Question for professors and educators.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is my tenth year of being an English professor. I teach at a liberal arts college ranked in the 75-100 range on US News and yes, I have seen a difference in my students’ abilities since I began. Their writing skills have declined and there is much more of a need for what I call cookbook (or recipe) style academics — many of them seem need (and ask for) an exact, specific set of directions on assignments, much like a recipe.

I do think that AP classes contribute to this. It is a very formulaic-style of learning that does not replicate the skills that one needs to succeed in a college class. For example, this is the type of question that one would see on say, the AP Government exam: “Describe the Tenth Amendment.” This type of question, that requires nothing but memorization and recall on the part of the student, really does nothing to facilitate long-term learning or critical thinking skills.

This reminds me of the fact that they gave out rubriques for writing. Put this in the first paragraph, this in the second, this in the last, etc.

They sort of turned a writing assignment into several short answer questions. And told you in advance, how many points you got for each little thing. Yes, very specific directions like a recipe, which does not lead to creativity or strong writers.

Ugh!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not for writing.

They also seem to want more hand holding/ material presented to them in a very handy/dandy, formulaic way.

Could this be related to increased AP classes. Students think they are taking a "college level" class, but the constraints of HS grading policies mean that teachers need to break everything down into smaller assignments, which I see as more handholding (academically) than a typical college class and does not prepare them for doing college work.

My AP classes are very demanding. But the recent redesigns have uniformly made the tests much easier. Sorry to say that they were worried about the "achievement gap" and wanted to solve it by adapting the exams. Individual teachers can still require a lot of writing in their classes.

[Anonymous]

I have been teaching in a math heavy field for about 20 years. I have taught one required course (among others) all that time, so I can compare student quality over time. I have had to lower the rigor of the course fairly continuously, especially in the past ten years or so, as students come in with less and less preparation. The textbooks for this course have been decreasing in rigor as well, with material that used to be standard for this level of course first moved into appendices and now eliminated completely. Something that has changed along the way is that student evaluations are increasingly used to evaluate faculty performance, and that then leads to course changes (making them easier and less technical) and grade inflation.
I have been teaching at a top 10-15 school. The above is my impression of the average student quality. There are some students that are very hard working and brilliant. Also, those that are interested in pursuing a PhD degree have to be much more prepared than in the past (in my opinion to a degree that is not healthy).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is my tenth year of being an English professor. I teach at a liberal arts college ranked in the 75-100 range on US News and yes, I have seen a difference in my students’ abilities since I began. Their writing skills have declined and there is much more of a need for what I call cookbook (or recipe) style academics — many of them seem need (and ask for) an exact, specific set of directions on assignments, much like a recipe.

I do think that AP classes contribute to this. It is a very formulaic-style of learning that does not replicate the skills that one needs to succeed in a college class. For example, this is the type of question that one would see on say, the AP Government exam: “Describe the Tenth Amendment.” This type of question, that requires nothing but memorization and recall on the part of the student, really does nothing to facilitate long-term learning or critical thinking skills.

This is a very misleading example of an AP US GoPo exam question. If they were to describe the Tenth Amendment, it would be part of a larger question, as in this actual 2019 question:

Based on the information above, respond to the following questions.
A. Identify the clause in the Fourteenth Amendment that was used as the basis for the decision in both
Brown v. Board of Education (1954) and Hernandez v. Texas (1954).
B. Explain how the facts in both Brown v. Board of Education and Hernandez v. Texas led to a similar
decision in both cases.
C. Explain how an interest group could use the decision in Hernandez v. Texas to advance its agenda.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is my tenth year of being an English professor. I teach at a liberal arts college ranked in the 75-100 range on US News and yes, I have seen a difference in my students’ abilities since I began. Their writing skills have declined and there is much more of a need for what I call cookbook (or recipe) style academics — many of them seem need (and ask for) an exact, specific set of directions on assignments, much like a recipe.

I do think that AP classes contribute to this. It is a very formulaic-style of learning that does not replicate the skills that one needs to succeed in a college class. For example, this is the type of question that one would see on say, the AP Government exam: “Describe the Tenth Amendment.” This type of question, that requires nothing but memorization and recall on the part of the student, really does nothing to facilitate long-term learning or critical thinking skills.

This is a very misleading example of an AP US GoPo exam question. If they were to describe the Tenth Amendment, it would be part of a larger question, as in this actual 2019 question:

Based on the information above, respond to the following questions.
A. Identify the clause in the Fourteenth Amendment that was used as the basis for the decision in both
Brown v. Board of Education (1954) and Hernandez v. Texas (1954).
B. Explain how the facts in both Brown v. Board of Education and Hernandez v. Texas led to a similar
decision in both cases.
C. Explain how an interest group could use the decision in Hernandez v. Texas to advance its agenda.

