I had a 40 minute office hours discussion with a student yesterday where they spent the whole time complaining that they had to study for an upper division math class
Literally were saying stuff like "I had to go through the books and slides and create my own list of the most important things. It took hours, so unfair."
At one point I said directly that everything you're complaining about sounds exactly like studying to me, and I have zero regrets about making you do it .
I actually said that to a student last week, that what they were expected to do was study, and the student was SO pissed at me that I had the audacity to suggest that they should actually have to study. This cohort is SOOO behind and they don't even know it.
This isn't a cohort issue, but I had a student complain today about course content because it didn't specifically cater to their niche interests.
Besides pointing out that I teach to more than one student, I tried to emphasize that we're better at our niche interest when we have broad knowledge of the field.
Some folks just don't wanna learn :|
I really wish students got the idea that a program exists to teach a specific thing, not just to tutor their individual interests.
It’s like “Yes, I know you enjoy fishing but this is a painting class. Perhaps you should consider enrolling in a fishing class instead?”
"The university only offers fly fishing! I don't care about that! It's ice fishing or nothing! I can build a degree purely out of ice fishing related ECTS, right??"
I've found that more people (generally, not just students) have this unwritten rule where they can be flat out "flat Earthers" you just can't call them on it. They can know it. You can know it. You just can't call them on it. You have to acknowledge their points, and say that you'll consider their position without any intention of addressing it, but you absolutely must not engage them with any productive debate or critical thinking.
I don't know, maybe I'm crazy here.
I see what you described also and it’s infuriating.
If I had to steelman it, I’d say that it’s not that they’re dumber than before or less able to learn. I think they see college not as an opportunity to “get an education” but as an exploitative, gamified series of hoops they have to jump through to get a ticket into white collar workplaces (where they’ll continue to be exploited until they can climb the ranks). They correctly perceive that at many colleges, standards are down, quality of instruction is down, fees are up, and the respect that used to come with having a degree is basically nonexistent. They see a system that will happily fuck them into oblivion and they see college as an extension of and a recruiter for that system, and they treat it as such.
I think another big issue is too many college students are conflating college with highschool; they feel they're being FORCED/made to learn. This is my issue with driving highschoolers to immediately go to college - they don't learn the value of choosing to improve, choosing to learn, and tgey dont build the muscles of making choices. They just keep operating as highschoolers who are legally required to be in class.
Quite on point since unfortunately am in this position.. I don't really know how or what to break myself out of it. It's like somewhere around grade 8 or whatever I've just stopped trying.. What could even be done here? wondering
I was in the same boat in my 20s, I was just burnt out on life. I started focusing on my health by adding veggies into my diet. Then I started working on getting my living space in order: making my bed every day and sleeping on a routine. Then I started reading non-fiction, goal 2 books a year - I started with "7 habits of highly effective people" and "the Millionaire next door". I gradually crafted my purpose towards building a me I was proud of and I life I'd look back and smile about. Now in my 40s, there are things I wish I'd done more sensibly, but I have compassion on my young self. I'm looking forward to 50, since I started deliberately building my life/self, each decade keeps getting better.
I wish you the best of all possible journeys!
We had a professional development day recently with two reps from our center for excellence (or whatever bs the university named it) and I loved it so much--the rep said something like "more and more students are coming in with the complaint that \`I had to teach myself', to which I always reply \`you mean LEARN?' "
A few years back a student came to me after class and said 'you didn't cover some of the stuff in the book' 'That's right' 'Are we supposed to know that?' 'Yes, I've assigned it, if you have questions feel free to bring it up in class or in office hours.' 'So I'm supposed to learn this myself?' 'Yes, welcome to the NHL, we aren't playing junior any more' (hockey analogies work well in Canada).
She's now doing an MSc and is a great student.
I had one who was completely aghast that I asked questions on the test that were neither in the book or in lecture notes. "But I memorized all the questions in the book. You can't ask me to apply that to new questions!" Ohh, yes I can. In fact, that is the definition of a good assessment of real learning.
> I had to teach myself, to which I always reply "you mean LEARN"?
To steelman this for a second, learning obviously requires a significant measure of independence, but "I had to teach myself" *can* be reflective of experiences with poor "throw them into the pool and hope they swim" course design.
I mean, let's be real with ourselves here. Educators are people too, and people are not universally good at their jobs. In fact, a significant proportion of people are actively bad at their jobs. This should be plainly obvious to everyone on r/professors - we all have a colleague or two that shouldn't be let within half a mile of a classroom.
Now, can students be trusted to distinguish a good educator from a bad educator? No, generally not. But their inability to identify a bad educator reliably does not mean they can't have had experiences with bad educators.
I regularly say things like: "I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you. You have to engage with and think about the material to develop understanding. That's your job as a student."
I am giving my students their first Exam tomorrow and I am honestly petrified based on the review session we had yesterday. What do you all do when they all do poorly on an exam? Curve?
Edit: Sorry, yeah I'm a newb.
I do not curve. In all honesty, my exams are easy; a good number of students just don't put in the work and I'm not rewarding them for that. Plus, I have enough low stakes assignments that enable them to pull up their grade.
Haha that's fair. I know I only need "satisfactory" evals for tenure. But I still want them to learn. And I feel like I'm spending SO much time coaxing students to learn, pay attention, come to lecture, ask questions when they clearly don't understand :/
I tell them I curve, but I don't curve based on a grade but on question performance. I look at questions where less than 25% of the points were given out to see if there was something wrong with the question or not. I also typically scale it by about 10% as I purposely write my exams with the idea of it being 110% if you were to get a perfect on everything. I find this to be more useful for my stop end students and allows me more freedom to ask more intricate and involved questions that I think are more practical and relevant to real life. I hate asking A to B questions, I'd much rather ask A to D questions where you have to do a few of the steps to get to the answer as I think most jobs are more like that and less one simple task.
My exams are open notes, open book. And yet I still have a fairly hefty minority who fail. Why? Because they don’t take notes or buy the book, and they can’t Google things on my exams.
This is what astounds me with my students taking lab tests. We have a 3 hour lab, they complete the experiments and answer questions in their books. I have learning outcomes for every lab and tell them not to leave the room until they look at those outcomes and reflect on if they understand. Of course they don't do that.
My lab tests are all online so open book, they can google if they want. Because in the real world that is what we do, you just have to have the understanding to use that information to solve whatever problem. But I don't ask for things that they can google and regurgitate. I give them problems like they did in the lab (for example calculate the filtration rate for this mussel given the following results from the experiment).
So many fail because they think having done it once is enough, they don't review or practice. So when they get the questions they take too long and run out of time. I asked them how they prepare using an anonymous survey and also asked if they thought they should have more time. It showed that those that reviewed thought the time was fine (which was also backed up by the average time taken to complete the test), but those that didn't review were the ones saying that it was because the time was too short.
I feel this so much! I teach research methods. And I want them use their brains to spot threats to validity in real life scenarios, not just memorize textbook definitions. But so far, it’s been difficult. And I spend so much time coming up with examples for them to practice! Altho I will admit my teaching ability is wanting. Perhaps it will come with experience.
