashioned, petty assessments?
But-but-but...then...THEN you expected them to study *55* (to quote Dr. Snarky: ZOMG!!!1!!) pages of a study guide!!!! And actually be able to write ESSAYS!!!! (ZOMG ^2 !!1!!)
You were out to get them, of course. You deliberately wanted to destroy their GPAs! Except for those brown-nosers who actually studied. They're your favorites and that's why you GAVE them As!
(/sarcasm off)
P.S. Since you don't mention your department chair being pissed, I presume he "had your back" on this? If so, I hate you for having a supportive chair who actually values education over happy customers! ;-)
Alright, I'm a keener, but if one of my profs gave me a 55 page study guide, I'd probably laugh and mock in his face. 55 pages? That's fucking intimidating. That's like handing out an additional textbook at the end of the term and saying, "By the way, this is required reading, too." Sorry, no way.
ReplyDeleteA study guide should be a concise list of major topics to study or terms to know, not a dissertation. Thankfully, I'm smart enough to figure out how to study on my own, so ignoring your study guide-cum-screed probably wouldn't hurt me (seriously, I'm *that* great). You probably intimidated the shit out of everyone who isn't an arrogant ass--either that, or they just laughed and ignored it as well, just not to your face.
I have never taught software engineering College Boy and you did warn them. However, despite the warning, a student can't help but think that the As on all those quizzes and on the project equal a mastery of course material. If you want students to study and actually learn you need to be a hard ass all semester, not just on the final. Why not design the course work so it teaches then this stuff along the way and then you wouldn’t have to sacrifice a small forest for you 55 page study guide.
ReplyDeleteUh...what if each 2-3 pages consisted of one question from a previous exam and one sample answer?
ReplyDeleteWould that humble you, oh Arrogant One?
Even just leafing through it might be all one needs to study.
And Wendy, good ideas but (as someone who has been in a similar situation), the students are probably defiantly innumerate if they fail to grasp that an A in 70% of the class can still lead to a C- if they fail a final exam worth 30% of the final grade.
For someone to not get at least 1/2 credit means they did something majorly wrong. In the end, still their fault.
The study guide contained exactly what should have been in their notes and comprised what they had asked for all semester (my notes). Everything on it had been read to them in lecture and tested on the quizzes. Leafing through it should have been all they needed.
ReplyDelete@Meanie, @College Boy, Ok, I'm being flippant here (another of my many, totally unexaggerated talents). But handing out something at the end of the term with that kind of heft is going to scare off all but the most sycophantic keeners, regardless of its content. We implicitly judge the importance and seriousness of something by its heft and appearance, and a 55-page, bound document would feel and look a lot more like a textbook than a study guide. Whatever your students were (and I wouldn't doubt you if you said they were lazy and brainless), they were human and subject to the many biases that plague human cognition.
ReplyDeleteI used to post my notes on Blackboard after every lecture, until I grasped that this meant that people were not taking notes, and not coming to lecture either; with the result that they weren't learning anything. So I don't anymore.
ReplyDeleteI would feel the same way about giving them a 55 page study guide, though your motives (and mine for that matter) were good - this is work they have to do themselves. They really do.
Now, on the rare occasions that I give out a study guide, it consists of a half-page list of areas about which they should know something. This alerts them to what notes they should be borrowing from their friends if they skipped those classes.
i am sorry though that your hard work went for naught! That is so frustrating!
But you see, students want something long and super detailed.
ReplyDeleteUntil you give it to them.
Then they want something short and to the point.
Until you give it to them.
Students can go fuck themselves.
LOL @ Online Ophilia!!! Love it! You're my new hero. For realz.
ReplyDeleteAnd yet, Ophelia, my beloved, these same backwards little boobs, who want what they want until they get it and decide it's not really what they want, can get us "not rehired" by complaining about us not bending to their whims.
ReplyDeleteSo, in the end, who tends to end up getting fucked?
I mean, they really just want us to hand them a test with the answers already filled in. I have (sort of) done that and they still got shit wrong!
Arrogant Student, you wrote, "We implicitly judge the importance and seriousness of something by its heft and appearance."
ReplyDeleteThat being the case, the students should have known that the study guide was important (it was hefty) and that the final exam would be serious (the study guide appeared, well, hefty).
By your own logic, the students in College Boy's class chose to ignore the warning about the final exam (it's serious!) that the heft of the study guide conveyed.
The alleged intimidation factor of the study guide had nothing to do with those students who failed the class.
