This is a very disturbing article. Unfortunately, it reflects a growing trend in higher education - to make sure we pass as many students as we possibly can. At what sacrifice?
Let's examine this a bit. How did we get here? Here is my opinion. The majority of colleges and universities nationwide have experienced (and are still experiencing) substantial financial challenges. The administrators need to come up with solutions. Thus, mandates are issued.
We are instructed of the importance of keeping our enrollments up (or, as suggested around here, our student Full Time Equivalency (FTE) numbers). Many campuses nationwide believe that the solution is to increase new student enrollment numbers. But, what if your predicted new applications are expected to remain flat, or even decline? You need to lower the cutoff and accept more students. Thus, you have more students attending that are not ready to meet the standard in place for doing well in college.
We are also instructed to keep our already-enrolled students coming back next semester. When students earn a failing grade (i.e., they fail themselves, as defined by your grading standard that you publish in advance in your syllabus for the course), it does not bode well for their return next semester. So, ultimately, there is pressure created on faculty to pass more students. If you are not passing them, then situations similar to what is happening at Louisana State happen more frequently.
If you read through the entire article, it reflects a bit of the student view of higher ed, and reflects what I have found. In most cases, you are going to have students that are not happy. I remind myself that I am not here to make them happy -- I am here to teach! First, I teach them that they earned the failing grade. I did not give it to them. They were fully aware of what was required of them right from the very first class. (e.g., learning how to solve complex problems with a computer is hard work!) They chose not to do the work required of them. They chose not to see me during my office hours. They chose to party and drink more alcoholic beverages on weekends. There are rare, extenuating circumstances, of course. Sometimes, students wake up early enough to recover. They may do poorly, but they will still appreciate everything that they have learned through the process. Many get a serious wake-up call after the first exam and first few assignments. I can not tell you how often I have heard, "Oh, man... like, dude, like, you mean I gotta WORK? Like.... study? Gosh. Like, I never had to do that before." (You may need to insert a few more "likes" in that response. Each case varies.)
How do I respond? It depends on how I am feeling that day. Quite often, a simple "yes" suffices. Occasionally, I will try to muster up enough courage to dig into their brain (which can sometimes result in massive regret on my part) to figure out what their expectations where when they entered college.
Let's examine this a bit. How did we get here? Here is my opinion. The majority of colleges and universities nationwide have experienced (and are still experiencing) substantial financial challenges. The administrators need to come up with solutions. Thus, mandates are issued.
We are instructed of the importance of keeping our enrollments up (or, as suggested around here, our student Full Time Equivalency (FTE) numbers). Many campuses nationwide believe that the solution is to increase new student enrollment numbers. But, what if your predicted new applications are expected to remain flat, or even decline? You need to lower the cutoff and accept more students. Thus, you have more students attending that are not ready to meet the standard in place for doing well in college.
We are also instructed to keep our already-enrolled students coming back next semester. When students earn a failing grade (i.e., they fail themselves, as defined by your grading standard that you publish in advance in your syllabus for the course), it does not bode well for their return next semester. So, ultimately, there is pressure created on faculty to pass more students. If you are not passing them, then situations similar to what is happening at Louisana State happen more frequently.
This reflects the state of many campuses across the country. We are told that we need to keep our numbers up. Therefore, we allow more students into the university, and are told that we need to keep these students here as long as possible. This creates pressure on faculty to work harder for students to pass. I have observed that the pressure can be extreme for some, and results in faculty "dumbing down" their material and their grading standards.
If you read through the entire article, it reflects a bit of the student view of higher ed, and reflects what I have found. In most cases, you are going to have students that are not happy. I remind myself that I am not here to make them happy -- I am here to teach! First, I teach them that they earned the failing grade. I did not give it to them. They were fully aware of what was required of them right from the very first class. (e.g., learning how to solve complex problems with a computer is hard work!) They chose not to do the work required of them. They chose not to see me during my office hours. They chose to party and drink more alcoholic beverages on weekends. There are rare, extenuating circumstances, of course. Sometimes, students wake up early enough to recover. They may do poorly, but they will still appreciate everything that they have learned through the process. Many get a serious wake-up call after the first exam and first few assignments. I can not tell you how often I have heard, "Oh, man... like, dude, like, you mean I gotta WORK? Like.... study? Gosh. Like, I never had to do that before." (You may need to insert a few more "likes" in that response. Each case varies.)
