TEACHSOC: Re: about low grades

[Robert Hironimus-Wendt]

Hi Jack,   I have two random thoughts…   My first question would be to ask about the student-sample enrolling in the classes. Working with the registrar and dean, are there any unique aspects? E.g., are they typically first semester students? Are their high school transcripts different from other students? Are they more likely to be technical students/less likely to be transfer students? Are they more likely to be first-generation students? I have personally noticed that my students (across three universities at least, but not counting the HBCU I taught at) are more likely to be ethnic minorities. These sorts of questions will require the input of the registrar, and may have implications regarding teaching and assessment methods.   While I realize this sounds like ‘blaming the victim,’ I personally think it is a fruitful area of study, given that (a) you mention you are at a two year college, and (b) I routinely am told by my students that (1) they enrolled because they heard it was easy, and (2) far too few have ever had a sociology course. In contrast, I nearly all first year students have had government courses (political science 101) and many have had psychology in high school. In addition, some have had business courses, etc., So it is at least possible that students entering a sociology 101, who have routinely NOT had much exposure to courses that seriously question the political economy, educational systems, religion, etc., are less prepared to do well in our intro. course. If that is the case, that they are routinely less prepared to do well in sociology, then it might suggest your faculty reconsider how to teach the intro. courses. For example, I have found better success approaching issues using a compare and contrast perspective, in which I reference functionalism and conflict theory on everything. The functionalism sounds more familiar, but in the end, I have fewer students saying I am a “leftist” (which I am).   Second, I am not so sure having meeting with students who enroll is a good strategy, UNLESS it is a departmental initiative. Indirectly, it CLEARLY signals to the rest of the university faculty and administration that your department is unique, and needs external supervision regarding teaching effectiveness (even if that is not the purpose or intent or goal of such meetings). So unless your colleagues and you agree to take responsibility for this initiative, it could be political suicide down the road. Second, UNLESS you as a sociology faculty are behind this initiative, what purpose is being served? Is it simply an informational meeting where students are told what sociology is and how it works, so that they can choose whether or not to enroll? They already have that option in most places via the drop/add period. I fail to see what is gained by having one additional class period.   For my two cents, I would make it clear to the administration that this must be a departmental decision if it is to be successful. Alternatively, I might ask the administrators (a) what is our failure rate, and (b) why is that level problematic? Perhaps they should be equally concerned to determine why other departments are failing to fail, if you get my drift. Why are others so “successful” with regard to grades. Grade inflation is an equally valid question being asked at many institutions today (except where the primary goal is “tuition” retention…).   Robert   Robert J. Hironimus-Wendt, Ph.D. Sociology and Anthropology Western Illinois University 1 University Circle Macomb, IL 61455-1390 phone: (309) 298-1081 fax: (309) 298-1857 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]   "It doesn't matter how strong your opinions are. If   you don't use your power for positive change, you   are indeed part of the problem, helping to keep   things the way they are."     -Coretta Scott King   From: teachsoc@googlegroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Jack Estes Sent: Friday, May 12, 2006 7:38 AM To: teachsoc@googlegroups.com Subject: TEACHSOC: about low grades   I'm baffled. We were informed the other day that intro to sociology classes at our college (a 2-year school with 19,000 students) have the highest failure rate among social science classes, maybe the highest in the college. The dean suggested that we hold workshops for all students who are signed up to help prepare them for the classes. The workshops would be during the week prior to the beginning of classes and would be led by sociology faculty (at 60% of our "hourly" rate, since this wouldn't be "teaching"). You can imagine that we're pretty pissed and skeptical, mostly convinced that the students who would be failing are not the ones who would attend such a workshop. But we're also curious. Why are our classes experiencing such high failure rates? Why are ours higher than others (especially history, political science, psychology, anthro, etc.)? And how might we address this? Or should we address it? The dean said if we didn't want to do the workshops, that's fine, but what OTHER suggestions would we have?   Any help here? Ideas? I don't think our standards are any higher than other social science professors' standards, in general. We have a large group - including a dozen adjuncts - but so do psych and history. I've been teaching for 35 years and I still feel as though I fail if a student earns a failing grade. So probably I'm taking this personally.   Still, I'm baffled.   Jack Estes BMCC/CUNY NYC --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Teaching Sociology" group. To post to this group, send email to teachsoc@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/teachsoc -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---