next »

[prof_smartypants]

Oh my goodness. Please animate this one. Please! www.xtranormal.com

[polly_mer]

I have a 15 week term plus finals and give 4 midterms and a final exam. I think it somewhat depends on the course as well as the length of the term.

Also, it's much tougher to do this with a class that meets two days a week than a class that meets three days a week.  A colleague has suggested a plan for a class that meets thirty minutes a day, five days a week, and I would be all for it.  I might even go with the 25-minute six-day class that also meets Saturday, except I couldn't get any students to show for the Saturday part of it.  I just don't know if the administration would like it.  But I think it would be great. 

The way Tuesday-Thursday classes go nowadays, between end of class Thursday and beginning of class Tuesday they have nearly five full days to forget.  Five days a week would prevent some of that.

Four to five days a week used to be pretty standard for my field, at least at the level that includes these mandates. I have pointed out to my students that they should be dedicating six hours a week to the course and it would be better to dedicate one hour a day, six days a week than to sit down for six hours at one time.

My class last semester that was three hours twice a week would have worked much better as an hour a day, five days a week. 

The other problem with the "only meets a couple times a week" classes is that each missed meeting is so much more of the material.  We just missed a week of classes for snow.  That's a big chunk for the diligent students who had been keeping up and tried to do the electronic activities that I assigned as alternatives to try to stay on track.  However, some of my students have now effectively missed more than two weeks of class as we start the fourth week of classes tomorrow.  I know that I'm going to hear medical excuses, snow excuses, late add excuses, just couldn't make it work excuses, but it doesn't matter, the fact remains that they have missed the half of the class so far and missing the beginning where we lay the foundation for the rest of the class is not in anyone's best interests.

I'm pretty sure that no one does the 12 hours a week out of class that our handbook suggests is reasonable for our six hours per week class, but I'm also pretty sure that many of our students are doing more than perhaps an hour per week outside of class.  I would gladly trade to get less overall class time, but more frequent meetings if the students would do more outside of class.

[mathspice]

Oh my goodness. Please animate this one. Please! www.xtranormal.com

I didn't know that we could make these little movies. Oh, this is going to be fun.

[plebeian]

Oh my goodness. Please animate this one. Please! www.xtranormal.com

I didn't know that we could make these little movies. Oh, this is going to be fun.

Here's the relevant thread, Mathspice.

Beware, it's a heck of a time sink.

[cc_alan]

FIVE exams?  Mandated?  When do you teach the material?

While the number is not mandated, I actually have more than 5.

I used to do fewer but longer exams. Now I do more but shorter exams.

Alan

[writingprof]

Along related lines to mathspice's post:

Student: I wanted to ask how the points were assigned for the test. I don't understand why I only got half a point out of the possible two for this question.
Me: Well, let's see. (Reading over answer) To get full credit, the answer needed to talk about X and Y. Here, you talked about X, so that's good, but you didn't talk about Y. And also, over here, you wrote some things that are incorrect.
Student: Oh, so you were taking off points for things that were incorrect too?
Me: Yes.
Student: Oh, I wish you had told us that before the test.

Me, in my head: Huh? Surely this is not the first time a student has encountered a test where you lose points for incorrect answers?!

What's going on here? Is there some new grading system at the secondary level that we don't know about?

Scary.

Actually, some middle schools in my area switched to a grading system like this a few years back.  Also, no student was given less than a C, no matter what they actually earned.  It had something to do with self-esteem issues in the student body - there were some students who complained that their report cards made them feel stupid.  I don't know if they're still doing that or not, but I do know that more than a few teachers quit over it.

It's the same nonsense in my S.O.'s school district.  Thus, the severely autistic child who missed Life Skills (Special Ed) by two points and has literally never done a stitch of work carries a "C" average and will one day receive a diploma.  Hu can't read or write, btw.

Policies such as this one seem to me to be both cyclical and deeply cultural.  Can those nations that are "catching" us in their race toward development afford such coddling or such niceties?  Won't we, generations from now, be forced to abandon them also?

[concordancia]

FIVE exams?  Mandated?  When do you teach the material?

While the number is not mandated, I actually have more than 5.

I used to do fewer but longer exams. Now I do more but shorter exams.

Alan

Our students function at wildly different levels, I always have at least one who is registered with ODS for extra time at the testing center. On the last exam, the first student turned in their paper after half an hour and got an A, other students took the whole 80 minutes and got, well lots of different grades, but they weren't all bad. As such, I refuse to do the half hour exam, then teach route.