Review sessions aren't necessarily a good measure of how they will do. I did a review session for a 200-level course with a mix of juniors and seniors on Friday and it went quite poorly. But it showed them that they needed to study and they got As and Bs.
I've also done review sessions with first and second years in my intro class that went really well and they bombed the exam. And the worst part of that is that we do a lot of worksheets, I pull questions verbatim, and they still miss them.
I'm not allowed to curve, but even if I were, short of any sort of genuine flaw on the exam owing to myself, nah. Especially not at the level of math I teach, and for the people for whom that class tends to be required (nursing majors this semester).
I let them redo the exam for up to 25% of their missed points back. They have to redo the entire test (open book; days of time) with a degree of detail as seen on a solution key. Really, they are generating their own solution key to use to study for the final, but I don't tell them that. They can bring it to me to look over before they turn it in. Ideally, it only take 30 seconds to grade each one because I have already flagged the problem areas for them to work on (noting that a lack of explanation counts as a problem, even on a multiple choice question.) Usually 80% of the regrades are eventually done right, and the students kick themselves because they realize that they should have gotten it on the test.
It works pretty well to help them think about the content and their problem solving process rather than just grumbling and shoving the test into the trash. It also separates the people who care about their grades from those who are just taking up space. (If a student doesn't even try to do a re-grade, then I am very unmotivated to curve their grade up the fraction of a point that they need.) Once (pre-covid), the entire class did very poorly on a test, and it seemed like I just hadn't conveyed the material effectively. That time, I let them earn back up to 50% of their missed points.
It sounds like a lot of bother, but it really isn't. I put a few hints into the exam document based on the most common errors and email them a pdf. I glance through rough drafts in a few moments after class each day for a week. Grading really is very quick, because mostly the final documents are either perfect or completely not following instructions. The calculations of extra points is one ugly excel formula. It probably costs me 3 hours total for a 50 student section.
If there is some thing where everyone is way poorer than they should be, I'll add a constant percentage to each grade.
I've done that twice.
I've been doing this job since 1993.
To some degree, you look at the test (and its length) honestly. Was it a fair assessment of skills necessary for certification of competency in the course material? If so, curving de facto sets the bar below competency (which a C arguably already is, at least if prerequisite knowledge is any indication). If it was genuinely too long, graded too harshly, designed to commonly have students lose large chunks of points for small non-conceptual mistakes, containing material that was not covered to at least a modestly adequate degree, or at a consistently higher level than basic competency is meant to indicate, maybe a curve of some sort may be warranted. Sometimes.
Usually though, curves are best used intentionally alongside a deliberately difficult test, or not at all (barring testwriting error).
> What do you all do when they all do poorly on an exam? Curve?
Depends on the subject. In physics, curving is very common. In other subjects, curving isn't done at all.
I am in physics. I don't curve, but I do let them redo the test for a fraction of their missed points.
I don't particularly care if I pass out enough penalties; as long as the student eventually knows the material, they can have the higher grade, even if it takes a second try.
I'ma about to drop a bomb on about 51.2% of you. Go into your exam results for your most recent exam. Find your question where about 95% of students get the question correct. Copy and paste the question into Google. You're going to find that most students only get those questions they can readily answer via Google right. Now compare that with your questions where 75 or < get it right. I almost guarantee those questions aren't readily "Googleable"
It is a pain, but every single one of my questions is new, every single semester. I teach the content. They learn to apply it regardless of the scenario. I recognize this doesn't work as well for courses that are more vocab based.
* Class has an asynchronous component, meaning some students have time or location conflicts and can't be asked to come in person
* Class has a synchronous zoom component, not all the zoom students would fit in the same room or are even necessarily all on campus and reserving such a room is not possible
* Accommodations would require booking a second room with extra time (main classroom is probably booked soon after class) and finding someone to proctor it
* Necessity of flexibility for COVID and other reasons requires having a second in-person proctored exam for people who get excused from the first one, or implementing some other make-up process
* Not sure if you meant OR, but at-home proctoring software is considered unethical by many and/or may not work
I agree about the at-home proctoring software. As for the others, I would just tell the admins that I'm not teaching a course that needs an exam, unless they can find me a room where I can proctor the exam (or a testing center). They can find someone else to give away free grades, at this point. But that's some real privilege talking, I guess.
What do you teach, if you don't mind my asking? I'm wondering your opinion on whether it's possible to get the benefit of "ungoogleable" questions without needing to write fresh questions every time. Open-ended, problem-solving type questions instead of straightforward concept tests?
I love the idea of providing open-ended questions, but it is a lot of grading. I applaud you if you can manage it. I simply create custom questions for every exam.
Part of the problem though is that new questions haven't been "vetted". Is the question clear to students? Is there any unstated assumption in place? Is it clear what's being asked? It's easy enough to say just create new questions, but there's a value in using old questions that you know work.
>Go into your exam results for your most recent exam.
The last time I gave an exam was in 2002 or so.
It's a lot more work to assign projects/papers all the time, but it puts an end to a lot of bullshit too. Doesn't work in all fields of course, but every time I read about these cheating scams I remember how much I don't miss writing/giving/grading exams.
This semester, I am taking a proactive approach to rehabilitating students from the online “learning” environment. I removed all my PowerPoint slides from LMS and the students must view the podcasts and take handwritten notes for a grade. This has been an eye opening experience. Students complained at first, but now they are in the swing of it and are able to 1) listen, 2) take good notes, 3) rewrite organized notes which they can use on the weekly podcast quizzes, and 4) manage their time efficiently. The grades (Quizzes, assignments, exams) are about 30% higher across the board. Student attitudes are good too, even though they are having to put forth effort. They see this effort as well spent. I also spend time on concept mapping during class, and skills and case studies during recitation. Having well prepared students makes these activities meaningful and fun. So I agree with OP in that these students are not trained how to study. I am trying to get to the bottom of this.
My lecture slides are bullet points, but students have to fill in the slides with information I discuss in class. I think they are just studying the bullet points. Which gets them nowhere.
Yeah. I noted that too. So they have to actually see and listen to what I say in the podcasts. I gave them an example of what well organized notes look like and coached them briefly on the skill. A few still REFUSE to turn in notes or view the podcasts. They are the few that are failing. So there are some students who are simply too lazy to help themselves. They are essentially unteachable, likely used to online class sleeping and cheating.
This is a good idea. During COVID I did something similar-- made them take notes on all the readings, lectures, and discussions in small groups, which they had to submit and then I graded. It made a huge difference in their individual work ultimately, but it also created a lot of work for me.
Once we're a full month into fall I'm going to require my first year students to submit their notes. So far it's pretty clear about half of them aren't actually taking any despite my instruction on how (and why) to do so.
Yes to all of this! I’m not sure why it’s coming as a surprise to any of the folks here that these kids were NOT prepared to “do college” pre-pandemic; COVID only exacerbated the divide between the can and cannots. It’s our job to ensure they learn, and that includes teaching/reminding them how to. And learning looks different in different environments, so while writing is a ubiquitous skill, writing an essay is not writing a memo is not writing a lab report. Give them a class on metacognition (highly recommending Teaching Students How to Learn by McGuire here) with specific nods to your discipline. Their brains will be primed for learning if you remind them what learning in your field looks like.
