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Partial update: My son went and talked to the teacher yesterday. He went over his last test with the teacher because he did not understand how he got such a low grade (75) because he felt confident of his answers when he left the test. The teacher told him that the content of his answers was fine but that his writing was not fine.
Wow, I really don't understand what this means. Does your son? Do you? Could you give an example?
The US entered World War II in 1941 would be a correct answer but not a well written answer.
A well written answer to an essay question would be;
While the US tried to maintain neutrality during WWII, the bombing of Pearl Harbor prompted the US to take action and commit to the Allied forces joining the war efforts in 1941....
Or as my high school English teacher was fond of saying "BE MORE SPECIFIC".
I met with the teacher today. My son knows what the teacher expects and gave me a few examples of what my son needs to improve. We do not get the tests back so unless we go to school we don't really know anything other than the grade. Many of the things my son did were a result of not re-reading his test before he handed it in. He made many silly errors (like spelling tails when he meant tales, and to when he meant too).
On a very positive note the teacher told me that my son is a pleasure to have in class.
I do not think I owe it to my students to disclose everything on a test. In college, they won't get a study guide at all.
I consider what I do put on a study guide a favor to the students (I don't release my study guide until the day before the test and then I expect my students to take the iniative and go on line and get it.)
I never really understood this. If the material is on the test, then I can only assume it is material you want your students to know. If you want your students to know that material, what is wrong with letting them know it will be on the test? This way, the students will be sure to study it and learn it.
If you don't let the students know what you expect them to know for the test, chances are a good portion are going to spend an inordinate amount of time studying material you did not deem important enough for testing, while neglecting material you do deem important.
I don't understand how that helps students learn the material you want them to learn.
Typically, students will study what they believe is the most important info first. Or, they might believe something is not that important because you only went over it briefly in class. I know this has happened to me, where I only skimmed certain material because the teacher spent little time on the subject matter, only to find a question on that EXACT material, and accounting for a larger proportion of test points!!
If I had known, I would have studied it!! If I had studied it, I would have learned it!!
I never really understood this. If the material is on the test, then I can only assume it is material you want your students to know. If you want your students to know that material, what is wrong with letting them know it will be on the test? This way, the students will be sure to study it and learn it.
If you don't let the students know what you expect them to know for the test, chances are a good portion are going to spend an inordinate amount of time studying material you did not deem important enough for testing, while neglecting material you do deem important.
I don't understand how that helps students learn the material you want them to learn.
Typically, students will study what they believe is the most important info first. Or, they might believe something is not that important because you only went over it briefly in class. I know this has happened to me, where I only skimmed certain material because the teacher spent little time on the subject matter, only to find a question on that EXACT material, and accounting for a larger proportion of test points!!
If I had known, I would have studied it!! If I had studied it, I would have learned it!!
Always felt like "trickery" to me.
Because I expect them to study everything not just what will be on the test. If they are waiting until my study guide comes out to study, it's too late anyway.
Giving kids a preview of the test is like someone in another class telling them what is on the test. I don't get a true picture of what they know. I just graded my last test and, surprise, surprise, the class average starts going up after 3rd hour and peaks at 6th hour. The 6th hour kids know what's on the test before they walk in the room. I started the day with a 74% average and ended it with an 81% average. It's time to start switching tests mid day.
I would not dream of writing a study guide that had all my test material on it or had just my test material on it. I want a fair assessment of what the kids know, not what they can cram at the last minute. I would prefer not to give a study guide at all.
No, you wouldn't have "learned" it if it were on a study guide. You would have memorized it long enough to get through the test. What you "learned" you knew before the study guide was handed out. The rest is just a cram session and it sticks with you until 2 minutes after the test.
Be happy about that! I wish all my students could get the analysis right...
The other day, I had the phrase "Julius Caesar Analysis" on the board, and a kid walked up between classes and erased the "-ysis" with his finger.
Classy.
You're a lucky mom.
