tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2883226237165701608.post5034626039884265689..comments2023-10-15T04:23:50.187-04:00Comments on College Misery: If It's Tuesday, I Must Be Baffled About My Colleagues...Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger20125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2883226237165701608.post-96476215600749802014-01-08T17:39:17.761-05:002014-01-08T17:39:17.761-05:00I often reminded students that they took certain m...I often reminded students that they took certain material in previous courses (e. g., solving quadratic equations or basic trigonometry) and that they should know it if they passed them. Did they? Not a chance. Their excuse was they "forgot" it all, even though they may have just finished those very courses less than a month earlier.<br /><br />Unfortunately, I couldn't get away Quarter Wave Verticalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03173446011323023116noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2883226237165701608.post-60569803513317924602014-01-08T16:43:12.692-05:002014-01-08T16:43:12.692-05:00I've had this experience as well.
The prereq c...I've had this experience as well.<br />The prereq course taught the students the hamster alphabet.<br />I would get them, and start spelling words in hamster and making sentences, and they would exclaim, "But we've never seen those letters before!" <br /><br /><br />Then I took over a section of the prereq course.<br />The following semester, when they claimed they'd never Iyrrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06272150097841691708noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2883226237165701608.post-87486479703275824932014-01-08T16:08:37.998-05:002014-01-08T16:08:37.998-05:00I hold them responsible for going to the Writing L...I hold them responsible for going to the Writing Lab to learn the info they were supposed to have learned, and suddenly, presto, most of them "remember" how to do things they didn't remember to do on the placement exercise.The Contemplative Cynichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02088570661592922436noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2883226237165701608.post-569064822530735532014-01-08T16:06:49.867-05:002014-01-08T16:06:49.867-05:00This happens to me!!! It's like they revert to...This happens to me!!! It's like they revert to high school when suddenly tasked with writing an essay rather than relying on what they learned IN MY CLASS two years ago.The Contemplative Cynichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02088570661592922436noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2883226237165701608.post-71853420882951280212014-01-08T09:35:20.862-05:002014-01-08T09:35:20.862-05:00Over and over and over, as I am covering concepts ...Over and over and over, as I am covering concepts in both Writing 1 and 2, I tell my students that these are portable skills--skills that they can and should continue to use in all of their other courses--outlining, clear thesis, supporting their points, citing their sources--but as others have pointed out, when they take my lit courses a few semesters later, they seem to have forgotten much of BurntChromehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06055976331443607569noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2883226237165701608.post-85428206241150573192014-01-08T00:00:33.828-05:002014-01-08T00:00:33.828-05:00Students believe that our standards are individual...Students believe that our standards are individual professorial whims. "Does this paper have to have a thesis statement?" students ask me, to which I have been known to reply "What else would it have instead? A line-drawing of a puppy?" Professor Chiltepinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10087270705989845484noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2883226237165701608.post-68899479708316045102014-01-07T23:35:53.454-05:002014-01-07T23:35:53.454-05:00I, too, lean toward attributing this phenomenon as...I, too, lean toward attributing this phenomenon as much to student as to proffie flakiness. The idea that the acquisition of knowledge/skills is cumulative seems to be foreign to a significant number of students these days (and others are, yes, simply resistant to doing anything that takes effort, even if they've done it -- or at least tried to do it -- before, at least long enough to Contingent Cassandrahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08161652083031423415noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2883226237165701608.post-13923855666766756382014-01-07T20:28:10.753-05:002014-01-07T20:28:10.753-05:00I tried that with my students, too and failed mise...I tried that with my students, too and failed miserably as well.<br /><br />They could get away with that smart-alecky behaviour because they were convinced they were invincible. Not only did my institution have the policy that having one's application accepted was sufficient for graduation (and it rarely turned anyone down), the students felt could always go over my head to a departmental Quarter Wave Verticalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03173446011323023116noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2883226237165701608.post-11545271450551508322014-01-07T20:23:38.744-05:002014-01-07T20:23:38.744-05:00As an undergrad, I took a course in FORTRAN progra...As an undergrad, I took a course in FORTRAN programming, which was required for all the students in our faculty. It was run by my alma mater's computing science department and I didn't learn much from it. I don't remember the instructor as being all that good.<br /><br />I later had an option to fill in my senior year and I signed up for a numerical analysis course, also run by the Quarter Wave Verticalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03173446011323023116noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2883226237165701608.post-76368994873694559902014-01-07T20:09:47.237-05:002014-01-07T20:09:47.237-05:00I have a variation on some of what you mention.