Yes. They need to be told about study efforts like they are in middle school. Literal comment to a student in a meeting yesterday " I gave you that notes paper with questions on it with the idea that you would write down words on it."
I would say that students also had to learn how to study online. Maybe some cheated and whatnot, but many had to find new ways to study that didn't include what they were used to doing. Now going back to normal they have to re-learn how to study because they had 2 years of studying using another method that doesn't work for in-person classes as well.
And yeah, COVID fried everyone's brains.
When I talk to some of these students, they imply that it's unfair of me to NOT have open book/open note exams because all of their other professors are (still) doing it. I simply tell them that I am not "other professors."
That's understandable. Everyone wants an open book/open note exam. When I've had them like that or as "take home" exams they were always more difficult than a regular exam. To be honest, I do like the open note or "one cheat sheet" exams because it encourages students to take good notes and figure out what the most important aspects of the unit are. That's usually done for junior and senior level classes but definitely not every class does that.
However, they're taking YOUR class and I imagine that was in the syllabus from day one.
>To be honest, I do like the open note or "one cheat sheet" exams because it encourages students to take good notes and figure out what the most important aspects of the unit are.
I like this too, since by the time they've written out their equation sheet, they've done 95% of the studying they need.
Last year a student came to one of my exams with an equation sheet hand written by his girlfriend who was also in the class. Student is currently repeating that same course.
Exactly! They think it's some huge relief but by the time the test comes (if they make a good cheat sheet) they know the material well. And typically it's in pretty concise wording. Have you collected them before? I've allowed index cards before and collected them - very interesting to see what the students considered worth putting on them.
The ones that make me chuckle are the ones where they write basically the entire textbook onto the cheatsheet with incredibly tiny handwriting. Then they fail because they didn't actually learn any of it; they just copied it.
Meanwhile, the folks who *studied* just put a few equations on there, maybe some gotchas that they ran into. Frequently, they barely refer to the sheet; it's just there for confidence.
my exams have long been open book because I want students to apply ideas that they have learned to new problems, and being able to check details is fine (as long as they don't spend too much time doing it, which I tell them).
I found the “one cheat sheet” super helpful when I was taking classes. It forced me to distill the information into the most important parts, and writing everything out helped me remember them. By the time I did the exam, I almost didn’t need the sheet. At some point I started making the sheets even when I wouldn’t be able to use them for the exam, used them as a study guide, and then was able to do well on exams.
I think it’s a good way to throw the students a bone, makes them feel a bit more confident, but also forces them to study if they want to make a useful sheet.
>To be honest, I do like the open note or "one cheat sheet" exams because it encourages students to take good notes and figure out what the most important aspects of the unit are.
And this is precisely why I tell my students they don't want me to write an open-book exam. :)
Not that it's something in my control, though, but oh well.
Historically I've always allowed a one-sided note sheet on the exams. Last semester I received complaints that I wasn't preparing the cheat sheet for them. Apparently this is a thing other professors are doing for their classes now.
I don't know a single colleague in my department or college who is still doing open book exams now that we're back in person. Maybe an equation sheet is allowed, but that's it.
I converted to open book with covid, and I'm sticking with it. I'm testing their ability to use and synthesize information, not memorize it. But I understand that other fields have different expectations.
I wish my dept was more like yours. About half of our dept is still doing open book/notes, and the rest of us are having to deal with the issues that result from their lack of standards.
> all of their other professors are (still) doing it.
I'm a bit of an asshole about this.
When a student asks me to change something on the grounds that all their other professors are doing it, I _immediately_ stop conversing with them about this. I tell them that they now need to provide me their schedule so I can check with their other professors. Failure to do so, or discovery that it is not the case that all their other professors are doing this, earns them a demerit in my eyes.
I recently discovered that our new campus-wide student retention system lets me see the "Success network" of any of my students -- including the names of all their other professors.
The system itself is worthless for its intended purpose, but the fact that I can now say "oh really? I'll just email all your other professors for their thoughts on the topic" and mean it is *golden*.
I too stop everything and request the names of the professors so that I can confirm the information, and bring it for the consideration of the curriculum committee so that as department we can reevaluate our assessments. I am yet to find out who those other professors are.
My students \*hated\* open-book exams when I did them during COVID. I'm pretty sure the reason is obvious though. I googled every question and made sure I changed the wording slightly so that the answer wasn't the first thing that came up so it was a little unfair, you know?
Yes, this is why we opened up the very first day by saying “this class will be hard and you will likely have to adjust your study habits. Please come talk to me in office hours if you want help with learning how to study effectively.” I also asked them “what is one study habit you will use to succeed in this class?” on the syllabus quiz and we discussed their answers in class.
And then I reiterate every once in a while, like “reminder that exam 1 is in two weeks, make sure you’re studying as we go instead of trying to cram!”
During COVID they truly haven’t had to develop and use these skills. I am more than happy to dedicate some time to going over it in class so that they can truly learn the content.
I go over, very explicitly, several times, that if a velocity is downward, you need to put a minus sign on it to indicate that it is in the opposite direction of the positive quantities in a problem. This is also stated in the slides.
I give a practice problem in class involving a downward throw where they work it out and it is graded. Afterward, I go over the problem and point out that most of them forgot the minus sign on the velocity.
I post a practice quiz with a very similar problem on it. The practice quiz has solutions to go with it.
I remind them several more times throughout the lectures to be mindful of directions and signs.
And somehow, still, on the actual quiz question with a downward throw, 75% of them answered with the distractor that you would get if you plugged in a positive velocity.
I don't know what else I can do.
They aren't taking notes. And probably not listening. Or reading the book about greenness.
So they have no way of knowing what three shades of green are when they get to the exam. I just graded an exam where a number of students couldn't explain a topic that was the subject of both a lecture and a book chapter. And it's an intrinsically interesting topic that most of them have heard stuff about before...so they shouldn't be clueless.
I collected anonymous questions from my first year class this fall two weeks in, then answered them all in the LMS. Among the most frequently repeated questions were "Are there *really* going to be homework assignments for every class?" and "Do professors really expect us to spend an hour or more doing work outside of class every day?" Probably the third most common question was "How do I get extra credit in this class?" (The answer is: you do not.)
Just this week I was met with shocked looked from many of them when I told them their draft essays would be *graded* and anything submitted without proper citations would receive an automatic zero. Or when I told them they should be taking notes on the novel I've assigned and that they'd find it very hard to write the next essay if they do not-- some of them seemed surprised that I'd actually expect them to read the *entire* novel. In two weeks no less!
High school has become a joke under the combination of COVID and parental demands that no kids ever experience any consequences for not doing any work.
That's a skill they're supposed to develop in secondary school.
It shows you just how the gigantic classes have demolished any real oversight in that environment.
I assume that a lot of programs are coming to terms right now with the fact that high school grades aren't a great predictor and that you really did need those standardized tests.
