As an undergrad at a SLAC with really loose distribution requirements, I did what all the STEM students did.... "Economics counts as a social science, right?" So I never learned any of that psychology stuff every other college grad in the Universe knows.
Last year I enrolled in an MA program in "higher education". I had to take a class called "Student Development Theory". I picked up some of that psychology stuff.
This year I started phasing in lots of low-stakes assignments with the following rubric "Student turned in something other than used toilet paper: 100, Student did not turn in anything or turned in used toilet paper: 0"
They turned in lots of mediocre crap. But they had to read the ****ing book to even get that far. They got their full credit just for breathing. I assumed the first test would be a big wake up call. And it was..... for me.
The whole ****ing class passed the first test! That has never happened. The test was at least as hard as it usually is. I put one pain in the *** question on there just to be mean because they were annoying me via e-mail while I was writing it.
They can do the ****ing work if they crack the ****ing book! All I had to do was say "Turn in ANYTHING and I'll give you full credit for your homework, even if it ****ing ****s."
I might never give real homework again.
Last year I enrolled in an MA program in "higher education". I had to take a class called "Student Development Theory". I picked up some of that psychology stuff.
They turned in lots of mediocre crap. But they had to read the ****ing book to even get that far. They got their full credit just for breathing. I assumed the first test would be a big wake up call. And it was..... for me.
The whole ****ing class passed the first test! That has never happened. The test was at least as hard as it usually is. I put one pain in the *** question on there just to be mean because they were annoying me via e-mail while I was writing it.
They can do the ****ing work if they crack the ****ing book! All I had to do was say "Turn in ANYTHING and I'll give you full credit for your homework, even if it ****ing ****s."
I might never give real homework again.
Took me awhile to figure out the graphic. Yours or RGM's?
ReplyDeleteAnd your rubric is a ****ing riot.
Neither the good news about teaching or the censoring of profanity seem appropriate for CM but I'm glad your semester is going well.
ReplyDeleteMaybe Wombat's trying to get us back in the good graces of whatever filter is blocking us on some campuses.
DeleteBy the way, I can, indeed, still read CM on my office computer. As far as I know, however, we don't have any filters in place. We're just supposed to behave ourselves and follow the rules for responsible computing use (which doesn't seem like too much to ask, though one of my colleagues managed to get fired for accessing material of which the legislature doesn't approve -- i.e. porn -- on a repeated basis).
I'm having similarly good luck with medium-stakes (in aggregate), very easy to pass, pre-class reading "tests" (really guided note-taking of the sort students in my day did without prompting). Most students are doing very well (a few have averages over 100%, since there's even some extra credit), and it's certainly clear that a good many of them are thinking more deeply about the texts than they're willing to demonstrate in class (I don't have in-class tests, so the point is to facilitate class discussion. That part isn't working quite so well, since many are apparently reluctant to open their mouths in front of others).
ReplyDeleteBut it's not foolproof. I just found my first instance of plagiarism on one of these reading tests. Mind you, answers to the kind of questions I ask can't be found on about.com or yahoo answers, so the plagiarized answer stuck out like a sore thumb: it was not merely wrong, but almost completely unrelated to the question posed (unless you count the fact that is was, at least, a statement about the book under discussion). Still, I'm disappointed to learn that this approach is not, as I'd hoped, plagiarism-proof, just plagiarism-resistant (and definitely not idiot-proof, because idiots will act like idiots whatever the instructor does).
Also, in creating my first Blackholeboard rubric, I learned that I *must* have a top category that equals 100% (not the 95%=A that is my true top score). So I created one, and labeled it "unbelievably excellent" (well, not quite, but superlatives I don't usually use were involved).
Nothing is cheat-proof but think about the odds. If 1 out of 100 are caught cheating, do you want to worry about 1%? About 2-3% cheat in my labs but that's low enough for me not to worry. I catch them, punish them and move on. No need to revise the curriculum.
DeleteSomeone is always going to find a way to cheat. Trying to preempt their attempts to do so is, indeed, a fool's errand.
DeleteI like this idea, but I loathe the idea of all the extra grading. It's not the grading itself (how long does it take to make sure that there isn't a piece of used toilet paper in a stack of thirty pages?). It's the book-keeping. I hate the book-keeping part of teaching.
ReplyDeleteBut seriously, if it would increase learning, I'll do it. I actually literally danced the foxtrot the other day, just to get students to notice me in the front of the room. Here I am, lecturing on the three rhetorical appeals, while doing the foxtrot with myself at the front of the room . . . I will do anything that works.
Hear, hear.
DeleteInspired by the twitter essay and many other similarly fine ideas, how about "Tinder Teaching"..all pedagogy being hybrid, as we now know?
DeleteI'm sure nothing could go wrong.
Fuck me. Let's just go peripatetic.
Delete