[kedves]

Along related lines to mathspice's post:

Student: I wanted to ask how the points were assigned for the test. I don't understand why I only got half a point out of the possible two for this question.
Me: Well, let's see. (Reading over answer) To get full credit, the answer needed to talk about X and Y. Here, you talked about X, so that's good, but you didn't talk about Y. And also, over here, you wrote some things that are incorrect.
Student: Oh, so you were taking off points for things that were incorrect too?
Me: Yes.
Student: Oh, I wish you had told us that before the test.

Me, in my head: Huh? Surely this is not the first time a student has encountered a test where you lose points for incorrect answers?!

This exchange is ambiguous to me, so it might be to the student as well.  It sounds as if a student is penalized more, in total, for guessing and writing something incorrect than for not writing down the incorrect guess.  I don't know if that is how you grade, or if that is what you meant to imply, or even if the words used by both people are exactly the same as above, but I can understand how the student might have inferred that meaning from the explanation.

I think most instructors treat an incorrect answer the same as no answer.

[polly_mer]

Along related lines to mathspice's post:

Student: I wanted to ask how the points were assigned for the test. I don't understand why I only got half a point out of the possible two for this question.
Me: Well, let's see. (Reading over answer) To get full credit, the answer needed to talk about X and Y. Here, you talked about X, so that's good, but you didn't talk about Y. And also, over here, you wrote some things that are incorrect.
Student: Oh, so you were taking off points for things that were incorrect too?
Me: Yes.
Student: Oh, I wish you had told us that before the test.

Me, in my head: Huh? Surely this is not the first time a student has encountered a test where you lose points for incorrect answers?!

This exchange is ambiguous to me, so it might be to the student as well.  It sounds as if a student is penalized more, in total, for guessing and writing something incorrect than for not writing down the incorrect guess.  I don't know if that is how you grade, or if that is what you meant to imply, or even if the words used by both people are exactly the same as above, but I can understand how the student might have inferred that meaning from the explanation.

I think most instructors treat an incorrect answer the same as no answer.

I don't.  I would much prefer someone to recognize an inability to answer the question than to throw out random stuff, some right, some wrong, and hope to get lucky.  Consequently, an incomplete answer that only contains items that are correct may earn more points than an answer that has both right and wrong items.  I haven't given negative total points to anything yet in my career, but I definitely penalize people who give me wrong answers alongside of right answers by subtracting points from the earned-for-the-correct-bit points.  Knowing what you don't know is an  important skill to cultivate.

[mathspice]

Oh my goodness. Please animate this one. Please! www.xtranormal.com

I didn't know that we could make these little movies. Oh, this is going to be fun.

Here's the relevant thread, Mathspice.

Beware, it's a heck of a time sink.

Oh my. Yes, I've just created 2 movies ... where did the time go?

Must. Get. A. Life. Now.

[kedves]

Along related lines to mathspice's post:

Student: I wanted to ask how the points were assigned for the test. I don't understand why I only got half a point out of the possible two for this question.
Me: Well, let's see. (Reading over answer) To get full credit, the answer needed to talk about X and Y. Here, you talked about X, so that's good, but you didn't talk about Y. And also, over here, you wrote some things that are incorrect.
Student: Oh, so you were taking off points for things that were incorrect too?
Me: Yes.
Student: Oh, I wish you had told us that before the test.

Me, in my head: Huh? Surely this is not the first time a student has encountered a test where you lose points for incorrect answers?!

This exchange is ambiguous to me, so it might be to the student as well.  It sounds as if a student is penalized more, in total, for guessing and writing something incorrect than for not writing down the incorrect guess.  I don't know if that is how you grade, or if that is what you meant to imply, or even if the words used by both people are exactly the same as above, but I can understand how the student might have inferred that meaning from the explanation.

I think most instructors treat an incorrect answer the same as no answer.

I don't.  I would much prefer someone to recognize an inability to answer the question than to throw out random stuff, some right, some wrong, and hope to get lucky.  Consequently, an incomplete answer that only contains items that are correct may earn more points than an answer that has both right and wrong items.  I haven't given negative total points to anything yet in my career, but I definitely penalize people who give me wrong answers alongside of right answers by subtracting points from the earned-for-the-correct-bit points.  Knowing what you don't know is an  important skill to cultivate.