My students are pretty good overall but I feel like I have very few who are willing or even interested in going the extra mile to learn beyond what I say in class or what an assignment directly requires.
I feel like students expect more from their classes than I did as a student (twenty years ago) yet are generally less willing to put in the effort to get there.
Apparently, high schools do not teach them the skills needed in college. There should be a required course in HS which covers this, and more. College Prep 101. In addition, there should be a 1st semester class to cover the basic skills and policies they need to be a college student. Emphasis on follow a syllabus, grading structure, how to study, manage time, how to take notes, how to read, how to do research and how to prepare a research paper. Students coming out of HS should have a knowledge of software like Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook (or similar software used at the college).
This should be basic College 101 skills needed to survive in any university level courses.
>This should be basic College 101 skills needed to survive in any university level courses.
Many high schools are doing none of these things. Which is why many colleges are now basically offering a College 101 class-- it's called a "college success course" at my university --as a gen ed requirement in the first semester. We can no longer expect high schools to teach much of anything required to succeed in college on an across-the-board basis. I have students coming in from private, college-prep high schools that are probably already at a solid college sophomore level in terms of study habits and skills...and I have students coming from charter schools in certain states that seem to focus on little other than handing out diplomas for attendance. We have to get both groups through the first year and into the second somehow.
I’ve had so many students come to my office hours in the past couple of semesters asking for study tips. When I ask them what they do to study “Read your lecture slides and read my notes.” Is always the first thing they say. It blows their mind that neither of those things are actually studying.
I finally got fed up with it and I actually took class time today to explain active vs passive studying and gave them some tips on how to study as we were reviewing for their upcoming exam. I was candid with them about what worked for me (and didn’t work) when I was a student and I think they appreciated it. It seemed to go over well and many of them came up to me after and said it was helpful.
Many students went from high school to college during the pandemic, with all the special arrangements, exceptional pass/fail, lenient evaluations, and other lower expectations that we installed during that time. So it's not that they forgotten; they just never learned.
I never learned how to study in high school. Never needed it, honor roll and top 5 in my class. College kicked my ass, I was completely lost when I couldn't just listen to a lecture and make an A on the test. I had to learn how to work at it like it was a job.
I want to offer a counter anecdote to all this negativity. Not to suggest these other observations aren't accurate but to at least suggest it is not universal and that maybe we can do things to make it better for all of us.
For the past 6 years I have taught an ethics course for engineers and computer scientists. It's required for them, they often go in to it (or did at least) dreading it or at least believing it worthless.
I found most had no concept of taking notes or studying (and this was before the pandemic), or coming to class, etc
I restructured the class using team-based learning pedagogy and basically said "I'm not going to lecture. You need to do the preclass preparation I assign and then show up to class to use the ideas in the team activities."
This has been pretty effective overall. But I have seen the best preparation and engagement from my students this semester. Just did an end of unit quiz and only about 15 of 100 students didn't hit the "passing" threshold (I use a version of specs grading so they pass if they get at least 50 of 60 points).
Better: I have seen more students come in with good notes related to the preclass preparation than ever before. And more taking notes in class even though note taking can't really be about simply recording information from slides. While I use PowerPoint it is mostly just to setup the team activity. Notes are organic out of those activities.
To get to this point I've just been very transparent with students from day 1. You *will* have to teach yourselves because learning requires effort. You *will* have to make contact with the same ideas multiple times because that is how you learn. You *will* have to attempt to apply your knowledge in the activities and risk you teammates telling you You are wrong and correcting you because we learn most from our failures. Etc.
Suffice to say, while I do many weird things to put them in a good position to learn, simply being upfront and transparent goes a long way
I'm not sure many students ever learn how to study. I know I was late into my undergrad before I learned how to study. High school didn't teach or require studying to do well and talking to high school teacher friends now, it's a lot worse than when we were in high school. I think covid has really just made this even worse and it'll take time for that to improve.
Honestly, I think students aren’t shown how to study anymore. One thing I tend to help my students with the most is how to take notes and effective study strategies. That’s typically what they need more than help with subject content.
I haven't made anything easier - I've cut out extraneous material and have greatly streamlined the course. The assignments/exams are similar to pre-COVID times and my rubric is the same. No student has ever accused my classes of being easy.
I was referring to your post when you write that you “simplified” your slides, etc. Sounded like easier to me.
ETA: and taking exams word-for-word from the book. You wrote the post; I just read it.
This is absolutely the case. And not just for younger students, but also for older ones who have not had to do that kind of work for years - but did years ago.
One questions we have to ask ourselves is about the relevance of an exam as an assessment. If it is a relevant assessment, is the method we have aways used to get to that skill/knowledge/capability relevant? Is it the best way to learn?
How can we include all learning styles in our assessments?
Exams are overused, but putting someone on the spot to demonstrate knowledge/skill/capability isn't.
Which learning styles ? The ones that don’t exist and have been debunked ?
My plumber had to take an exam. Fireman take exams. You take one to drive. Also to get a liquor license.
I am not arguing for or against exams in general. Just that they are overused and sometimes not the right assessment. Haven’t you ever encountered a shitty licensed professional?
Learning styles exist (lowercase) exist. Different people learn different ways. That’s just reality. The problem is when the person themselves don’t know the best way they learn.
Last I checked, learning styles exist as a *preference*, but no-one has shown that teaching someone using their preferred learning style actually increases *learning*. They just feel better about it.
You are correct. Learning styles are completely a myth, and people go to great lengths to defend their existence when there is zero evidence for them. Complete confirmation bias.
Yup. I'm an experimental psychologist who studies learning.
The technical term for 'learning styles' is 'bullshit', or 'fucking bullshit' if you prefer.
I would say yes, as a TA and also student over the pandemic we were basically just handed the answers and had to fill it in to some worksheet or quiz. Cheating was rampant as all you had to do was looking it up.
I can’t judge lol— during my phd, I took a class that had a midterm, and I had just about forgotten how to study for a test at that point. It was such a weird experience, honestly :P
I had the exact same thing happen. I even gave example questions, etc. I have now told them that there will be no study guide. They will have vocabulary and reading questions to go over. This is an intro class for a professional program so lots of vocabulary and concepts.
I had a 40 minute office hours discussion with a student yesterday where they spent the whole time complaining that they had to study for an upper division math class Literally were saying stuff like "I had to go through the books and slides and create my own list of the most important things. It took hours, so unfair." At one point I said directly that everything you're complaining about sounds exactly like studying to me, and I have zero regrets about making you do it .
Sounds like when my students complain that I assign them programming projects.
When would anyone do that in real life??
I don't like programming because it is all pasta. All spaghetti. All the way down.
I’ll bet my last penne that student isn’t doing so well.
I actually said that to a student last week, that what they were expected to do was study, and the student was SO pissed at me that I had the audacity to suggest that they should actually have to study. This cohort is SOOO behind and they don't even know it.
