Topic: Bang Your Head on Your Desk - the thread of teaching despair!

[FishProf]

On my most recent evals I had one student who stated that I needed to give a percentage breakdown of how many questions on the exam come from each lecture!

That's bizarre.  At least that student is ready to work with percentages.  Or thinks so, anyway.

"I promise that 100% of the questions on the exam are from material learned taught in class."

FTFY

[bio-nonymous]

On my most recent evals I had one student who stated that I needed to give a percentage breakdown of how many questions on the exam come from each lecture!

That's bizarre.  At least that student is ready to work with percentages.  Or thinks so, anyway.

I always get some students who seem to be peeved that they have to learn anything that isn't going to be asked directly on the exams...they want each PowerPoint slide to have the answer to an actual test question on it (likely in bold, large red font, and highlighted) and no extraneous information "that isn't on the test"...sure would make studying easy! What is the point again? Learning or checking boxes?

It may be a measure of the extent to which K-12 education has become so focused on teaching to and taking tests.  Their teachers surely haven't all been telling them in so many words that school is all about testing.  But with the emphasis on testing being what it is, that's the understanding of education that the students have internalized.  If it's not tested it doesn't matter, just as if you don't have pictures in today's world it never happened.

I think you are right. But I teach basic science foundation graduate level medical classes--so it may be that this mentality pervades up through undergrad to a degree as well? Granted this is a small subset of individuals, but still! Overall, I try to convey to them all, though not in so many words, that "even if a particular something isn't on the test, knowing this information might be important when you are treating your patients in the future...". Sigh.

[mythbuster]

Since you all so enjoyed my eval comment about percentages on the test, I will share one more:

"This course is supposed to be a one-credit course but it is structured like a 4 credit course. I understand that we need critical thinking and an understanding of scientific writing. However, this course was graded far too harshly for a one-credit course."

Because the grading difficulty is reflected in the number of credit hours. D'OH!

[fosca]

I told my students that even though this is a summer course, it's not easier than a full-semester course and requires just as much work and effort.  Judging from the work I've seen so far, they apparently didn't believe me.

[kaysixteen]

Errr, you don't actually have to go over something in class in order to test on it, right, so long as it was in the assigned readings?

[OneMoreYear]

I told my students that even though this is a summer course, it's not easier than a full-semester course and requires just as much work and effort.  Judging from the work I've seen so far, they apparently didn't believe me.

Yup, every year they don't believe me. This summer, on the 1st day of class, I asked them who had taken a short-term summer class before (ours are 6 weeks vs a 16 week Fall/Spring semester). A few students raised their hands. I asked them to provide their classmates with their wisdom to successfully completing a summer class. Those students said the things I usually say, so at least the class heard the warnings/advice from people other than me. I think it may have cut down some of the whining. I'm not teaching Freshman, though; this strategy probably would not work there.

[Chemystery]

Since you all so enjoyed my eval comment about percentages on the test, I will share one more:

"This course is supposed to be a one-credit course but it is structured like a 4 credit course. I understand that we need critical thinking and an understanding of scientific writing. However, this course was graded far too harshly for a one-credit course."

Because the grading difficulty is reflected in the number of credit hours. D'OH!

Many years ago I learned that at least one of our advisors was telling students that the number of credits correlated to difficulty.  When I objected, she assured me it was true and that my field was the exception.

[marshwiggle]

Errr, you don't actually have to go over something in class in order to test on it, right, so long as it was in the assigned readings?

This probably varies by discipline. I'd say that in STEM, there don't tend to be "*assigned readings", and whether there are or not every important topic will come up in class. If a topic comes up in an exam that was never discussed in class that's usually the sign of a new or disorganized instructor who failed to cover everything he or she intended to.

*If there's a textbook, it may cover lecture topics in more detail, but anything that didn't come up at all in lecture probably won't be on a test.

[Caracal]

On my most recent evals I had one student who stated that I needed to give a percentage breakdown of how many questions on the exam come from each lecture!

That's bizarre.  At least that student is ready to work with percentages.  Or thinks so, anyway.

I always get some students who seem to be peeved that they have to learn anything that isn't going to be asked directly on the exams...they want each PowerPoint slide to have the answer to an actual test question on it (likely in bold, large red font, and highlighted) and no extraneous information "that isn't on the test"...sure would make studying easy! What is the point again? Learning or checking boxes?

It may be a measure of the extent to which K-12 education has become so focused on teaching to and taking tests.  Their teachers surely haven't all been telling them in so many words that school is all about testing.  But with the emphasis on testing being what it is, that's the understanding of education that the students have internalized.  If it's not tested it doesn't matter, just as if you don't have pictures in today's world it never happened.

I think you are right. But I teach basic science foundation graduate level medical classes--so it may be that this mentality pervades up through undergrad to a degree as well? Granted this is a small subset of individuals, but still! Overall, I try to convey to them all, though not in so many words, that "even if a particular something isn't on the test, knowing this information might be important when you are treating your patients in the future...". Sigh.