You’re right. I forgot they redesigned the exam for 2018-2019. I still don’t think these questions are good preparation for the level of rigor required in a college-level course, but they are certainly better than they were before the redesign. Here is a question from the 2018 exam, which is just so incredibly surface level:
1. Political parties seek to win elections to control government.
(a) Identify two activities that political parties do to win elections.
(b) Describe one way third parties can affect elections.
(c) Explain how single-member districts make it difficult for third parties to win elections.
(d) Explain how electoral competition is affected by gerrymandering.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I teach a business class that involves some technical work and some writing. It's of course not as mathematically rigorous as an engineering course and not as tough or as intense in writing as a humanities course would be. But, it requires a lot of analysis, thinking on your feet, and without decent math and writing skills the students would not perform well. I've taught the same class for 15 years. Although the textbook has changed over the years and I've made small modifications to the lessons and topics, the expectations, grading, and mix of assignments has largely remained constant. So, an easy way to figure out if students are coming in less prepared is to see if I have to curve grades up more often or to a larger extent to meet the desired grading target (mine is an upper level class that is specific to a certain major, and I aim for around a 3.4 median GPA). The answer to this is a definite no. If anything, I have had to do less grade inflation over the years and I have been trying to search for ways to make the class harder without making it straight up unfair (like bringing questions out of a footnote in the textbook or in a format that we never even briefly discussed in class). Every year I have a couple of students who just should not be pursuing college at all, and every year I have some superstars. The reality is that when they go out and get a job, most of the well paying jobs don't even require a superstar intellect or stellar critical thinking skills. Most well paying jobs merely require a decent work ethic, a decent attention to detail, and decent people skills.

Your opinion is interesting and an outlier.

[Anonymous]

This discussion reminds me of the story about an interview of Ty Cobb, who was 76 at the time of the interview.

Cobb was asked about the caliber of pitchers today versus the kind of pitching he faced during his career.

Specifically, Cobb was asked what his batting average would be against current day pitching.

Cobb, without hesitating, said he'd hit at about a .276 clip.

The interviewer seemed taken aback. Really, he asked? But you hit for .366 during your career.

Yeah, Cobb replied. That's true. But, hell, I'm 76 years old now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not for writing.

They also seem to want more hand holding/ material presented to them in a very handy/dandy, formulaic way.

Exactly what my niece and cousin, who are college professors, say. They also complain a lot about how students now, more than ever, don't get their work done and expect to get unlimited extensions and expect to pass classes and/or get higher grades when they don't earn them.

This is my experience as well. I’m glad my students are trying to advocate for themselves, but they have no shame about asking for extensions, retakes, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I used to teach at a prestigious university in this area. Most students cared only about grades and there was a huge sense of entitlement. After every exam there would be a litany of students who would argue like lawyers before the Supreme Court about why the grade was unfair, why the exam was flawed, why the grading scheme was inappropriate, etc. There was not a shred of willingness to accept feedback for improvement that could be applied on future assignments.

The students know they have to keep high GPA to be admitted to medical, Law and business school’s.

[Anonymous]

Because of Covid and distance learning most students won’t be well prepared for college.

[Anonymous]

This is not an easy question to answer. Admissions standards at the large private university at which I teach have definitely changed in the past couple of decades. Thus, my sample of students today is drawn from a different distribution than the sample I had twenty years ago. I suspect the same is true for at least some of the other academics posting here.

This said, I think the top end of the distribution of incoming students hasn't changed for me in the past 20 years.

I think the top students are better prepared for college today, but I don't think the average student is.

As for writing ability, top students come in with better writing abilities but not the average student. In general, students know less grammar than they did two decades ago.

And yes, students expect to be spoonfed much more so than before. For example, I got an email from a student yesterday (Saturday), asking if I could meet with her over the weekend. My Monday office hours weren't soon enough apparently! (The Monday office hours do work for her and there is no test or assignment looming.) Part of the transition to viewing universities as service providers and students as consumers who are to be kept happy.

It is sad the degree to which AP courses are being taught to the test.

[Anonymous]

I think it's true as to writing. OTOH, my son is taking Calculus classes that my high school didn't have available, so there's that.

[Anonymous]

I’ve only been a professor for 10 years but writing quality has declined a good amount.

A few years ago I found myself in a room with two students after class and I realized they were my best writers. We got to talking and I complimented their writing skills and asked them why they thought they were good at writing and how they learned to write. Both said their parents critiqued and helped significantly (outside of teacher help) and one said their parents are journalists. It clicked for me that doing so for my kid, now 12, is a must.

My students for the most part are very poor writers. Additionally, their email email etiquette and soft skills are lackluster. My discipline does not emphasize writing but I do teach two classes with writing assignments. I make it a priority to teach some basics that year after year, I am astounded they need and (largely) appreciate. It’s getting progressively worse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
They probably are better in math and science with all the emphasis on these subjects?

The insistence on acceleration in math leaves a lot of students with a shaky grasp of fundamental concepts and poorly prepared for higher level work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not for writing.

They also seem to want more hand holding/ material presented to them in a very handy/dandy, formulaic way.