Remedial courses

[Hegemony]

I'm puzzled by "If my phone is off, anybody who calls will go to voicemail. If they don't leave a voicemail, I won't know they called..."  You can check under "Recent" and see anyone who has called, whether or not they left a voicemail.

I certainly don't let people in my classes keep their phones within sight, or answer them, and I'm in the U.S.

[kaysixteen]

I get the potential to use open book type tests to spend time testing higher order material, but this ain't that type of class.  This is after all a remedial class prepping kids with the minimum floor of reading skills needed for college success going forward.  There are no higher order skills in this class, but what there is is a boatload of information and basic skills competencies to learn, and memorize/ internalize.  Kids who don't yet knowhow to identify the main idea of a paragraph or know what things are in a dictionary entry are not yet on track for the dean's list.  And I'm the guy who's keen to teach these skills and competencies so that they'll be set to focus on those higher order things in major courses in the future.  It's pretty much the same thing I have to do when teaching Latin 101.  Students have to memorize the first declension, so it just ain't enough for the kid to have the text in class and know it's in chapter 2, turn there, and copy down the declension on the quiz.

Btw, for those familiar with schools who require students who don't score high enough on a standardized placement test to take such a class in their first semester, what is the usual practice for those students who fail that class?

[polly_mer]

Btw, for those familiar with schools who require students who don't score high enough on a standardized placement test to take such a class in their first semester, what is the usual practice for those students who fail that class?

Get shunted into the last-chance class and then dismissed from the college for inadequate progress after enough semesters not passing anything.

[Ruralguy]

At my school, you'd just have to keep taking that class until you move on.

[dr_codex]

I get the potential to use open book type tests to spend time testing higher order material, but this ain't that type of class.  This is after all a remedial class prepping kids with the minimum floor of reading skills needed for college success going forward.  There are no higher order skills in this class, but what there is is a boatload of information and basic skills competencies to learn, and memorize/ internalize.  Kids who don't yet knowhow to identify the main idea of a paragraph or know what things are in a dictionary entry are not yet on track for the dean's list.  And I'm the guy who's keen to teach these skills and competencies so that they'll be set to focus on those higher order things in major courses in the future.  It's pretty much the same thing I have to do when teaching Latin 101.  Students have to memorize the first declension, so it just ain't enough for the kid to have the text in class and know it's in chapter 2, turn there, and copy down the declension on the quiz.

Btw, for those familiar with schools who require students who don't score high enough on a standardized placement test to take such a class in their first semester, what is the usual practice for those students who fail that class?

Here, you'd be taking the course until you could pass it. We put in a "3-strikes rule" a few years ago, for other courses and for other reasons, but I'm not sure if anybody would apply it to a pre-College, non-credit, course. My hope is that we would not, after a few kicks at the can, keep taking their money.