I...I have a variation on some of what you mention.<br /><br />In one of the last courses I ever taught, a group of students whined that I was penalizing them for algebra errors. First of all, it wasn't an algebra course and, according to them, they had already been "tested" on it. By that latter comment, they meant that they had already taken an algebra course, passed it, and, Quarter Wave Verticalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03173446011323023116noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2883226237165701608.post-75874955277906781092014-01-07T19:39:57.950-05:002014-01-07T19:39:57.950-05:00Something that genuinely pisses me off about prere...Something that genuinely pisses me off about prerequisites is how none of my physics majors can program computers at all, even though every one of them take the introduction to computer programming course taught by the computer science department, and passes this course with a C or higher. For once, I am inclined to believe their universal claim that the course is badly taught, because my best Froderick Frankenstien from Fresnohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11653942918068535424noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2883226237165701608.post-88814735031673896242014-01-07T19:28:25.123-05:002014-01-07T19:28:25.123-05:00(continued)
Throughout the semester, I keep telli...(continued)<br /><br />Throughout the semester, I keep telling my students, over and over, "I'm going to need you to remember this from previous courses," and then name the course, preferably also with the chapter in the textbook, and maybe also with a simple example, if there's time. It works pretty well, maybe not to get them to remember what was covered in their prerequisite Froderick Frankenstien from Fresnohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11653942918068535424noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2883226237165701608.post-1859147660403917472014-01-07T19:12:56.995-05:002014-01-07T19:12:56.995-05:00There are several ways to handle this, Hiram. One ...There are several ways to handle this, Hiram. One way was tried by a naive little booby I know who'd recently been hired as an assistant professor. He was disturbed by the innumeracy of the students in his introductory physics class, so he wrote a letter to the math department, asking that they do a better job. They filed it in the circular file, and that was that.<br /><br />To be fair, I Froderick Frankenstien from Fresnohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11653942918068535424noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2883226237165701608.post-21626858945242689962014-01-07T18:07:59.918-05:002014-01-07T18:07:59.918-05:00I stopped chiding colleagues that they were passin...I stopped chiding colleagues that they were passing incompetent students the very first time I taught a course the VERY SEMESTER AFTER I had taught the prerequisite course, and a horrifyingly large fraction of the students I had passed - even some with B's and A's - had obviously had their brains suctioned out during the semester break: not only were they not competent, they SWORE I had Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2883226237165701608.post-14366429991804909822014-01-07T17:55:35.416-05:002014-01-07T17:55:35.416-05:00I share your bafflement, Hiram, but I'm even m...I share your bafflement, Hiram, but I'm even more baffled when my own freshman writing students demonstrate proficiency in all the required outcomes but then a year or two later register for one of my literature classes and show no signs of ever having written a thesis or cited a source. How could all the skills they mastered in my course simply evaporate over a few semesters? Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14298623277254751613noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2883226237165701608.post-78462840296509592202014-01-07T17:48:21.994-05:002014-01-07T17:48:21.994-05:00Yeah, Bill Cosby made a big deal on his TV show in...Yeah, Bill Cosby made a big deal on his TV show in 1969-71 about how he did that when he was a kid. I tried it in 1974, when I was in Algebra II class in 10th grade. The substitute teacher, who was a student teacher from the local university, pointed out that by doing this, "you are only hurting yourselves." This appealed to my sense of reason, so I cut it out, and we proceeded to learnFroderick Frankenstien from Fresnohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11653942918068535424noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2883226237165701608.post-69226796230919466002014-01-07T14:15:09.920-05:002014-01-07T14:15:09.920-05:00I had to deal with that several times.
I often ta...I had to deal with that several times.<br /><br />I often taught courses which had pre-requesites and I assumed that my students had mastered the previous material. That was a big mistake on my part. A lot of times, I had to either re-teach material that those students should have learned earlier or teach for the first time what they should have been taught by my colleagues.<br /><br />I Quarter Wave Verticalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03173446011323023116noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2883226237165701608.post-53185932435300492652014-01-07T13:18:47.385-05:002014-01-07T13:18:47.385-05:00If Sawyer is correct and they are slow-playing, yo...If Sawyer is correct and they are slow-playing, you might tell them that since they have passed Writing 1, you take it as given they have mastered that material and will be assessed accordingly. Don't even review and drill them like a wildcatter. Prof Panglosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06217936415069624428noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2883226237165701608.post-61384812184114716632014-01-07T11:10:25.078-05:002014-01-07T11:10:25.078-05:00I *slightly* suspect the 'flakes are merely fl...I *slightly* suspect the 'flakes are merely flaking out. If they show they "can't" do certain things their logic dictates they may not be expected to actually do them. If you go through the trouble of "re-teaching" it they "win" because that's one less new thing they have to learn.<br /><br />I'll admit to pulling a stunt similar to this with Sawyer in Student Serviceshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16463333151790071057noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2883226237165701608.post-23644524925112515132014-01-07T09:45:35.999-05:002014-01-07T09:45:35.999-05:00Hiram, my brother! I am so right there with you. W...Hiram, my brother! I am so right there with you. We sit around every break and hammer out these outcomes that must be met. And it's always my colleague who peacocks the highest standards who seems to require the lowest standard of work in actual practice.<br /><br />When a student from his class comes to me, I just prepare to start from scratch with that student.<br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com