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[concordancia]

Of all the topics that we will cover, magnetism is the most difficult to learn from a book or lecture and is the one for which the fewest students will have had adequate daily life exposure. 

See, back in the day when Elmo didn't giggle for us, we friggin' played with magnets. We figured out what they stuck to by trying to stick them to things. We pushed them together and watched them spring  apart, we used them to draw pictures with metal filings. If we were really ambitious, we got out a battery and some copper wire...

[conjugate]

Magnets may make a comeback, now that magnet-sensitive storage media like floppy disks are vanishing.

[professor_pat]

During a science test I gave on Tuesday:

STUDENT: I don't get what you mean by the "ratio" in this question.

ME: It's [results of process A] divided by [results of process B].

STUDENT: What does that mean?

ME: It's the proportion of [A] to . You have to say how that's different in different parts of this system.

STUDENT: What do you mean, a proportion?

ME: How one compares to the other.

STUDENT: Did we cover this in class?

ME: Yes, I talked about it in these exact terms.

STUDENT: Maybe that was the day I was out for a while.

ME: Maybe. But you can figure it out from this diagram [included in the test].

STUDENT: I don't get what you mean by a ratio. I can't do math.

This person wants to major in my science-related field. She received an A- in college algebra but does not understand what a ratio is. She will have to pass economics and statistics. This will be interesting...

<another very long sighhhhhhh>

[conjugate]

During a science test I gave on Tuesday:

STUDENT: I don't get what you mean by the "ratio" in this question.

ME: It's [results of process A] divided by [results of process B].

STUDENT: What does that mean?

ME: It's the proportion of [A] to [B]. You have to say how that's different in different parts of this system.

STUDENT: What do you mean, a proportion?

ME: How one compares to the other.

STUDENT: Did we cover this in class?

ME: Yes, I talked about it in these exact terms.

STUDENT: Maybe that was the day I was out for a while.

ME: Maybe. But you can figure it out from this diagram [included in the test].

STUDENT: I don't get what you mean by a ratio. I can't do math.

This person wants to major in my science-related field. She received an A- in college algebra but does not understand what a ratio is. She will have to pass economics and statistics. This will be interesting...

<another very long sighhhhhhh>

Over too many years, I have learned that the only good reply to a question during a test is "That's what you need to have learned for the test."  I would probably have said "Result of A divided by result of B" also, however, because I'm a softy at heart. 

Other good responses that I've seen from these fora include "No, the test is where you tell me about this stuff," or "It means the same thing it did when we reviewed for the test" (or "...when we went over it in class,").

How many of your students come to a test and ask if you have a pencil or a calculator they can borrow?  Mine seem to think I'm a lending facility.

[polly_mer]

How many of your students come to a test and ask if you have a pencil or a calculator they can borrow?  Mine seem to think I'm a lending facility.

On a good day, students only ask me for a writing implement or calculator.  On an average day, they also want paper and my book.

[llanfair]

Polly, I've read many of your descriptions of your Education students, and I'm wondering how they made it out of Grade 3.  Or perhaps they were raised by wolves?

[polly_mer]

Polly, I've read many of your descriptions of your Education students, and I'm wondering how they made it out of Grade 3.  Or perhaps they were raised by wolves?

Or maybe they are just lazy and the education department doesn't push them very hard.  I had this enlightening conversation this week:

Student 1: They changed the rules so that my friend's little brother could take algebra in the sixth grade.  That's how he ended up in our pre-calc class even though we were seniors and he was a sophomore.

Polly:  Wait a minute, you had pre-calculus in high school?

Student 2:  Oh, yeah.  Everyone did.  You take algebra in the eighth grade, geometry in ninth grade, algebra 2 in tenth grade, pre-calc as a junior, and then I took AP stats as a senior.

Polly:  If you have had all of that, then why do you look at me as though I were asking you to scale Mount Everest when I give you arithmetic problems?  Arithmetic should be a piece of cake after pre-calc and AP stats.

Student 2 <very slowly for the obviously logic-impaired instructor>:  I took those classes when I was in high school.  I'm twenty now and a junior in college.  How could I possibly be expected to remember any of that junk from so long ago?  Nobody ever uses that stuff.

Apparently, my education major students believe in the inoculation theory of schooling: once you've had it and recovered from the experience, you can't be expected to get it again.

[polly_mer]

I feel that.

Every semester, I attempt to persuade freshman writers that they will indeed be required to write in another class before they graduate. They don't believe me.

They don't believe me when I tell them that not only will they be writing in this class, but that grammar, spelling, and other elements of standard formal English are part of the grade.  It's going to be fun reading their reports about which they continue to ask, "Do we really have to write that 4 to 6 page report and cite three references, at least one of which must be an actual book from the library?"

Yep, you really do...or take a zero for 10% of your grade.  Your choice.  But most of you are not doing well enough in this class to bank on a passing grade by doing so.

[polly_mer]

This sounds eerily familiar.

