You know, we're required to use WebCT, so I don't even get the fun of Excel. Instead I get the fun of realizing that I've lost about five grades and may have to email the students to ask what they got....
Instead I get the fun of realizing that I've lost about five grades and may have to email the students to ask what they got....
Oh my god, I hate that. I once forgot to write down the grades for an entire assignment and had to ask the whole class to bring them back in. I couldn't believe it when almost every single one did it. And the missing ones weren't strongly correlated with low grades. Students are often much cooler than we (I) give them credit for.
Yes, it is fun, but it also makes the whole mad rush to finish grading seem futile, since, in my experience at least, very few students do so badly or so well on the final to actually change what they end up getting as a final grade.
I haaated class participation grades. I like to spend the entire semester in the back row never being called on. I think that's why engineering agreed with me. As long as you knew the material, they'd leave you alone and didn't even care if you came to class. I had to call one of my profs the day of the final because I forgot when and where the class met. Got an A.
Yes, it is fun, but it also makes the whole mad rush to finish grading seem futile, since, in my experience at least, very few students do so badly or so well on the final to actually change what they end up getting as a final grade.
I just checked this and 20 out of 53 students had their grade changed because of the final (which incidentally counts for 45% of the course grade).
Class participation: I hated it as a student, but now from the other side it's quite useful to keep airtime hogs under control. Just make clear from the beginning that two comments per (3 hr) session are enough to get an A. Of course there will always be the recalcitrant non-speakers, but it seems some of the quieter students get the point and try to fulfill their weekly quota.
I would say a narrow majority are gradewhores. Of course the strategy doesn't work against loudmouths (If you can pull it off, the "that-comment-was-incredibly-stupid" five second silent stare tends to be quite effective against them), but cutting down airhog time by 50% already works wonders for a class discussion.
11 - I'm wounded, Labs. If it makes the world more just, the same professor asked me to be his TA for the next semester and assigned me to a class that smartasses like me always skipped, specifically calling it an exercise in cognitive dissidence.
How can you differentiate, from the professor's perspective, between people who talk a lot in class because they like the sound of their own voice and the people who talk a lot because they think it will help with their own grade? Is the only way to see who stops talking in situations where it won't help with their grade?
""Cognitive dissidence" is a happy error, at least."
The older I've gotten, the more independently my fingers type homophoness for what my brain commands them to write. These days it happens about 60% of the time, by subjective count. This rises with tiredness.
In my class I count attendance by who talks; if you add something to the conversation ('WTF is Kant on about?' counts), you get credit for having been there. It means I have nearly perfect attendance and lively sessions, and everyone gets an A in that 10% of their grade.
Which means I can be harder on the actual graded assignments.
Cala, are you a grad student or a professor or what? Is everyone here either a lawyer or currently or formerly in academia, with maybe five exceptions?
How can you differentiate, from the professor's perspective, between people who talk a lot in class because they like the sound of their own voice and the people who talk a lot because they think it will help with their own grade?
There are some differences in phenotypes, although most loudmouths tend also to be gradewhores (or rather grade entitlement whores who get really indignant if they learn their performance doesn't warrant more than a B+).
On the topic of participation grades. They're very common in my area. I use them. I have an elaborate system for tracking them, and I try to avoid punishing someone terribly much for 'informed' silence.
But I'm not convinced they're a good idea. I think that prep and participation can be demanded through class style, and don't necessarily require the stick/carrot of a grade.
In my class I count attendance by who talks; if you add something to the conversation ('WTF is Kant on about?' counts), you get credit for having been there. It means I have nearly perfect attendance and lively sessions, and everyone gets an A in that 10% of their grade.
This sounds brilliant. Is there a category for "Those who talk too much because they can't stand the echoing silence when they don't?"
Hey you folks might have an opinion about this: I just finished Operating Systems W4118, which was the first class I have taken in about 10 years and the beginning of my MS program. The grade was: 64% from 8 homeworks at 8 points apiece; 16% from the midterm; 20% from the final. I did almost perfectly on the homeworks, moderately fair (B) on the midterm, and crashed and burned (D) on the final and managed to get an A- overall. It seems odd to me that somebody could get a D on the final and an A- in the class; I kind of slacked off on effort directed toward the final because I knew it was not going to play much part in my overall grade. Is this a failing in me or in the professor?
Also -- I am mulling over the idea that my acing the homeworks (most of them were programming projects) and doing poorly on the tests (which did not involve programming) is evidence in favor of my suspicion that I'm not particularly good at analytical thinking and reasoning, which would make me unhappy. (Not that it's a particularly long journey for me but still.) But wait, you say -- doesn't programming also involve analytical thought? And does "analytical reasoning" describe the content of these exams well? And you would have a point if you asked these questions.