Frankly, College Boy was generous for providing the study guide at all. Unless doing so is somehow in his job description, he went beyond what he's contracted to do for his students; by his own account, he provided them with what they requested, showing that he tried to meet the needs that they, themselves, had articulated.
You know, for some students -- many students -- giving them the exam questions in advance, wholesale, wouldn't be enough for them to pass the final. There is a certain amount of work the students are still required to do, even at those institutions of higher learning that have bought completely into the retail model of education.
I've never gotten a study guide from my professors. At best they give a verbal list of topics and/or book chapters that will be covered on the final. It's up to the students to make our own study guides from 300+ pages of text and our own notes. I'm a computer science major and I've often had to memorize dozens of algorithms for exams. I think you are just too easy on your students all semester, leading them to expect the same cakewalk on the final. Give them a closed-book midterm so at least they have a taste of what's coming. And software engineering is not exactly an easy topic; one-third fail rate may not be too bad. When I took a Cyptography class with huge amounts of math and memorization, more than half the class failed both the midterm and the final. It was a combination of some people not wanting to put in the hours of studying, and some just not being naturally smart enough to master cryptography. It may be that your students are the same. 1/3 fail rate is really not that bad for difficult subjects like math or computer science. (BTW I was known as Programming Patty on RYS)
ReplyDeleteRachel/Patty, you continue to prove yourself completely clueless about the current state of academia at large.
ReplyDeleteSince you haven't noticed, most people who posted to RYS and CM teach at schools where we AREN'T ALLOWED to fail students. Oh, maybe here or there...but NEVER an entire class, nor even a large cross-section.
Those days are long since gone since the rise of the-student-is-always-right mode of college administration. Some departments REQUIRE profs to provide study guides and such. To not do so is to not be "student-friendly." It would also expose the complete unpreparedness of the majority of currently enrolled college students.
Gotta keep the tuition flowing!
This is why God gave us midterms.
ReplyDeleteWell, if you're not allowed to fail students, that's a different problem than what you wrote about, which is that your students don't study enough to pass your final. That's what you were bitching about, and that's what I responded to, so it's uncalled for to make rude remarks about me. If you want to bitch about not being allowed to fail students, create a new post about that instead of sniping at me for responding to the actual content of your post (titled "study, dammit!" not "if only I could fail students, dammit!"). It is simply not reasonable to expect me to telepathically garner the contents of your mind and respond to what you were thinking rather than what you actually wrote.
ReplyDeleteRachel said, "1/3 fail rate is really not that bad for difficult subjects like math or computer science."
ReplyDeleteHow is my follow-up that you're talking out of your bottom irrelevant based on your ignorance-based feeling about what a reasonable fail rate might be?
Learn to read, snowflake. Or learn to learn about experiences that are not your own. N is almost always greater than 1.
Telepath that. Actually, empathy would be a bit more appropriate.
P.S. Never reveal your identity from another online forum because people will either remember you or look up whatever nonsense you spouted on record there.
Well, you could try toning down the hate. I'm not your enemy. Save some bile for your students.
ReplyDeleteFor a major like Communications or something, maybe one-third fail rate is appalling, but I've taken plenty of math and programming courses where 1/3 fail rate was not unusual, and that is not due to bad teaching or too-difficult curriculum, but rather students not putting in enough study hours or just not having the chops to get through hard courses. And I'm not even at a top-tier university but I guess the curriculum is rigourous enough that there is no such thing as guaranteed pass rates. Which is surprising since my university is pretty second-rate for computer science, but not quite second-rate enough to guarantee that every student will pass.
Apparently 1/3 fail rate is too high and there is some sort of rule to which you refer that you are not permitted to fail 1/3 of the class? Oh well, I guess that's tough for you. No wonder you are so angry, having to pass students who don't deserve it.
I don't know what you are talking about with revealing my identity. I can't stop people from Internet stalking me and I don't see what that has to do with anything. So I didn't choose to use a cutesy 100-character nickname, but I'm not exactly fearing for my life, if that's what you're getting at. Some forums require real names. So does Facebook. I'm okay if someone wants to Internet stalk me and read what I've written on other forums. It is pathetic and loserish (I'm not that interesting, surely reading the Times or some other blog would be a better use of one's time) but I'm not attempting to hide what I've written. Frankly I'd rather address even a fake name that is an actual person's name than a stupidly cute moniker. Not that that has anything to do with the matter at hand - how the original poster can get his students to study. I would suggest that he or she give them a closed-book midterm so they are prepared for what the closed-book final will be like. It sounds like the course was fairly easy for the entire semester except the final, setting them up with the idea that the final would also be a breeze.