On Wed, 18 Feb 2009 05:36:16 -0800, Christopher D. Green wrote:
>According to a UC Irvine report covered by the NYT today, about one
>third of students expect B's just for attending lectures, and 40 percent
>believe they earn B's by doing required reading.
> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/18/education/18college.html?_r=2
>
>If I had only known...
There are some things that are unclear here. Although the article
seems to suggest these expectations are based on student's experiences
in K-12, I have to wonder what do the syllabi for courses they take
say about how the final course grade is calculated. Consider, if the
final course grade is based on a 1-100 point scale with "thresholds"
for different letter grades, then how can such expectations be maintained
if the student is told this is how the final course grade is constituted:
10% - Attendance, participation, and homework
20% - Exam #1
20% - Exam #2
30% - Final Exam (cumulative)
20% - Papers: 2 Papers (about 10 pages each; 10% each)
If one lays out the components of the final grade, I know
that a student may still hold unrealistic beliefs ("but I always
showed up for class, how could I fail?") but the instructor can
point out how and why the beliefs are unrealistic ("attendance
at best counts less than 10% of the final course grade").
So, are students' expectations unrealistic because they are
"delusional" or carrying over beliefs from high school or is it due
to the lack of specificity that some professors have in identifying
how a course grade is determined (i.e., the point contribution of
specific activities)?
-Mike Palij
New York University
m...@nyu.edu
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