This sounds brilliant. Is there a category for "Those who talk too much because they can't stand the echoing silence when they don't?"
To be honest, I've rarely had an echoing silence problem, except when no one's done the reading, in which case they get divided into little groups and have to explain the points/arguments to each other with me hinting 'Look at page number XYZ, it's got part of the argument'. If people are really confused, then I actually do some teaching. (Hey, it's section. They're supposed to discuss.)
I'm a former academic, now in law school, presently looking forward to taking a Crim Law final tomorrow. (And I do mean that I am looking forward to it. Crim is an incredibly fun class, and last year's fact pattern was Hamlet. Good times.)
My policy on class participation was to use it to bump up the grades of the ones who contributed to class, but for whatever reason did not perform up to that level on the papers and exams, and to bump down the grades of those students who never came to class or who, while there, slept, played on their cell phones and/or read the newspaper. Students who attended regularly, but never spoke, were neither helped nor hurt by that part of the class. This policy was explained on the first day.
Is 36 accurate as to BG, I'm not sure I remember that. Becks is a consultant of some type with an engineering background, right? Oh, and I guess we might have to count ogged.
I've started doing participation grades in seminars that count for a whopping 20%--because otherwise I'm stuck trying to run a seminar where no one talks.
Good teaching idea that a friend taught me: bring sticky notes to class in two colors. Hand them out at the beginning--two of one color, one of the other. Tell them that two of the notes are for offering a comment or a response to a question, and the third one is for asking a question. Once they've used all three, they have to shut up until everyone has used all their stickies, then anyone can talk. Works best if you, too, limit yourself to the three stickies. If you do that for the first week or two of a seminar, and keep track of who is talking (I usually ask them to introduce themselves by name every time they speak for the first week) it helps you remember their names, and it also trains them to talk and gets them used to hearing their voices in class. It also makes the talkers (including the teacher) more aware of the other students, and aware that if they wait for a while, someone else will often say what they were thinking of.
Excel is your friend.
Posted by julie | Link to this comment | 12-20-05 12:55 PM
You know, we're required to use WebCT, so I don't even get the fun of Excel. Instead I get the fun of realizing that I've lost about five grades and may have to email the students to ask what they got....
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 12-20-05 1:07 PM
Excel: It's not just for grading anymore.
Posted by My Alter Ego | Link to this comment | 12-20-05 1:07 PM
I use Merlin for my Help Buddy as well.
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 12-20-05 1:26 PM
Instead I get the fun of realizing that I've lost about five grades and may have to email the students to ask what they got....
Oh my god, I hate that. I once forgot to write down the grades for an entire assignment and had to ask the whole class to bring them back in. I couldn't believe it when almost every single one did it. And the missing ones weren't strongly correlated with low grades. Students are often much cooler than we (I) give them credit for.
Posted by cw | Link to this comment | 12-20-05 1:48 PM
Yes, it is fun, but it also makes the whole mad rush to finish grading seem futile, since, in my experience at least, very few students do so badly or so well on the final to actually change what they end up getting as a final grade.
Posted by pjs | Link to this comment | 12-20-05 1:53 PM
[redacted]
Posted by [redacted] | Link to this comment | 12-20-05 1:58 PM
I haaated class participation grades. I like to spend the entire semester in the back row never being called on. I think that's why engineering agreed with me. As long as you knew the material, they'd leave you alone and didn't even care if you came to class. I had to call one of my profs the day of the final because I forgot when and where the class met. Got an A.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 12-20-05 2:33 PM
Grading can be fun. You just have to do it drunk. I would be careful about giving written feedback, though. I found I got too... chatty.
Posted by TJ | Link to this comment | 12-20-05 2:49 PM
Yes, it is fun, but it also makes the whole mad rush to finish grading seem futile, since, in my experience at least, very few students do so badly or so well on the final to actually change what they end up getting as a final grade.
I just checked this and 20 out of 53 students had their grade changed because of the final (which incidentally counts for 45% of the course grade).
Posted by ogmb | Link to this comment | 12-20-05 6:03 PM
[redacted]
Posted by [redacted] | Link to this comment | 12-20-05 9:29 PM
You don't tell them, on the syllabus, that it will only be 10% of the final grade and that, say, showing up gets you a C?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 12-20-05 9:44 PM
Class participation: I hated it as a student, but now from the other side it's quite useful to keep airtime hogs under control. Just make clear from the beginning that two comments per (3 hr) session are enough to get an A. Of course there will always be the recalcitrant non-speakers, but it seems some of the quieter students get the point and try to fulfill their weekly quota.
