I'm about to submit the final grades for my freshman biology course, which prompts some thinking about why we give grades (rather than e.g. pass/no credit).
A "pass/no credit" system accomplishes one of the functions of grading. It filters out the students who are not prepared to proceed to the next stage in their education program (or their like). When students complain (beg for special consideration), I often argue that "I've given you an 'F' for your own good", and I encourage them to think about other career plans than medical school (or Pharmacy, which is big here).
But when I fail students in their first year of university I'm also motivated by the benefits to other members of the university community. That's the filtering function - part of my responsibility is to prevent unprepared students from going on to more advanced courses. Such students are a tremendous drag on teaching; both the instructor and the other students pay a heavy price if the level of instruction has to be lowered to accommodate students who should never have been allowed to enroll.
The other functions of grading won't be satisfied by a "pass/no credit" system. One of these is ranking the students who have passed. Our university uses student grades to assign priority in registering for next year's courses. So students with good grades have first choice of the often-limited places in the courses they want, and students who have just scraped through have to put up with what's still available when are finally allowed to register.
Another function of grading is giving the best students the marks that get them scholarships and other benefits. It's not enough that a student is top of the class - if the top mark is only a B this student won't make the local equivalent of the Dean's List. With a class of 400 (well, two classes of 200), I want to give the top ten or so students A+s, even though my tough final might have left them with what would otherwise be an A-.
One final issue is consistency of grading in a big course with sections taught by different instructors. The different instructors may have to compromise our individual grading philosophies a bit to ensure that students in different sections are treated comparably. So I'm waiting for the course coordinator to give me the OK to click the "submit grades" button.
Showing posts with label pedagogy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pedagogy. Show all posts
Monday, April 30, 2007
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Are clickers worth the hassle?
I've spent most of the last 24 hrs wrestling with the software that goes with the Personal Response System (PRS) 'clickers' I have my students using in class. This is the third time I've assembled all the marks the students have earned for the answers they've given to the questions I've posed in class and posted the combined marks on WebCT. This time I think I've finally gotten it right. (Thank you, students, for your patience.)
The software isn't that bad, though it's a bit clumsy. Now I better understand how it works, it all seems quite straightforward. But getting myself to this point would have been easier if my university provided better support for instructors using PRS in their classes. The fuss I made about this last year produced some talk of a PRS Users Group, where we could help each other, but that seems to have been vaporware.
But I do think using clickers is worth the trouble. It enables me to push the students into doing 'active learning', rather than passively absorbing whatever I tell them. I really like to see the students talking with each other about what the answer should be.
The software isn't that bad, though it's a bit clumsy. Now I better understand how it works, it all seems quite straightforward. But getting myself to this point would have been easier if my university provided better support for instructors using PRS in their classes. The fuss I made about this last year produced some talk of a PRS Users Group, where we could help each other, but that seems to have been vaporware.
But I do think using clickers is worth the trouble. It enables me to push the students into doing 'active learning', rather than passively absorbing whatever I tell them. I really like to see the students talking with each other about what the answer should be.
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
'cumulative' exams
Students often ask me whether the final exam for my course will be 'cumulative', testing material covered both before and after the midterm. The alternative is that the final only tests material taught after the midterm.
I understand that some professors do give non-cumulative final exams, but I find it hard to think of a situation where this would be appropriate. In my courses, we build ideas onto other ideas. I select a particular order of topics (e.g. genetics then evolution then ecology) for precisely that reason. By first studying genetics, we develop the genetic underpinnings needed to understand evolution, and by understanding evolution we can better appreciate issues relevant to ecology. The exam questions I like best are the ones that ask students to pull together concepts taught in different parts of the course.
Telling students that material covered before the midterm won't be needed for the final is tantamount to telling them to forget that material - it's not even valuable enough to remember for another 6 weeks, much less beyond the final exam.
I understand that some professors do give non-cumulative final exams, but I find it hard to think of a situation where this would be appropriate. In my courses, we build ideas onto other ideas. I select a particular order of topics (e.g. genetics then evolution then ecology) for precisely that reason. By first studying genetics, we develop the genetic underpinnings needed to understand evolution, and by understanding evolution we can better appreciate issues relevant to ecology. The exam questions I like best are the ones that ask students to pull together concepts taught in different parts of the course.
Telling students that material covered before the midterm won't be needed for the final is tantamount to telling them to forget that material - it's not even valuable enough to remember for another 6 weeks, much less beyond the final exam.
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Researchers as teachers
I've been away from blogging for the past month, as I've been focused on getting two research grants submitted by a March 1 deadline. Yes, that's today, and they're both done.