If it makes you feel any better the kids at my son's school call the class Analysis of Functions, anal fun. Kids that age are pretty obsessed with sex. Even the good ones.
Great post Ivorytickler. My son is taking a class at a local University and he told us yesterday that the Professor said that the next test will be on regurgitating definitions of words. My son is disgusted. This is a satellite campus of a well known college and the class he is taking is required for his intended major but he says he is learning nothing. He was not doing this class just to take up time. It's a disservice to the kids to just ask them to memorize words instead of having them think and question.
Great post Ivorytickler. My son is taking a class at a local University and he told us yesterday that the Professor said that the next test will be on regurgitating definitions of words. My son is disgusted. This is a satellite campus of a well known college and the class he is taking is required for his intended major but he says he is learning nothing. He was not doing this class just to take up time. It's a disservice to the kids to just ask them to memorize words instead of having them think and question.
Well, sure.
It's because in high school, they weren't taught that. Why? Well, my guess is that over the past ten years particularly, there's been a marked rise in grade inflation -- grading on a curve, for example, or what I think of as "soft" grade inflation techniques such as having students construct a poster versus writing a paper.
Spitting back definitions of words is a necessary first step. (Like you, I do not believe it should be a last step, particularly at the university level.) Unfortunately, memorizing definitions means that students actually have to learn something. This means that a few crucial elements must be in place.
* The teacher has to know her or his material
* The teacher has to expect students to learn it
* The administration has to support the teacher's reasonable choices
Too often, this doesn't happen? Why? Path of least resistance. It's so much easier to give students As, or assign students silly projects graded on minimal criteria of excellence. It's easy to tell them how wonderful they are and pass them along -- not insist they meet a standard. When you do that, you encounter angry parents and weak-willed administrators. Plus, you have more work. It's much easier to tell them they're all wonderful.
In all my years, I have had only ONE parent who thought her child deserved a lower grade than the one I gave him. In all my years, I have NEVER had an administrator question a bell curve that swung to the right and say, "Charles Wallace, I'm concerned that your academic standards aren't stringent enough -- we're not educating these students with sufficient rigor" or something of the kind. Nope. All As? No problem.
The problem is when they get to college (or a hard teacher) and realize they don't know fundamental knowledge. Then the professors have to be the hard-asses who test them on terms or insist on quality standards. This is rightly annoying to the students who actually DID put in the hours, DO know the knowledge, and for whom testing of this nature is regurgitation at best. Unfortunately, my guess is that your son may be in a class where his peers got a lot of As for pretty posters and groupwork and who are now having their chickens come home to roost.
Funny -- the ones who never get blamed at all are the teachers who taught them nothing (or nothing of importance, or too little of anything). It's the ones who finally point and say, "Hey, the Emperor has no clothes!" who get heaped with scorn and derision.
Oh, and for folks who don't see the difference between content and good writing, here goes.
_________________ Example 1a:
It's obvious God made us alike. God gave us stuff that no one can take away from us. Some of the stuff was life and freedom and the ability to try to get stuff that will make us happy. We have government to help us keep that stuff, but the government only has as much power as we give it.
Example 1b:
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, that they were endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. To secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
Example 2a:
I really hope that Mississippi, which right now is a really unfair place which oppresses a lot of its people, will one day be this awesome vacation paradise which is fair and where people are free. I really hope that my four kids grow up in a country where people like them for who they are, not what they look like.
Example 2b:
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
Perhaps you are not reading my post correctly, or perhaps I am not explaining myself. My son is used to his teachers TEACHING and he is used to learning new things. My son realizes that we are paying big bucks for a class that only expects memorization. At his public High School most of his teachers are very good, he thought that at the next level up he would learn more. He, in fact, can memorize things and got an A on his first test that was all about memorizing. It was the highest grade in the class. BTW, this is not an English class, it's an Information systems and technology class. The definitions are all things that he's learned in past classes or on his own.
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