Posted by ogmb | Link to this comment | 12-20-05 9:44 PM
Do the airtime hogs hog airtime because of the participation grade, or because they're loudmouths? I know which it is in my case, but I'm not telling.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 12-20-05 9:45 PM
[redacted]
Posted by [redacted] | Link to this comment | 12-20-05 9:49 PM
I would say a narrow majority are gradewhores. Of course the strategy doesn't work against loudmouths (If you can pull it off, the "that-comment-was-incredibly-stupid" five second silent stare tends to be quite effective against them), but cutting down airhog time by 50% already works wonders for a class discussion.
Posted by ogmb | Link to this comment | 12-20-05 9:52 PM
I tell them only that it's 10% of the grade.
Of course students always work under the assumption that it's the 10% that decide their grade.
Posted by ogmb | Link to this comment | 12-20-05 9:55 PM
11 - I'm wounded, Labs. If it makes the world more just, the same professor asked me to be his TA for the next semester and assigned me to a class that smartasses like me always skipped, specifically calling it an exercise in cognitive dissidence.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 12-20-05 9:58 PM
Dissonance. Crap.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 12-20-05 9:58 PM
"Cognitive dissidence" is a happy error, at least.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 12-20-05 10:03 PM
How can you differentiate, from the professor's perspective, between people who talk a lot in class because they like the sound of their own voice and the people who talk a lot because they think it will help with their own grade? Is the only way to see who stops talking in situations where it won't help with their grade?
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 12-20-05 10:05 PM
""Cognitive dissidence" is a happy error, at least."
The older I've gotten, the more independently my fingers type homophoness for what my brain commands them to write. These days it happens about 60% of the time, by subjective count. This rises with tiredness.
Posted by Gary Farber | Link to this comment | 12-20-05 10:10 PM
Ditto on my fingers deciding to type words that just are vaguely similar, which would have been more apropos, I know.
Posted by Gary Farber | Link to this comment | 12-20-05 10:12 PM
In some countries, cognitive dissidence is the only kind allowed.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 12-20-05 10:19 PM
In my class I count attendance by who talks; if you add something to the conversation ('WTF is Kant on about?' counts), you get credit for having been there. It means I have nearly perfect attendance and lively sessions, and everyone gets an A in that 10% of their grade.
Which means I can be harder on the actual graded assignments.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 12-20-05 10:42 PM
Cala, are you a grad student or a professor or what? Is everyone here either a lawyer or currently or formerly in academia, with maybe five exceptions?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 12-20-05 10:51 PM
And light dawns on Marblehead.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 12-20-05 10:55 PM
How can you differentiate, from the professor's perspective, between people who talk a lot in class because they like the sound of their own voice and the people who talk a lot because they think it will help with their own grade?
There are some differences in phenotypes, although most loudmouths tend also to be gradewhores (or rather grade entitlement whores who get really indignant if they learn their performance doesn't warrant more than a B+).
Posted by ogmb | Link to this comment | 12-20-05 10:55 PM
And light dawns on Marblehead.
Is Marblehead a font of identifying information, or an insulting term, or what?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 12-20-05 11:00 PM
I often feel I must be the only one here who doesn't have any papers to grade or turn in.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 12-20-05 11:23 PM
I often feel I must be the only one here who doesn't have any papers to grade or turn in.
Ahem. I'm still waiting for that book report you promised.
Posted by cw | Link to this comment | 12-21-05 5:33 AM
On the topic of participation grades. They're very common in my area. I use them. I have an elaborate system for tracking them, and I try to avoid punishing someone terribly much for 'informed' silence.
But I'm not convinced they're a good idea. I think that prep and participation can be demanded through class style, and don't necessarily require the stick/carrot of a grade.
Posted by cw | Link to this comment | 12-21-05 5:42 AM
In my class I count attendance by who talks; if you add something to the conversation ('WTF is Kant on about?' counts), you get credit for having been there. It means I have nearly perfect attendance and lively sessions, and everyone gets an A in that 10% of their grade.
This sounds brilliant. Is there a category for "Those who talk too much because they can't stand the echoing silence when they don't?"
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 12-21-05 7:55 AM
Hey you folks might have an opinion about this: I just finished Operating Systems W4118, which was the first class I have taken in about 10 years and the beginning of my MS program. The grade was: 64% from 8 homeworks at 8 points apiece; 16% from the midterm; 20% from the final. I did almost perfectly on the homeworks, moderately fair (B) on the midterm, and crashed and burned (D) on the final and managed to get an A- overall. It seems odd to me that somebody could get a D on the final and an A- in the class; I kind of slacked off on effort directed toward the final because I knew it was not going to play much part in my overall grade. Is this a failing in me or in the professor?