I've been neglecting not only this blog, but also the students in my classes, as a consequence of caring more about my research than about my teaching. I originally wrote 'as much about my research', but that's not true - I do care more about research than teaching. But I'd like to think that caring about research makes for a good teacher, maybe better than someone who cares only about teaching.
Being taught by scholars (researchers in the science or humanities or whatever) is one of the supposed benefits of studying at a real university rather than at a college where the faculty have little or no time or facilities for scholarly work. The benefit is (should be) that the teachers are people who DO research. We care deeply about intellectual work, about scholarship, and we can communicate about the process from our ongoing experience. Active research also keeps us at the frontiers of knowledge, and gives us the perspective to make value judgments about what's in the textbooks.
The down side of this is that we're unlikely to be as dedicated to teaching as our non-researcher colleagues (at UBC, 'sessional lecturers' and 'instructors'). I, for example, have been skimping on my teaching responsibilities for the past couple of weeks, to get my grant proposals done.
But this isn't because we don't care about learning. I, and every researcher I know, care much more deeply about learning than the great majority of our students do. We LOVE learning - it's our favourite thing in the whole world. But we love learning as a concrete activity, experienced most rewardingly in the research we do, not as an abstraction. So it shouldn't be surprising that we value our own learning activities (our research) more than the learning activities of our students.
I've been neglecting not only this blog, but also the students in my classes, as a consequence of caring more about my research than about my teaching. I originally wrote 'as much about my research', but that's not true - I do care more about research than teaching. But I'd like to think that caring about research makes for a good teacher, maybe better than someone who cares only about teaching.
Being taught by scholars (researchers in the science or humanities or whatever) is one of the supposed benefits of studying at a real university rather than at a college where the faculty have little or no time or facilities for scholarly work. The benefit is (should be) that the teachers are people who DO research. We care deeply about intellectual work, about scholarship, and we can communicate about the process from our ongoing experience. Active research also keeps us at the frontiers of knowledge, and gives us the perspective to make value judgments about what's in the textbooks.
The down side of this is that we're unlikely to be as dedicated to teaching as our non-researcher colleagues (at UBC, 'sessional lecturers' and 'instructors'). I, for example, have been skimping on my teaching responsibilities for the past couple of weeks, to get my grant proposals done.
But this isn't because we don't care about learning. I, and every researcher I know, care much more deeply about learning than the great majority of our students do. We LOVE learning - it's our favourite thing in the whole world. But we love learning as a concrete activity, experienced most rewardingly in the research we do, not as an abstraction. So it shouldn't be surprising that we value our own learning activities (our research) more than the learning activities of our students.
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Why posting the solutions isn't the solution
Students always ask me to post the answers to the questions I give them, but I'm reluctant to do so. This makes them unhappy, as they sincerely believe that seeing the right answers is a good way to learn. But I think that seeing the answers often just gives a false sense of confidence.
Say you first try to do the problem without looking at the answer. Because you know the answer is available, you don't spend a lot of time on it. Instead you try do the problem quickly.
If you're able to come reach an answer, you don't spend a lot of time trying to decide whether the answer you've come up with is right, you just check your answer against the posted one. If it agrees with yours, you pat yourself on the back and go on to the next problem. If it doesn't, you look at how your answer differs from the correct one, say "I see how it's done; I won't make that mistake again", and go on to the next problem.
If you can't reach your own answer, you look at the posted one, say "I see how it's done; I'll be able to do it right next time" and go on to the next problem.
Using my "going to university isn't like going to the tanning salon, it's like going to the gym" analogy helps explain why this doesn't really teach you how to solve the problem. Looking at the correct answer is like watching a trainer show you the right way to do squats. You know you need to practice doing them correctly, so you do lots more squats, matching your moves to those the trainer showed you. If you just say "OK, I see" and go on to do bench presses, your squats won't improve.
But you can't go back to the same genetics problem again and learn to do it right, when you already know the answer. Working back from the answer is very much easier than working forward through the forest of possible answers. You need to build the skills that let you evaluate the candidate answers you come up with, testing each one against all the information you have.
It's comforting to think that seeing how a problem is done gives you the skills to do it. But it doesn't. Instead it gives you a false sense of security that can hold you back.
(next time - why going slow teaches you to go fast.)
Say you first try to do the problem without looking at the answer. Because you know the answer is available, you don't spend a lot of time on it. Instead you try do the problem quickly.
If you're able to come reach an answer, you don't spend a lot of time trying to decide whether the answer you've come up with is right, you just check your answer against the posted one. If it agrees with yours, you pat yourself on the back and go on to the next problem. If it doesn't, you look at how your answer differs from the correct one, say "I see how it's done; I won't make that mistake again", and go on to the next problem.
If you can't reach your own answer, you look at the posted one, say "I see how it's done; I'll be able to do it right next time" and go on to the next problem.