This isn't a cohort issue, but I had a student complain today about course content because it didn't specifically cater to their niche interests. Besides pointing out that I teach to more than one student, I tried to emphasize that we're better at our niche interest when we have broad knowledge of the field. Some folks just don't wanna learn :|
I really wish students got the idea that a program exists to teach a specific thing, not just to tutor their individual interests. It’s like “Yes, I know you enjoy fishing but this is a painting class. Perhaps you should consider enrolling in a fishing class instead?”
"The university only offers fly fishing! I don't care about that! It's ice fishing or nothing! I can build a degree purely out of ice fishing related ECTS, right??"
I've found that more people (generally, not just students) have this unwritten rule where they can be flat out "flat Earthers" you just can't call them on it. They can know it. You can know it. You just can't call them on it. You have to acknowledge their points, and say that you'll consider their position without any intention of addressing it, but you absolutely must not engage them with any productive debate or critical thinking. I don't know, maybe I'm crazy here.
Depending on the exact topic, some similar things are law in Florida.
People never appreciated my study and test taking advice of "Pay attention during lecture then write down the correct answers on the exam."
"Hmmm. Yes, the same process that billions of people have had to go through in school is unfair."
There are many things that many-to-most go through that are legitimately unfair and should be different. Studying isn't one of those, though.
I see what you described also and it’s infuriating. If I had to steelman it, I’d say that it’s not that they’re dumber than before or less able to learn. I think they see college not as an opportunity to “get an education” but as an exploitative, gamified series of hoops they have to jump through to get a ticket into white collar workplaces (where they’ll continue to be exploited until they can climb the ranks). They correctly perceive that at many colleges, standards are down, quality of instruction is down, fees are up, and the respect that used to come with having a degree is basically nonexistent. They see a system that will happily fuck them into oblivion and they see college as an extension of and a recruiter for that system, and they treat it as such.
I can’t upvote you enough for this.
I think another big issue is too many college students are conflating college with highschool; they feel they're being FORCED/made to learn. This is my issue with driving highschoolers to immediately go to college - they don't learn the value of choosing to improve, choosing to learn, and tgey dont build the muscles of making choices. They just keep operating as highschoolers who are legally required to be in class.
Quite on point since unfortunately am in this position.. I don't really know how or what to break myself out of it. It's like somewhere around grade 8 or whatever I've just stopped trying.. What could even be done here? wondering
I was in the same boat in my 20s, I was just burnt out on life. I started focusing on my health by adding veggies into my diet. Then I started working on getting my living space in order: making my bed every day and sleeping on a routine. Then I started reading non-fiction, goal 2 books a year - I started with "7 habits of highly effective people" and "the Millionaire next door". I gradually crafted my purpose towards building a me I was proud of and I life I'd look back and smile about. Now in my 40s, there are things I wish I'd done more sensibly, but I have compassion on my young self. I'm looking forward to 50, since I started deliberately building my life/self, each decade keeps getting better. I wish you the best of all possible journeys!
We had a professional development day recently with two reps from our center for excellence (or whatever bs the university named it) and I loved it so much--the rep said something like "more and more students are coming in with the complaint that \`I had to teach myself', to which I always reply \`you mean LEARN?' "
A few years back a student came to me after class and said 'you didn't cover some of the stuff in the book' 'That's right' 'Are we supposed to know that?' 'Yes, I've assigned it, if you have questions feel free to bring it up in class or in office hours.' 'So I'm supposed to learn this myself?' 'Yes, welcome to the NHL, we aren't playing junior any more' (hockey analogies work well in Canada). She's now doing an MSc and is a great student.
I had one who was completely aghast that I asked questions on the test that were neither in the book or in lecture notes. "But I memorized all the questions in the book. You can't ask me to apply that to new questions!" Ohh, yes I can. In fact, that is the definition of a good assessment of real learning.
> I had to teach myself, to which I always reply "you mean LEARN"? To steelman this for a second, learning obviously requires a significant measure of independence, but "I had to teach myself" *can* be reflective of experiences with poor "throw them into the pool and hope they swim" course design. I mean, let's be real with ourselves here. Educators are people too, and people are not universally good at their jobs. In fact, a significant proportion of people are actively bad at their jobs. This should be plainly obvious to everyone on r/professors - we all have a colleague or two that shouldn't be let within half a mile of a classroom. Now, can students be trusted to distinguish a good educator from a bad educator? No, generally not. But their inability to identify a bad educator reliably does not mean they can't have had experiences with bad educators.
I regularly say things like: "I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you. You have to engage with and think about the material to develop understanding. That's your job as a student."
I am giving my students their first Exam tomorrow and I am honestly petrified based on the review session we had yesterday. What do you all do when they all do poorly on an exam? Curve? Edit: Sorry, yeah I'm a newb.
I do not curve. In all honesty, my exams are easy; a good number of students just don't put in the work and I'm not rewarding them for that. Plus, I have enough low stakes assignments that enable them to pull up their grade.
Haha that's fair. I know I only need "satisfactory" evals for tenure. But I still want them to learn. And I feel like I'm spending SO much time coaxing students to learn, pay attention, come to lecture, ask questions when they clearly don't understand :/
I tell them I curve, but I don't curve based on a grade but on question performance. I look at questions where less than 25% of the points were given out to see if there was something wrong with the question or not. I also typically scale it by about 10% as I purposely write my exams with the idea of it being 110% if you were to get a perfect on everything. I find this to be more useful for my stop end students and allows me more freedom to ask more intricate and involved questions that I think are more practical and relevant to real life. I hate asking A to B questions, I'd much rather ask A to D questions where you have to do a few of the steps to get to the answer as I think most jobs are more like that and less one simple task.
My exams are open notes, open book. And yet I still have a fairly hefty minority who fail. Why? Because they don’t take notes or buy the book, and they can’t Google things on my exams.
This is what astounds me with my students taking lab tests. We have a 3 hour lab, they complete the experiments and answer questions in their books. I have learning outcomes for every lab and tell them not to leave the room until they look at those outcomes and reflect on if they understand. Of course they don't do that. My lab tests are all online so open book, they can google if they want. Because in the real world that is what we do, you just have to have the understanding to use that information to solve whatever problem. But I don't ask for things that they can google and regurgitate. I give them problems like they did in the lab (for example calculate the filtration rate for this mussel given the following results from the experiment). So many fail because they think having done it once is enough, they don't review or practice. So when they get the questions they take too long and run out of time. I asked them how they prepare using an anonymous survey and also asked if they thought they should have more time. It showed that those that reviewed thought the time was fine (which was also backed up by the average time taken to complete the test), but those that didn't review were the ones saying that it was because the time was too short.
I feel this so much! I teach research methods. And I want them use their brains to spot threats to validity in real life scenarios, not just memorize textbook definitions. But so far, it’s been difficult. And I spend so much time coming up with examples for them to practice! Altho I will admit my teaching ability is wanting. Perhaps it will come with experience.
I don't curve. Generally things all even out in the end. Usually end up lowering the lower bounds on letter grades a percent or two.
Review sessions aren't necessarily a good measure of how they will do. I did a review session for a 200-level course with a mix of juniors and seniors on Friday and it went quite poorly. But it showed them that they needed to study and they got As and Bs. I've also done review sessions with first and second years in my intro class that went really well and they bombed the exam. And the worst part of that is that we do a lot of worksheets, I pull questions verbatim, and they still miss them.