Also -- I am mulling over the idea that my acing the homeworks (most of them were programming projects) and doing poorly on the tests (which did not involve programming) is evidence in favor of my suspicion that I'm not particularly good at analytical thinking and reasoning, which would make me unhappy. (Not that it's a particularly long journey for me but still.) But wait, you say -- doesn't programming also involve analytical thought? And does "analytical reasoning" describe the content of these exams well? And you would have a point if you asked these questions.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 12-21-05 8:37 AM
This sounds brilliant. Is there a category for "Those who talk too much because they can't stand the echoing silence when they don't?"
To be honest, I've rarely had an echoing silence problem, except when no one's done the reading, in which case they get divided into little groups and have to explain the points/arguments to each other with me hinting 'Look at page number XYZ, it's got part of the argument'. If people are really confused, then I actually do some teaching. (Hey, it's section. They're supposed to discuss.)
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 12-21-05 9:30 AM
Is everyone here either a lawyer or currently or formerly in academia, with maybe five exceptions?
Yes.
Those exceptions are:
BG: programmer
Jeremy: programmer (I'm guessing, from his comment above)
Apo: tech writer/editor
Chopper: marketing
Austro (remember him?): investment banking
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 12-21-05 3:12 PM
tom: programmer.
Standpipe Bridgeplate: person of mystery.
Tia.
DominEditrix.
ac.
Saiselgy.
And more.
So, not insignificant.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 12-21-05 3:15 PM
Joe Drymala: legal assistant/freelance political writer
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 12-21-05 3:18 PM
I'm a computer programmer by trade but nowadays it is mostly about team leadership and project management.
Posted by Tripp | Link to this comment | 12-21-05 3:23 PM
I'm a former academic, now in law school, presently looking forward to taking a Crim Law final tomorrow. (And I do mean that I am looking forward to it. Crim is an incredibly fun class, and last year's fact pattern was Hamlet. Good times.)
My policy on class participation was to use it to bump up the grades of the ones who contributed to class, but for whatever reason did not perform up to that level on the papers and exams, and to bump down the grades of those students who never came to class or who, while there, slept, played on their cell phones and/or read the newspaper. Students who attended regularly, but never spoke, were neither helped nor hurt by that part of the class. This policy was explained on the first day.
Posted by pjs | Link to this comment | 12-21-05 3:23 PM
Joe, aren't you going to say anything about theatre?
Posted by Tripp | Link to this comment | 12-21-05 3:27 PM
I'm not making any money on theater at the moment, though that is certainly what I've been devoting myself to for the last 10 years or so.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 12-21-05 3:30 PM
Is 36 accurate as to BG, I'm not sure I remember that. Becks is a consultant of some type with an engineering background, right? Oh, and I guess we might have to count ogged.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 12-21-05 3:47 PM
That I am. Let's not forget the law posse, too: LizardBreath, w/d, Unf
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 12-21-05 3:53 PM
Also exceptional.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 12-21-05 3:59 PM
Besides Austro, another commenter who has vanished is Benton.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 12-21-05 4:09 PM
OK, I suck. I just saw that the lawyers were included in the original query and not just the academics. Oh well, they still deserve some love.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 12-21-05 4:10 PM
Is baa a former academic? I thought he considered it, but chose to do something else.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 12-21-05 4:17 PM
I've started doing participation grades in seminars that count for a whopping 20%--because otherwise I'm stuck trying to run a seminar where no one talks.
Good teaching idea that a friend taught me: bring sticky notes to class in two colors. Hand them out at the beginning--two of one color, one of the other. Tell them that two of the notes are for offering a comment or a response to a question, and the third one is for asking a question. Once they've used all three, they have to shut up until everyone has used all their stickies, then anyone can talk. Works best if you, too, limit yourself to the three stickies. If you do that for the first week or two of a seminar, and keep track of who is talking (I usually ask them to introduce themselves by name every time they speak for the first week) it helps you remember their names, and it also trains them to talk and gets them used to hearing their voices in class. It also makes the talkers (including the teacher) more aware of the other students, and aware that if they wait for a while, someone else will often say what they were thinking of.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 12-21-05 4:31 PM
Bitch,
We used to do something like that for certain student congress tournaments.
Posted by TJ | Link to this comment | 12-21-05 6:23 PM
We used to do something like that for certain student congress tournaments.
Then, we realized that we were going to student congress tournaments.
I keed, I keed.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 12-21-05 6:56 PM
Is the BG in 36 supposed to be me? No, I'm not a programmer. Nor am I an academic.
Posted by bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 12-21-05 8:18 PM
51
Ouch. Does it make it much worse that I went to the National Forensics League national championships in that? Yeah.
Posted by TJ | Link to this comment | 12-22-05 9:14 AM