Reply to Let's talk about the real world and retakes and deadlines

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]So how do these kids get through college? Are retakes a thing now in college too? [/quote]

I taught at that level for 10 years. I had 3 tests, all equal weight. Students could drop their lowest test score. If a student did poorly on one of the earlier exams, they could take the final and drop the other grade. If they did well on the first two exams, they didn't have to take the final. It allowed students to show me that they had mastered the material over the course of the semester without allowing for retests or extra credit. I also set up term papers so that there were 3 phases: a research question, hypotheses, and theory section. They turned in each phase, I graded it an provided comments. They turned in all three phases with a conclusion the week before finals. That gave them a chance to learn from my comments and improve papers as they went. I also had each paper section listed in the syllabus with the due date and what was required. Once a week I put up the schedule of due dates and discussed what the expectations were for the next assignment.

As a Professor it meant that I had fewer tests to grade during finals week and their final papers were so much better because they had been writing the paper over the course of the semester and not at the last minute in an overnight session. I hope that it reduced the stress for my students because they knew they had opportunities to improve their performance and because it showed them how to break a paper down into stages and build from there. I still had students fail the class because they blew off tests or didn't turn in paper sections.

The reality is, the students who wanted A's were in class regularly, turned in papers on time, and tended to do well on the early exams. They also worried enough that they took the final even though they had an A. I had students who were happy with a C or a B, they did their work and really made no effort to improve their grade. I had students who turned in their already graded paper assignments with a new conclusion for their final paper. Some students took advantage of the set up and went from a C to a B or a B to an A, those were the students I was aiming for.

The A students are normally going to do what it takes to earn their A. The students who are interested in learning and growing are the ones who benefited from my system. They could come to office hours and learn how to write a better paper or clarify material they didn't understand. Or they could take the comments on their exams and papers and improve their performance. I was never going to reach the kid who is going to fail or get a D because they really didn't want to be there. And those were the ones who parents called to complain about their adult child failing my class. [/quote]

Thanks for sharing. Just curious what level course was this? It sounds like a 100-level course or maybe remedial. No offense but this sounds like a course for students who never learned how to study or write papers in HS. Again, no offense. All of my professors expected we could come into college already knowing how to write papers. Was this a community college?[/quote]

I taught 100 level through graduate classes at a few different four year universities. . I used the same policy in all of my Undergrad classes. I was exposed to the method in a research methodology class when we were teaching the students to write a paper using statistics that they ran. We were focused on teaching them how to write testable hypotheses and then testing those hypotheses. It is not something they should have learned in High School. I realized teaching other classes that students needed more guidance with their papers. And I realized that the papers improved in quality when they were worked on earlier in the year. So this method worked well. It forced the students to work on the paper over time, they received feedback on different sections, and they could adjust their approach as they went.

I found that it worked well. It helped students who were interested in learning and improving but it really did make grading less painful for me. Most students read through comments on the earlier returned papers and their later drafts improved. They might not have earned an A but I had a higher number of A's and B's then most of my fellow Teachers. I tended to have very few C's. But I still had students earn D's and flunk. Many students commented that they ended up appreciating it because there were fewer all nighters for them and they realized that if they worked on things earlier it really did improve their performance and made them less stressed.

The reality is that many students arrive at College not able to write a proper term paper, this was the case 20 years ago when I was teaching and remains the same now. [/quote]

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