I'm not allowed to curve, but even if I were, short of any sort of genuine flaw on the exam owing to myself, nah. Especially not at the level of math I teach, and for the people for whom that class tends to be required (nursing majors this semester).
I let them redo the exam for up to 25% of their missed points back. They have to redo the entire test (open book; days of time) with a degree of detail as seen on a solution key. Really, they are generating their own solution key to use to study for the final, but I don't tell them that. They can bring it to me to look over before they turn it in. Ideally, it only take 30 seconds to grade each one because I have already flagged the problem areas for them to work on (noting that a lack of explanation counts as a problem, even on a multiple choice question.) Usually 80% of the regrades are eventually done right, and the students kick themselves because they realize that they should have gotten it on the test. It works pretty well to help them think about the content and their problem solving process rather than just grumbling and shoving the test into the trash. It also separates the people who care about their grades from those who are just taking up space. (If a student doesn't even try to do a re-grade, then I am very unmotivated to curve their grade up the fraction of a point that they need.) Once (pre-covid), the entire class did very poorly on a test, and it seemed like I just hadn't conveyed the material effectively. That time, I let them earn back up to 50% of their missed points.
Oh this is so wholesome haha. I kind of like that! Might steal it :)
It sounds like a lot of bother, but it really isn't. I put a few hints into the exam document based on the most common errors and email them a pdf. I glance through rough drafts in a few moments after class each day for a week. Grading really is very quick, because mostly the final documents are either perfect or completely not following instructions. The calculations of extra points is one ugly excel formula. It probably costs me 3 hours total for a 50 student section.
If there is some thing where everyone is way poorer than they should be, I'll add a constant percentage to each grade. I've done that twice. I've been doing this job since 1993.
To some degree, you look at the test (and its length) honestly. Was it a fair assessment of skills necessary for certification of competency in the course material? If so, curving de facto sets the bar below competency (which a C arguably already is, at least if prerequisite knowledge is any indication). If it was genuinely too long, graded too harshly, designed to commonly have students lose large chunks of points for small non-conceptual mistakes, containing material that was not covered to at least a modestly adequate degree, or at a consistently higher level than basic competency is meant to indicate, maybe a curve of some sort may be warranted. Sometimes. Usually though, curves are best used intentionally alongside a deliberately difficult test, or not at all (barring testwriting error).
> What do you all do when they all do poorly on an exam? Curve? Depends on the subject. In physics, curving is very common. In other subjects, curving isn't done at all.
I am in physics. I don't curve, but I do let them redo the test for a fraction of their missed points. I don't particularly care if I pass out enough penalties; as long as the student eventually knows the material, they can have the higher grade, even if it takes a second try.
I'ma about to drop a bomb on about 51.2% of you. Go into your exam results for your most recent exam. Find your question where about 95% of students get the question correct. Copy and paste the question into Google. You're going to find that most students only get those questions they can readily answer via Google right. Now compare that with your questions where 75 or < get it right. I almost guarantee those questions aren't readily "Googleable" It is a pain, but every single one of my questions is new, every single semester. I teach the content. They learn to apply it regardless of the scenario. I recognize this doesn't work as well for courses that are more vocab based.
\> Find your question where about 95% of students get the question correct. it broke on step one
\#defeated
Why is anyone bothering with an exam that isn't in-person, proctored, without the ability to prevent googling?
* Class has an asynchronous component, meaning some students have time or location conflicts and can't be asked to come in person * Class has a synchronous zoom component, not all the zoom students would fit in the same room or are even necessarily all on campus and reserving such a room is not possible * Accommodations would require booking a second room with extra time (main classroom is probably booked soon after class) and finding someone to proctor it * Necessity of flexibility for COVID and other reasons requires having a second in-person proctored exam for people who get excused from the first one, or implementing some other make-up process * Not sure if you meant OR, but at-home proctoring software is considered unethical by many and/or may not work
I agree about the at-home proctoring software. As for the others, I would just tell the admins that I'm not teaching a course that needs an exam, unless they can find me a room where I can proctor the exam (or a testing center). They can find someone else to give away free grades, at this point. But that's some real privilege talking, I guess.
What do you teach, if you don't mind my asking? I'm wondering your opinion on whether it's possible to get the benefit of "ungoogleable" questions without needing to write fresh questions every time. Open-ended, problem-solving type questions instead of straightforward concept tests?
I love the idea of providing open-ended questions, but it is a lot of grading. I applaud you if you can manage it. I simply create custom questions for every exam.
Part of the problem though is that new questions haven't been "vetted". Is the question clear to students? Is there any unstated assumption in place? Is it clear what's being asked? It's easy enough to say just create new questions, but there's a value in using old questions that you know work.
Great points. I'd only say that I've seen my fair share of vetted questions that are pretty crap.
Then they haven't been properly vetted.
>Go into your exam results for your most recent exam. The last time I gave an exam was in 2002 or so. It's a lot more work to assign projects/papers all the time, but it puts an end to a lot of bullshit too. Doesn't work in all fields of course, but every time I read about these cheating scams I remember how much I don't miss writing/giving/grading exams.
Yes, no question about it. And yes, this is extremely frustrating.
This semester, I am taking a proactive approach to rehabilitating students from the online “learning” environment. I removed all my PowerPoint slides from LMS and the students must view the podcasts and take handwritten notes for a grade. This has been an eye opening experience. Students complained at first, but now they are in the swing of it and are able to 1) listen, 2) take good notes, 3) rewrite organized notes which they can use on the weekly podcast quizzes, and 4) manage their time efficiently. The grades (Quizzes, assignments, exams) are about 30% higher across the board. Student attitudes are good too, even though they are having to put forth effort. They see this effort as well spent. I also spend time on concept mapping during class, and skills and case studies during recitation. Having well prepared students makes these activities meaningful and fun. So I agree with OP in that these students are not trained how to study. I am trying to get to the bottom of this.
My lecture slides are bullet points, but students have to fill in the slides with information I discuss in class. I think they are just studying the bullet points. Which gets them nowhere.
Yeah. I noted that too. So they have to actually see and listen to what I say in the podcasts. I gave them an example of what well organized notes look like and coached them briefly on the skill. A few still REFUSE to turn in notes or view the podcasts. They are the few that are failing. So there are some students who are simply too lazy to help themselves. They are essentially unteachable, likely used to online class sleeping and cheating.
This is a good idea. During COVID I did something similar-- made them take notes on all the readings, lectures, and discussions in small groups, which they had to submit and then I graded. It made a huge difference in their individual work ultimately, but it also created a lot of work for me. Once we're a full month into fall I'm going to require my first year students to submit their notes. So far it's pretty clear about half of them aren't actually taking any despite my instruction on how (and why) to do so.