Using my "going to university isn't like going to the tanning salon, it's like going to the gym" analogy helps explain why this doesn't really teach you how to solve the problem. Looking at the correct answer is like watching a trainer show you the right way to do squats. You know you need to practice doing them correctly, so you do lots more squats, matching your moves to those the trainer showed you. If you just say "OK, I see" and go on to do bench presses, your squats won't improve.
But you can't go back to the same genetics problem again and learn to do it right, when you already know the answer. Working back from the answer is very much easier than working forward through the forest of possible answers. You need to build the skills that let you evaluate the candidate answers you come up with, testing each one against all the information you have.
It's comforting to think that seeing how a problem is done gives you the skills to do it. But it doesn't. Instead it gives you a false sense of security that can hold you back.
(next time - why going slow teaches you to go fast.)
Saturday, January 27, 2007
colour-coding
A student pointed out on the course discussion board that I'd not used colours consistently in drawing chromosomes. I apologized for the confusion and tried to clarify it in a response.
But then I raised the issue directly in class yesterday, pointing out that on Monday I'd coloured the two chromatids in a pair differently (dark ad light blue), but on Wednesday I'd coloured them the same shade of blue but coloured their homologs pink. And the transparent strips I used to demonstrate meiosis had the three different chromosomes from one parent green, whereas those from the other parent were blue.
And I then told them that I was about to use yet a different colour coding in yesterday's class, with the homologs the same colour (maternal distinguished from paternal by a wavy line drawn on them) and the different chromosomes (those with completely different genes) different colours.
The class had been given strips of coloured paper to use as their won chromosomes in solving our first genetics problems, and I told them to pay attention to the colours they used, with the goal of having the colours a guide to the relationships between the chromosomes they were representing rather than a source of confusion.
The most important thing isn't that they get the colours right, but that they learn to think about what colours will be least confusing, and more generally about how to represent the factors that matter in any given problem. It's this thinking that leads to the most learning.
But then I raised the issue directly in class yesterday, pointing out that on Monday I'd coloured the two chromatids in a pair differently (dark ad light blue), but on Wednesday I'd coloured them the same shade of blue but coloured their homologs pink. And the transparent strips I used to demonstrate meiosis had the three different chromosomes from one parent green, whereas those from the other parent were blue.
And I then told them that I was about to use yet a different colour coding in yesterday's class, with the homologs the same colour (maternal distinguished from paternal by a wavy line drawn on them) and the different chromosomes (those with completely different genes) different colours.
The class had been given strips of coloured paper to use as their won chromosomes in solving our first genetics problems, and I told them to pay attention to the colours they used, with the goal of having the colours a guide to the relationships between the chromosomes they were representing rather than a source of confusion.
The most important thing isn't that they get the colours right, but that they learn to think about what colours will be least confusing, and more generally about how to represent the factors that matter in any given problem. It's this thinking that leads to the most learning.
Thursday, January 04, 2007
Why have a 'teaching blog'?
Classes start on Monday, and I've put a link to this blog on the BIOL 121 WebCT homepage (only open to students), so curious students from my classes are likely to start visiting this blog. I doubt that any of their other profs have teaching blogs, so I'd better explain what I'm trying to accomplish here.
This is where I'll be reflecting a bit about my goals for the course. I'll discuss what I'm trying to accomplish in each class and the logic behind the different things I'll ask students to do. I'll probably also consider how to deal with problems (both practical and pedagogical), and now to improve approaches that are not working as well as I'd like.
I'm making it easy for students to read this blog because I'm a big believer in open information. People who study teaching often write about 'meta-learning' (learning about the process of learning) and argue quite convincingly that students who are encouraged to think about how they learn will learn better.
The comments are open (anonymous comments are allowed), and I'll always read them though I probably won't directly respond. Students who want responses should post their questions on the WebCT Discussions Board; I'll create a 'topic' there for posts about this blog, and allow anonymous posting.
And no, the blog material won't be on the exam.
This is where I'll be reflecting a bit about my goals for the course. I'll discuss what I'm trying to accomplish in each class and the logic behind the different things I'll ask students to do. I'll probably also consider how to deal with problems (both practical and pedagogical), and now to improve approaches that are not working as well as I'd like.
I'm making it easy for students to read this blog because I'm a big believer in open information. People who study teaching often write about 'meta-learning' (learning about the process of learning) and argue quite convincingly that students who are encouraged to think about how they learn will learn better.
The comments are open (anonymous comments are allowed), and I'll always read them though I probably won't directly respond. Students who want responses should post their questions on the WebCT Discussions Board; I'll create a 'topic' there for posts about this blog, and allow anonymous posting.
And no, the blog material won't be on the exam.
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