Well, I sort of doubt that they are actually going to be treating some patient and are actually going to need to access something they learned in a foundational science class and that they haven't had to cover since in a subsequent class. More likely, it's that something you teach them comes up again in their next class with a shorter explanation that assumes they've already encountered this idea before, and then shows up in subsequent classes without much explanation at all, if any.

It usually isn't a disaster if you don't remember something or had a shaky grasp of some concept. Learning isn't just like building a structure, there's always a certain amount of relearning that goes on. But, if you're having to relearn too many things, it isn't going to work.

This seems relevant because in some ways the students who are laser focused on exams are also thinking of learning in too mechanistic a way. The first part is understanding the material and being able to see how things fit together. Studying for the exam is about making sure you're in a good position to apply that knowledge in an exam context but it won't work very well if you don't have the larger understanding in the first place. Even if you manage to cram enough into your brain to pass an exam, the lack of a larger understanding will catch up with you later.

[apl68]

This seems relevant because in some ways the students who are laser focused on exams are also thinking of learning in too mechanistic a way. The first part is understanding the material and being able to see how things fit together. Studying for the exam is about making sure you're in a good position to apply that knowledge in an exam context but it won't work very well if you don't have the larger understanding in the first place. Even if you manage to cram enough into your brain to pass an exam, the lack of a larger understanding will catch up with you later.

Yes!  Students just don't seem to understand that there is such a thing as a "larger understanding," or skills, that they are supposed to in the process of building.  It's not a recent development.  Looking back, I know that I didn't fully get that either when I was in college.  This sort of a mentality does somehow seem to have become more extreme over the years, though.

[MarathonRunner]

This seems relevant because in some ways the students who are laser focused on exams are also thinking of learning in too mechanistic a way. The first part is understanding the material and being able to see how things fit together. Studying for the exam is about making sure you're in a good position to apply that knowledge in an exam context but it won't work very well if you don't have the larger understanding in the first place. Even if you manage to cram enough into your brain to pass an exam, the lack of a larger understanding will catch up with you later.

Yes!  Students just don't seem to understand that there is such a thing as a "larger understanding," or skills, that they are supposed to in the process of building.  It's not a recent development.  Looking back, I know that I didn't fully get that either when I was in college.  This sort of a mentality does somehow seem to have become more extreme over the years, though.

Yes! In a fourth year undergrad course our prof asked us about something we had learned in a third year course. Apparently I was the only one who remembered or who was willing to answer the question. Others studied the material for the exam and apparently didn't retain it. Or didn't want to admit they had retained it? It was bizarre, I was the only one to raise my hand.

[Antiphon1]

Memorization and question vetting will only take you so far in education.  It takes 28 - 64 repetitions of a small amount of information for that information to be incorporated into long term memory.  If you only memorize the information for a test and never apply that information, you won't remember it.  Simple curriculum scope and sequence says we should engage with core discipline principles in increasingly complex manners as we progress through our programs.  Meaning, those folks who forgot the information needed the refresher because they never knew the importance of the information.  They need that repetition because the functional application rests on that foundational knowledge.

[ciao_yall]

Adding to this... lots of factoids it's not how people learn. People learn by creating a framework, then filling in details for that framework. Those details are linked to one another and to the framework.

Someone who is knowledgeable about a subject, when presented with a factoid, recalls that definition by calling up the framework and related details.

These tests work because they assume someone who is knowledgeable about a subject will be able to check the correct boxes related to enough factoids. But do they measure deeper learning and understanding? Or an ability to analyze and apply?

Fun fact - when I taught Marketing, my colleague had her Marketing midterm (all Scantron multiple choice) out on her desk. I looked at it and wondered how I would do on the exam. First question was about advertising a change in packaging and which type of marketing information was this conveying.  Then, there were four buzzwords.

I thought well, it depends. Why did they change the packaging? What were the characteristics of the market? What were the buying/consuming habits for the user? Because I could imagine scenarios where each of the four buzzwords could apply.

So not having taken her class and being specifically told which buzzword she considered most relevant to packaging changes, and it taking way too long to set up a scenario and ask students to analyze the purpose of an advertisement, well, the Other Marketing Prof would have "failed" her test.

In some cultures school is very much about dutifully memorizing and regurgitating. So my foreign students had a challenging time when I told them I assumed they would learn the factoids - I wanted them to apply, think, and create. 

[kaysixteen]

What I tell students is  that if it appears in class or in the text, it could appear on a  test, and if it appears in both, it is very important and very very likely to appear on the test.  Prof's responsibility in class is not just to regurgitate the readings.

[fishbrains]

For a Spring 2023 hybrid course that had once-a-week in-person meetings I received excellent student evals. However, the one-and-only written comment any of the students provided was, "He wore the same shirt to every class period."

I was kind of pissed at first; but once I thought about it, I probably had worn the same shirt to pretty much every class meeting. Still . . .