How do I respond? It depends on how I am feeling that day. Quite often, a simple "yes" suffices. Occasionally, I will try to muster up enough courage to dig into their brain (which can sometimes result in massive regret on my part) to figure out what their expectations where when they entered college.
I recall that when I was in college, I worked. I worked hard. At times, I worked very hard. This was certainly true of my Ph.D. Even as an undergrad (late 80's - early 90's), I remember times when many of us computer science majors would get together in study groups to work at solving more difficult problems. Some problems were directly related to topics discussed in class, some were problems from assignments given, and some were simply problems we were interested in understanding better. I do not understand why I fail to see that foresight and proactive nature in students today. Many would rather settle with quick satisfaction and escape reality through their PS3, their XBox 360, or other related avenue of avoidance and self-indulgence. The least I can do is direct them early on, even scare a few of them so that they start off with the right amount of respect for the material being taught.
Hopefully, fewer earn a failing grade.
How do I resist that temptation to adjust my material to allow all students to pass? As we are told, we must keep those enrollments up! I want to see students pass, but not by sacrificing my standards. That completely devalues all degrees here!
As an aside, but related note, if this trend has been in place for the past 10 years here in this country, it is no wonder that we have no U.S. schools placing well in the international programming competitions anymore. (Check out http://cm.baylor.edu/ICPCFinalResults2010 if you do not believe me.) What are international schools doing right that even our best schools here in the U.S. are missing? (Of course, this might get into grade school discussions.) As stated by one of the comments in the article, have we honestly carried the "no child left behind" mentality too far?
With that said, I do believe that if everyone is failing a class, then there is something wrong with what I am doing. Fortunately, I have yet to experience that. I have had to be flexible with the material I cover in some of my advanced classes. Sometimes, difficult material needs to be covered a little more thoroughly than I expect. Though even then, I usually find out that students just procrastinate and choose not to start on assignments early. So, I have slowed down at times, which has often prevented me from getting through the material I wanted to cover. Hmmm.... I do not remember my professors during my undergrad years being that way. I remember many of them cruising through the material. If we didn't get it when it was taught, it was up to us to get the help we needed to catch up.
OK, those are enough sobering thoughts for now.
Hopefully, fewer earn a failing grade.
How do I resist that temptation to adjust my material to allow all students to pass? As we are told, we must keep those enrollments up! I want to see students pass, but not by sacrificing my standards. That completely devalues all degrees here!
As an aside, but related note, if this trend has been in place for the past 10 years here in this country, it is no wonder that we have no U.S. schools placing well in the international programming competitions anymore. (Check out http://cm.baylor.edu/ICPCFinalResults2010 if you do not believe me.) What are international schools doing right that even our best schools here in the U.S. are missing? (Of course, this might get into grade school discussions.) As stated by one of the comments in the article, have we honestly carried the "no child left behind" mentality too far?
With that said, I do believe that if everyone is failing a class, then there is something wrong with what I am doing. Fortunately, I have yet to experience that. I have had to be flexible with the material I cover in some of my advanced classes. Sometimes, difficult material needs to be covered a little more thoroughly than I expect. Though even then, I usually find out that students just procrastinate and choose not to start on assignments early. So, I have slowed down at times, which has often prevented me from getting through the material I wanted to cover. Hmmm.... I do not remember my professors during my undergrad years being that way. I remember many of them cruising through the material. If we didn't get it when it was taught, it was up to us to get the help we needed to catch up.
OK, those are enough sobering thoughts for now.
No comments:
Post a Comment