Beware, rant ahead, only you can determine if it is a righteous rant or not.
The problem appears to me to be determined by three interacting factors: 1) student evaluations of faculty (at least, them being given such heavy weight at some institutions compared to other criteria for RPT*), 2) course drift (meaning that some faculty teach a much less rigorous version that students shop for and reward that faculty member with higher evaluations), and 3) retention pressure from administrators. For me the solution needs to be departmentally established criteria lists for what is to be demonstrated knowledge and skills from each course, including mandated papers for upper division courses with departmentally established evaluation rubrics, required high consequence (at least 25% of course grade) and comprehensive final exams, upper limits on extra credit opportunities, not allowing curving of exam grades, etc. If those things are done, there is no need to worry about setting maximum % of students getting an A, etc. It becomes possible for all the students in the class to excel and deserve and A, and likewise, all the students in the class to earn an F. Linked with those criteria and requirements needs to be evaluation of not only the course design but also evaluation of the instructor's evaluations of students, to ensure that they are hewing to the rubrics, appropriate quality and difficulty of the test questions depending on the level of the course and type of material, etc. That evaluation of the faculty, rather than the evaluation by students should be the one given heavy weight for RPT. It would be wise to have outside, but reasonably related departments, evaluate these issues for entire other departments at the institution on a periodic basis, to ensure that departments are not conspiring internally to make everyone at their private Lake Wobegon look above average undeservedly. The cry that would certainly come from many faculty if such an audacious proposal were to be seriously floated is: "ACADEMIC FREEDOM! I am the expert about my course and I know best how to teach and evaluate the students. Nobody, even those within my department who are also competent to teach my course should dare tell me what I should be doing with the material or requirements." The other cry that would certainly come would be from administrators who would see more students dismissed from the institution, cutting into budgets and creating multiple headaches for them dealing with irate parents. There would also be concerns that graduate schools would not be willing to take on students from the institution, diminishing prestige, etc. But, that presumes grad schools can't be made aware of the new way of running the ship, and therefore wouldn't be able to know that the 3.5 student from the school with a mean graduating 2.9 was a superior candidate than the 3.5 student from the school with a mean graduating 3.2. In my opinion, I doubt we'd see many more be dismissed because a large number of our students have learned that there is no real need to work to maximum capability. This system should motivate them to work to maximum capability. They will earn lower grades, on average, but they would know what their grades meant. OK... rant over... I know it is a completely impossible suggestion. Thank you for your time. I'll now put on my flame-proof jammies. *It is possible that at some institutions the criteria for evaluating faculty are also suffering from grade inflation such that all faculty get excellent ratings on all elements and the only variable that sorts the faculty at all is the student evals, making them of paramount importance. Paul C. Bernhardt Department of Psychology Frostburg State University Frostburg, Maryland -----Original Message----- From: Mike Palij [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Mon 12/21/2009 5:56 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Cc: Mike Palij Subject: re: [tips] Lazy American Students and Their Grades Before we start engaging in "Who's got the Biggest Grade Inflation Problem", perhaps it should be noted that grade inflation is a widespread phenomenon, why it even occurs in *GASP!* Canada! Certainly not definitive but one should take a look at the Wikipedia entry on grade inflation (standard disclaimers apply): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grade_inflation >From the Wiki entry it seems that one solution to the problem is simply having the department/division/school/"whoever has the authority" to mandate that only a certain percentage of each grade can be given in a course. One can use a normal curve to justify such a scheme (but one will have problems with such a justification) or other criteria such as "no more than 15% of a class can be 'A' ". Ties on the borderline will simply have to cry about it. Some people will probably applaud this solution, some will say that it is worse than the problem it addresses. I guess it all has to do with how one thinks about the distribution of intelligence in our students, how many really "deserve" a certain grade, how many do work"we" are satistfied with, etc. Personal Anecdote Department: back some time in 1990s I remember reading an article (popular magazine, not a journal) about grade inflation at, I believe, Stanford (though it may have been one of the Ivy League schools). Apparently students were receiving only As and Bs in courses. The reason for this appeared to be that student could drop a course without consequence up to the 12th or so week in the semester. So, students who saw that they were failing going in the final weeks could drop the course with their G.P.A. unaffected. I think that they changed the policy after it became public but my memory isn't so good on that point. -Mike Palij New York University [email protected] On Mon, 21 Dec 2009 14:18:13 -0800, Karl Wuensch wrote: > At my university, the undergraduate catalog defines grades this way: >A -- excellent >B -- good >C -- average >D -- barely passed >F -- failed >I -- incomplete > > So, "C" is "average," eh? To check this definition I downloaded >all grades for undergraduate courses for the just completed semester. Here is >the distribution of final grades: >A -- 38% >B -- 30% >C -- 18% >D -- 7% >F -- 7% >I-- 1% > >Mode = A, Mean = B, Median = B. > > I have proposed that the catalog be updated to read this way: > >A - Average >B - Barely average >C - Could have been average if the student had attended class, read >the book, completed the assignments, etc. >D - did worse than Dubya >F - Failed, but if the student begs enough for post hoc extra credit, this >can be changed. >I - I am still trying to decide whether to give the student an A after e put >so >much effort into persuading me it is not e's that e did not get an A and that >I >would be responsible for ruining e's life if I gave any grade other than an A. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- >From: Christopher D. Green [mailto:[email protected]] >Sent: Monday, December 21, 2009 12:16 PM >To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) >Subject: Re: [tips] lazy American students > >Nicely stated, Chris. --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([email protected]) --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([email protected])
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