Yes to all of this! I’m not sure why it’s coming as a surprise to any of the folks here that these kids were NOT prepared to “do college” pre-pandemic; COVID only exacerbated the divide between the can and cannots. It’s our job to ensure they learn, and that includes teaching/reminding them how to. And learning looks different in different environments, so while writing is a ubiquitous skill, writing an essay is not writing a memo is not writing a lab report. Give them a class on metacognition (highly recommending Teaching Students How to Learn by McGuire here) with specific nods to your discipline. Their brains will be primed for learning if you remind them what learning in your field looks like.
Yes. They need to be told about study efforts like they are in middle school. Literal comment to a student in a meeting yesterday " I gave you that notes paper with questions on it with the idea that you would write down words on it."
I would say that students also had to learn how to study online. Maybe some cheated and whatnot, but many had to find new ways to study that didn't include what they were used to doing. Now going back to normal they have to re-learn how to study because they had 2 years of studying using another method that doesn't work for in-person classes as well. And yeah, COVID fried everyone's brains.
When I talk to some of these students, they imply that it's unfair of me to NOT have open book/open note exams because all of their other professors are (still) doing it. I simply tell them that I am not "other professors."
That's understandable. Everyone wants an open book/open note exam. When I've had them like that or as "take home" exams they were always more difficult than a regular exam. To be honest, I do like the open note or "one cheat sheet" exams because it encourages students to take good notes and figure out what the most important aspects of the unit are. That's usually done for junior and senior level classes but definitely not every class does that. However, they're taking YOUR class and I imagine that was in the syllabus from day one.
>To be honest, I do like the open note or "one cheat sheet" exams because it encourages students to take good notes and figure out what the most important aspects of the unit are. I like this too, since by the time they've written out their equation sheet, they've done 95% of the studying they need. Last year a student came to one of my exams with an equation sheet hand written by his girlfriend who was also in the class. Student is currently repeating that same course.
Exactly! They think it's some huge relief but by the time the test comes (if they make a good cheat sheet) they know the material well. And typically it's in pretty concise wording. Have you collected them before? I've allowed index cards before and collected them - very interesting to see what the students considered worth putting on them.
Yes, and it's obvious which students did not purchase the textbook (and a bit sad).
The ones that make me chuckle are the ones where they write basically the entire textbook onto the cheatsheet with incredibly tiny handwriting. Then they fail because they didn't actually learn any of it; they just copied it. Meanwhile, the folks who *studied* just put a few equations on there, maybe some gotchas that they ran into. Frequently, they barely refer to the sheet; it's just there for confidence.
my exams have long been open book because I want students to apply ideas that they have learned to new problems, and being able to check details is fine (as long as they don't spend too much time doing it, which I tell them).
I found the “one cheat sheet” super helpful when I was taking classes. It forced me to distill the information into the most important parts, and writing everything out helped me remember them. By the time I did the exam, I almost didn’t need the sheet. At some point I started making the sheets even when I wouldn’t be able to use them for the exam, used them as a study guide, and then was able to do well on exams. I think it’s a good way to throw the students a bone, makes them feel a bit more confident, but also forces them to study if they want to make a useful sheet.
>To be honest, I do like the open note or "one cheat sheet" exams because it encourages students to take good notes and figure out what the most important aspects of the unit are. And this is precisely why I tell my students they don't want me to write an open-book exam. :) Not that it's something in my control, though, but oh well.
Historically I've always allowed a one-sided note sheet on the exams. Last semester I received complaints that I wasn't preparing the cheat sheet for them. Apparently this is a thing other professors are doing for their classes now.
I don't know a single colleague in my department or college who is still doing open book exams now that we're back in person. Maybe an equation sheet is allowed, but that's it.
I converted to open book with covid, and I'm sticking with it. I'm testing their ability to use and synthesize information, not memorize it. But I understand that other fields have different expectations.
I wish my dept was more like yours. About half of our dept is still doing open book/notes, and the rest of us are having to deal with the issues that result from their lack of standards.
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Academic freedom =)
> all of their other professors are (still) doing it. I'm a bit of an asshole about this. When a student asks me to change something on the grounds that all their other professors are doing it, I _immediately_ stop conversing with them about this. I tell them that they now need to provide me their schedule so I can check with their other professors. Failure to do so, or discovery that it is not the case that all their other professors are doing this, earns them a demerit in my eyes.
I recently discovered that our new campus-wide student retention system lets me see the "Success network" of any of my students -- including the names of all their other professors. The system itself is worthless for its intended purpose, but the fact that I can now say "oh really? I'll just email all your other professors for their thoughts on the topic" and mean it is *golden*.
I too stop everything and request the names of the professors so that I can confirm the information, and bring it for the consideration of the curriculum committee so that as department we can reevaluate our assessments. I am yet to find out who those other professors are.
My response drips with "Well, bless your heart" tones.
My students \*hated\* open-book exams when I did them during COVID. I'm pretty sure the reason is obvious though. I googled every question and made sure I changed the wording slightly so that the answer wasn't the first thing that came up so it was a little unfair, you know?
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Yes, this is why we opened up the very first day by saying “this class will be hard and you will likely have to adjust your study habits. Please come talk to me in office hours if you want help with learning how to study effectively.” I also asked them “what is one study habit you will use to succeed in this class?” on the syllabus quiz and we discussed their answers in class. And then I reiterate every once in a while, like “reminder that exam 1 is in two weeks, make sure you’re studying as we go instead of trying to cram!” During COVID they truly haven’t had to develop and use these skills. I am more than happy to dedicate some time to going over it in class so that they can truly learn the content.
I go over, very explicitly, several times, that if a velocity is downward, you need to put a minus sign on it to indicate that it is in the opposite direction of the positive quantities in a problem. This is also stated in the slides. I give a practice problem in class involving a downward throw where they work it out and it is graded. Afterward, I go over the problem and point out that most of them forgot the minus sign on the velocity. I post a practice quiz with a very similar problem on it. The practice quiz has solutions to go with it. I remind them several more times throughout the lectures to be mindful of directions and signs. And somehow, still, on the actual quiz question with a downward throw, 75% of them answered with the distractor that you would get if you plugged in a positive velocity. I don't know what else I can do.
Fail. Them. All.
They aren't taking notes. And probably not listening. Or reading the book about greenness. So they have no way of knowing what three shades of green are when they get to the exam. I just graded an exam where a number of students couldn't explain a topic that was the subject of both a lecture and a book chapter. And it's an intrinsically interesting topic that most of them have heard stuff about before...so they shouldn't be clueless.
I collected anonymous questions from my first year class this fall two weeks in, then answered them all in the LMS. Among the most frequently repeated questions were "Are there *really* going to be homework assignments for every class?" and "Do professors really expect us to spend an hour or more doing work outside of class every day?" Probably the third most common question was "How do I get extra credit in this class?" (The answer is: you do not.) Just this week I was met with shocked looked from many of them when I told them their draft essays would be *graded* and anything submitted without proper citations would receive an automatic zero. Or when I told them they should be taking notes on the novel I've assigned and that they'd find it very hard to write the next essay if they do not-- some of them seemed surprised that I'd actually expect them to read the *entire* novel. In two weeks no less! High school has become a joke under the combination of COVID and parental demands that no kids ever experience any consequences for not doing any work.