And reminds me of the student I had in a writing and research class who informed me that he had never been to the university library, and did not intend to break his streak. I pointed out that in order to pass the class, he needed to in fact darken the door of the library. He didn't. He failed.

I did give directions to the library for a few juniors in my class who had claimed to never have been there.  I think that's a huge pity, considering what a large collection of reference materials for teachers and prospective teachers that the library has. 

[capper]

Today I devoted the last 10 minutes of class to student questions for Monday's test. 

Student:  Can you suggest some chapters that we should read to prepare for the test?

capper:  Yes.  The ones listed on your syllabus that you were supposed to be reading during the last two weeks.

Seriously...it's one thing to be so clueless that you don't bother to do the reading.  It's totally another thing to be so clueless that you ASK about it. 

[science_expat]

Of all the topics that we will cover, magnetism is the most difficult to learn from a book or lecture and is the one for which the fewest students will have had adequate daily life exposure.  So today, I handed out magnets, compasses, paper clips, nails, and worksheets with instructions on what to do with those things to get more physical intuition about how magnets work.  In addition, I went from table to table so that I could demonstrate some particularly cool things that I know students wouldn't try if I didn't stand over them in small enough groups that everyone would touch the demos and actually experience what I was attempting to show.  FYI, if you've never rubbed together two refrigerator magnets, tried to put together the two pieces of a magnet broken catty corner to the original poles, or gotten to experience strong magnetic repulsion, then your education is incomplete. 

Like Concordania, I did this stuff in primary school.

[galactic_hedgehog]

Student 1:  Dr. Mer, I just don't get magnetism.

Maybe she has bipolar disorder.

[polly_mer]

Of all the topics that we will cover, magnetism is the most difficult to learn from a book or lecture and is the one for which the fewest students will have had adequate daily life exposure.  So today, I handed out magnets, compasses, paper clips, nails, and worksheets with instructions on what to do with those things to get more physical intuition about how magnets work.  In addition, I went from table to table so that I could demonstrate some particularly cool things that I know students wouldn't try if I didn't stand over them in small enough groups that everyone would touch the demos and actually experience what I was attempting to show.  FYI, if you've never rubbed together two refrigerator magnets, tried to put together the two pieces of a magnet broken catty corner to the original poles, or gotten to experience strong magnetic repulsion, then your education is incomplete. 

Like Concordania, I did this stuff in primary school.

That means that you had good primary school teachers.  Since my goal is to train good primary school teachers, I do many things in my classes that my students should do with their future classes instead of whatever garbage worksheets that they did in their primary schools so that they didn't learn the basics of magnetism.  When I frame the lessons as "hands-on activities to take into your own classrooms", I generally get better attitudes than when I say, "And now we're going to do remedial education".  Sometimes, that technique does fail, as it did with magnetism, because my students want a lecture on how to do the hands-on activities since their own primary education did not include those things so they are afraid of failing in their lesson plans instead of being thrilled about the opportunity to learn by doing.

Student 1:  Dr. Mer, I just don't get magnetism.

Maybe she has bipolar disorder.

Should I have tried to teach her by analogy?

[galactic_hedgehog]

Student 1:  Dr. Mer, I just don't get magnetism.

Maybe she has bipolar disorder.

Should I have tried to teach her by analogy?

Well, by anthology isn't working, since they're not reading the book.

Student 2 <very slowly for the obviously logic-impaired instructor>:  I took those classes when I was in high school.  I'm twenty now and a junior in college.  How could I possibly be expected to remember any of that junk from so long ago?  Nobody ever uses that stuff.

Apparently, my education major students believe in the inoculation theory of schooling: once you've had it and recovered from the experience, you can't be expected to get it again.

This explains a lot. 

Do you think they'd appreciate the irony if this were pointed out to them when they argue that getting kids vaccinated is bad for them?

Nah.

[concordancia]

Of all the topics that we will cover, magnetism is the most difficult to learn from a book or lecture and is the one for which the fewest students will have had adequate daily life exposure.  So today, I handed out magnets, compasses, paper clips, nails, and worksheets with instructions on what to do with those things to get more physical intuition about how magnets work.  In addition, I went from table to table so that I could demonstrate some particularly cool things that I know students wouldn't try if I didn't stand over them in small enough groups that everyone would touch the demos and actually experience what I was attempting to show.  FYI, if you've never rubbed together two refrigerator magnets, tried to put together the two pieces of a magnet broken catty corner to the original poles, or gotten to experience strong magnetic repulsion, then your education is incomplete. 

Like Concordania, I did this stuff in primary school.

Oh, we didn't do it in school, we did it at home. In the lower middle class neighborhood. The kind that people my own age now argue wasn't even middle class because we only had one bathroom. Back in the day when same gendered children were forced to share bedrooms.

And I really did have to walk up hill both ways because school was on the other side of the hill. As a matter of fact, I still have to walk uphill both ways to one of my classes for the same reason.