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[songsofexperience]

Hi all,

I'm teaching a 5 week summer course in which we meet twice a week for 3.5 hours. I have 8 students, 4 of whom are older, returning students who all work full time. I also have 4 "typical" undergrads who are also working and/or taking other summer classes. I'm trying to decide how evaluate them. Typically, in a full semester the students have 2 exams, 2 papers, and 3 film analyses. I don't really like exams so I dropped them for the summer course and have assigned 3 (out of 4) 5 page papers. I still have a LOT of reading for them to do though and I warned them all that this is an intense class. I did, however, ask them to let me know what else they are doing during these 5 weeks in terms of other classes, work etc.  As it stands, they have 3 papers worth 20% each, participation (including written questions for each class) is 25% and then they have a presentation worth 15%.

I know several of them are really worried about the amount of reading and having to produce a paper once a week. On the one hand, my response is simply: suck it up. This is a full semester of work squashed into 5 weeks and I don't see why you should have to do less than someone who takes it in the fall or spring. You've been warned and if you don't have the time to dedicate to the class then you shouldn't take it.

On the other hand, I like all my students and class discussion has been going great and I want them to succeed.

Any thoughts? I'm considering allowing them to discuss between them what they think would work as far as assignments and allowing them to weight them. Maybe they'll choose do have one longer paper worth 50%! I'm all about having students be involved in the class their taking and in smaller classes I've allowed them to have a say in how they are graded before.

I'd welcome any thoughts, advice, etc.

[tt_finally]

I always have the same debate with summer classes.  Theoretically, I believe that summer classes should have the exact same amount of work as longer classes; after all, they receive the same amount of credit.  As I go to put together the schedule, however, I cringe when I see how much work is due in a single week--and even more when I think of my grading turnaround time.  (I'll have about 40-50 students this summer.)  I completed the schedule last night and have approximately 80-85% of what I usually require for the course.  That's still 2 exams, 2 papers (4-5 pages), 6 homework assignments (discussion questions), and a lot of reading (though it is all fairly accessible). 

I feel a bit guilty that it isn't 100%, but I also know from past experience that the students will act like it is an unreasonably tough schedule.  I suspect many of them think that summer school should be the same amount of work per week--just fewer weeks.  Anyway, I tell them that they need to devote X hours per week to the class and that they probably shouldn't take it in the summer if they are working 40 hours a week and taking two classes.  Then it is up to them to make decisions and accept the consequences.

I'm covering all the course objectives:  the students just don't get as many opportunities to practice skills and "get it right" and each grade counts more this way.  If I did 100% of the same workload, students would be so rushed that they wouldn't have the "downtime" to process and might actually learn less (or so I tell myself).  I've decided the slightly abridged schedule is a reasonable compromise.

Back to your situation:  I would be reluctant to go from three papers to one long one.  First, I fear that students would consider everything negotiable if you made such a big concession just because they wanted it.  Second, and more importantly, I fear that many would put little more time into the one long paper than they would for a shorter paper, and then you'd either have to inflate grades or the students would tank their grades.  With shorter papers, they get feedback and can improve.

If you think the workload is unreasonable in the time available, perhaps you could go to a couple slightly longer papers.  Or at least, if you go to the one long paper, build in preparatory assignments (annotated bibliographies, outlines, etc.) to reduce the odds of students doing the entire thing in one long session.

Perhaps, too, you could coordinate a paper with the presentation or could use the discussion questions to lead to a paper, or somehow build in some overlap.

[felicia68]

Actually,
I think that summer sessions need more exams, less papers.

It's hard to get the kind of 'gelling' of ideas that a good term paper requires.  There just isn't enough time for ideas to stew in their juices.

I would make the papers more like 'thought papers' or 'reaction papers', and I would do fact-based and opinion-based exams.  The exams keep the students moving forward and give the necessary reward for the amount of time they are putting in.

I cannot really imagine students 'studying' enough on a given day unless they had worksheets, exams questions, etc. to prepare for each day of class.

Just make sure that not too much class time is devoted to exams.  And use scantrons to grade.

[concordancia]

As in your case, I will have fewer class days than during the semester. As such, for my composition class, I have decided to keep the same turn around rate counted by class days, which still results in fewer compositions than they would have during the semester. This means that they are turning in something (either new or rewrite) three times a week. If they whine, I will point out that it is a pain to grade all of that, too, but writing is a skill and as such requires lots of practice. I will NOT warn them ahead of time that in class work will get them moving in the right direction for their first draft each time. Let the ones who come to class discover this on their own.

[new_bus_prof]

The standard formula is students should be spending 2 to 3 hours outside of class per hour of class meeting, so your students should be spending between 14 to 21 hours each week on your class ALONE. Will this actually happen? Probably not, but its not like its going to occur during the regular semester either.

As, to turnaround time for papers, I would strive for returning the previous paper the same day the new paper is due and the final paper on the last day.

Usually I have 2 exams, 4 small papers, 1 big paper, 4 quizzes, and a presentation during the regular semester.

In the past during the summer, the exams got combined into one (same number of questions as would be in 2 exams), a presentation and paper due the same day (instead of separately), 2 small papers (2 to 3 pgs.) and 8 quizzes.

What ends up getting dropped? The time spent on games/activities in class and papers move to quizzes.