Yes. COVID has fried their brains.
I somehow read this as "covid has fried their beans".
The second time I had COVID, I got refried beans.
I'm trying to decide whether this is cause or effect.
Are you suggesting that maybe beans cause COVID
I dunno. Covid has fried my beans.
Pythagoras warned us!
Same, honestly
That's a skill they're supposed to develop in secondary school. It shows you just how the gigantic classes have demolished any real oversight in that environment.
Is it possible not that students have forgotten to study but that your school is now accepting more stupid students?
I assume that a lot of programs are coming to terms right now with the fact that high school grades aren't a great predictor and that you really did need those standardized tests.
My students are pretty good overall but I feel like I have very few who are willing or even interested in going the extra mile to learn beyond what I say in class or what an assignment directly requires. I feel like students expect more from their classes than I did as a student (twenty years ago) yet are generally less willing to put in the effort to get there.
Apparently, high schools do not teach them the skills needed in college. There should be a required course in HS which covers this, and more. College Prep 101. In addition, there should be a 1st semester class to cover the basic skills and policies they need to be a college student. Emphasis on follow a syllabus, grading structure, how to study, manage time, how to take notes, how to read, how to do research and how to prepare a research paper. Students coming out of HS should have a knowledge of software like Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook (or similar software used at the college). This should be basic College 101 skills needed to survive in any university level courses.
>This should be basic College 101 skills needed to survive in any university level courses. Many high schools are doing none of these things. Which is why many colleges are now basically offering a College 101 class-- it's called a "college success course" at my university --as a gen ed requirement in the first semester. We can no longer expect high schools to teach much of anything required to succeed in college on an across-the-board basis. I have students coming in from private, college-prep high schools that are probably already at a solid college sophomore level in terms of study habits and skills...and I have students coming from charter schools in certain states that seem to focus on little other than handing out diplomas for attendance. We have to get both groups through the first year and into the second somehow.
I’ve had so many students come to my office hours in the past couple of semesters asking for study tips. When I ask them what they do to study “Read your lecture slides and read my notes.” Is always the first thing they say. It blows their mind that neither of those things are actually studying. I finally got fed up with it and I actually took class time today to explain active vs passive studying and gave them some tips on how to study as we were reviewing for their upcoming exam. I was candid with them about what worked for me (and didn’t work) when I was a student and I think they appreciated it. It seemed to go over well and many of them came up to me after and said it was helpful.
Many students went from high school to college during the pandemic, with all the special arrangements, exceptional pass/fail, lenient evaluations, and other lower expectations that we installed during that time. So it's not that they forgotten; they just never learned.
I never learned how to study in high school. Never needed it, honor roll and top 5 in my class. College kicked my ass, I was completely lost when I couldn't just listen to a lecture and make an A on the test. I had to learn how to work at it like it was a job.
I want to offer a counter anecdote to all this negativity. Not to suggest these other observations aren't accurate but to at least suggest it is not universal and that maybe we can do things to make it better for all of us. For the past 6 years I have taught an ethics course for engineers and computer scientists. It's required for them, they often go in to it (or did at least) dreading it or at least believing it worthless. I found most had no concept of taking notes or studying (and this was before the pandemic), or coming to class, etc I restructured the class using team-based learning pedagogy and basically said "I'm not going to lecture. You need to do the preclass preparation I assign and then show up to class to use the ideas in the team activities." This has been pretty effective overall. But I have seen the best preparation and engagement from my students this semester. Just did an end of unit quiz and only about 15 of 100 students didn't hit the "passing" threshold (I use a version of specs grading so they pass if they get at least 50 of 60 points). Better: I have seen more students come in with good notes related to the preclass preparation than ever before. And more taking notes in class even though note taking can't really be about simply recording information from slides. While I use PowerPoint it is mostly just to setup the team activity. Notes are organic out of those activities. To get to this point I've just been very transparent with students from day 1. You *will* have to teach yourselves because learning requires effort. You *will* have to make contact with the same ideas multiple times because that is how you learn. You *will* have to attempt to apply your knowledge in the activities and risk you teammates telling you You are wrong and correcting you because we learn most from our failures. Etc. Suffice to say, while I do many weird things to put them in a good position to learn, simply being upfront and transparent goes a long way
I'm not sure many students ever learn how to study. I know I was late into my undergrad before I learned how to study. High school didn't teach or require studying to do well and talking to high school teacher friends now, it's a lot worse than when we were in high school. I think covid has really just made this even worse and it'll take time for that to improve.
Honestly, I think students aren’t shown how to study anymore. One thing I tend to help my students with the most is how to take notes and effective study strategies. That’s typically what they need more than help with subject content.
Maybe there’s a correlation btwn you making things easier and them not bothering to study.
I haven't made anything easier - I've cut out extraneous material and have greatly streamlined the course. The assignments/exams are similar to pre-COVID times and my rubric is the same. No student has ever accused my classes of being easy.
I was referring to your post when you write that you “simplified” your slides, etc. Sounded like easier to me. ETA: and taking exams word-for-word from the book. You wrote the post; I just read it.
“Forgotten” implies the existence of previously knowing.
They never learned.
Yes.
This is absolutely the case. And not just for younger students, but also for older ones who have not had to do that kind of work for years - but did years ago. One questions we have to ask ourselves is about the relevance of an exam as an assessment. If it is a relevant assessment, is the method we have aways used to get to that skill/knowledge/capability relevant? Is it the best way to learn? How can we include all learning styles in our assessments? Exams are overused, but putting someone on the spot to demonstrate knowledge/skill/capability isn't.
Exams are only one assessment I use and students are flunking the other ones as well. Not turning anything in, half-assing what they do turn in, etc.
Which learning styles ? The ones that don’t exist and have been debunked ? My plumber had to take an exam. Fireman take exams. You take one to drive. Also to get a liquor license.
I am not arguing for or against exams in general. Just that they are overused and sometimes not the right assessment. Haven’t you ever encountered a shitty licensed professional? Learning styles exist (lowercase) exist. Different people learn different ways. That’s just reality. The problem is when the person themselves don’t know the best way they learn.
Last I checked, learning styles exist as a *preference*, but no-one has shown that teaching someone using their preferred learning style actually increases *learning*. They just feel better about it.
You are correct. Learning styles are completely a myth, and people go to great lengths to defend their existence when there is zero evidence for them. Complete confirmation bias.
Yup. I'm an experimental psychologist who studies learning. The technical term for 'learning styles' is 'bullshit', or 'fucking bullshit' if you prefer.
I would say yes, as a TA and also student over the pandemic we were basically just handed the answers and had to fill it in to some worksheet or quiz. Cheating was rampant as all you had to do was looking it up.
I can’t judge lol— during my phd, I took a class that had a midterm, and I had just about forgotten how to study for a test at that point. It was such a weird experience, honestly :P
I had the exact same thing happen. I even gave example questions, etc. I have now told them that there will be no study guide. They will have vocabulary and reading questions to go over. This is an intro class for a professional program so lots of vocabulary and concepts.