My point was about what I am guessing most instructors do, not what we should do.  My guess might be wrong.  I do the same thing you do, but I inform students in a points rubric about how I grade.  For full credit of X points, an answer must be accurate and complete but not include inaccurate information.  An answer that is accurate and complete in some ways but also includes inaccurate or irrelevant information gets a score of Y.  If this is how most people grade, then there's no need for advance warning to students, but if it's not, then that might be beneficial.

However, I don't treat a wrong answer as lower in points than no answer.

[caravaggiojr82]

I've heard it argued that the nature of objective tests encourages students who don't know the answer to guess wildly, since one gets points for correct answers, not intellectual or epistemological maturity. Unfortunately, it's a built-in flaw of most tests that someone who doesn't know squat might be able to guess and get lucky. The theory of objective tests and exams is that students who have mastered the course material will get more correct answers than those who haven't. I guess what I'm meditating on here is that, when we give students tests, they're not trying to show us they've mastered the course material (even though we say that's what we're testing for), rather, they're trying to get as many correct answers as possible--and we interpret their ability to do so as a measurement of course material mastery.

[cc_alan]

FIVE exams?  Mandated?  When do you teach the material?

While the number is not mandated, I actually have more than 5.

I used to do fewer but longer exams. Now I do more but shorter exams.

Alan

Our students function at wildly different levels, I always have at least one who is registered with ODS for extra time at the testing center. On the last exam, the first student turned in their paper after half an hour and got an A, other students took the whole 80 minutes and got, well lots of different grades, but they weren't all bad. As such, I refuse to do the half hour exam, then teach route.

What is "teach route"?

If I had fewer exams over more material, then I'd want 2 hours for the exam. But, I don't have 2 hours so I aim for about 1 hr. exams. If student services states that someone needs more time then those students can take the exam in the testing center.

Alan

[kedves]

I've heard it argued that the nature of objective tests encourages students who don't know the answer to guess wildly, since one gets points for correct answers, not intellectual or epistemological maturity. Unfortunately, it's a built-in flaw of most tests that someone who doesn't know squat might be able to guess and get lucky. The theory of objective tests and exams is that students who have mastered the course material will get more correct answers than those who haven't. I guess what I'm meditating on here is that, when we give students tests, they're not trying to show us they've mastered the course material (even though we say that's what we're testing for), rather, they're trying to get as many correct answers as possible--and we interpret their ability to do so as a measurement of course material mastery.

I'm not sure in written tests that there is a firm line between the "objective" type and the "subjective" types.  I am looking for correct answers in written tests.  An A answer contains XYZ.  There are various ways to do that, Xa, Xb, Xc, etc., but there is no "mastery" (which I'm not aiming for) without accuracy.  At the same time, on all my written tests, I give students a good idea before the test of the questions and warn them that they need to write everything in their own words so I can evaluate how well they know the material rather than how well they are able to memorize and copy.

Similarly, on supposedly more objective tests--at least students view them that way--I use many multiple-choice questions that call for real understanding of, say, a theory and its use than call for memorization of a list of the theory's characteristics.  The student has to know the theory in some real way to be able to apply it correctly and consistently to a case, or to choose the case that fits it.  (The famous "tricky" question!)  Of course, multiple choice tests encourage guessing, but even with only 4 answer choices per question, repeated guessing is not likely to get a student a good score.

It's hard to put into words, but I think all of us recognize when we have written a good test of any type--it's one that produces some very good answers (or scores), some pretty good answers, and some that reveal lack of knowledge.  That's true, at least, where I teach.  It might be hard at some schools with mostly extremely good students to write a test of that sort.

[polly_mer]

FIVE exams?  Mandated?  When do you teach the material?

While the number is not mandated, I actually have more than 5.

I used to do fewer but longer exams. Now I do more but shorter exams.

Alan

Our students function at wildly different levels, I always have at least one who is registered with ODS for extra time at the testing center. On the last exam, the first student turned in their paper after half an hour and got an A, other students took the whole 80 minutes and got, well lots of different grades, but they weren't all bad. As such, I refuse to do the half hour exam, then teach route.

What is "teach route"?

If I had fewer exams over more material, then I'd want 2 hours for the exam. But, I don't have 2 hours so I aim for about 1 hr. exams. If student services states that someone needs more time then those students can take the exam in the testing center.

Alan

I believe Concordancia meant, "I refuse to give a half hour test and then teach for the remainder of the class.  I prefer to have a whole class devoted to the test, but that is not feasible when I have very few class periods and many tests to give."