houston, we have a problem
By diana on Jan 24, 2014 | In capricious bloviations
A couple of days ago, we had a meeting to discuss the problem that our freshmen write very, very well and our composition course, as it is designed, is highly effective.
Really.
I taught two classes of freshmen last semester and about half of my grades in those courses were As or A-minuses, and I don't hand out As. I also don't preread papers. I push my students, I challenge them, and they earn their grades. Nonetheless, I half-expected someone to come to my office when I turned in my grades with my signed gradesheet and say, "C'mon. Really?" Then and now I stand prepared to defend my grades. I still have all the papers those students wrote.
As it turns out, almost everyone followed our course director's syllabus (as I did) and came up with roughly the same high number of As. This fact popped up in the last department meeting.
There appears to be grade inflation.
So in our meeting Thursday, we discussed ways to bring the grades down.
Really?
Yes.
You can imagine why this is a bit annoying to us. The fact is, the syllabus, as designed, works. There's a natural progression from reading the arguments of others, summarizing one (objectively) to analyzing one, to writing one's own. There's also an introduction to professional and academic sources and a requirement to use those sources with proper citations, etc. Add to this course structure the fact that most of my freshmen could write--and write well--when I got them.
I'm not against making the course more rigorous, particularly given that we have so many talented writers and the structure works so well, but it just strikes me as...odd...that we're complaining because we have so many good grades. I rather doubt electrical engineering instructors discuss this issue (they'd probably be tickled pink to be discussing it).
It was one of the most surreal meetings of my professional career.
d
4 comments
One: the students are cadets, right? That means that they have already excelled in many areas.
Two: ALL of the teachers of these cadets (at least in the English department) have the same “problem". That means that either all of you aren’t giving really hard work for them to do, or that ALL the cadets are top-notch students—something that usually would NEVER happen!
Three: If they ARE all top-notch students, they need HARDER work to do—which means that the teachers have to work harder, also, in order to FIND that hard work for them.
You have my condolences, dear. You will probably ever, in the rest of your career, have another year/semester like this one!!!
Diana,
To this engineer, the results indicate that the cadets are being under-utilized.
(When asked if the glass is half full or half empty, the engineer says it would have been more efficient to use a smaller glass.)
I agree with Bann’s third point. The cadets need more challenging work to spread them back down over a proper bell curve. I mean, to ensure they’re reaching their full potential.
Dave
I just read over my post, and saw an error—I meant to say NEVER, not EVER!!
The observations y’all both made? I passed them along to our course director before the meeting I posted about. We are toughening up the course a bit, yes. It’s awesome to have a syllabus that works so well–this is a GOOD thing!–but yes…our students do need to be challenged more than we’re challenging them. We are making changes to the requirements and will continue to do so until we have a more “average” course outcome.
d
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