At 3:45 PM -0700 5/16/06, Annette Taylor, Ph. D. wrote:
NOT typical of my students. I find that our students, maybe because
they are in California and it's a very competitive job market and
high cost of living around here, are MORE likely to do as much as
they can to maximize their grades. They are willing to do inordinate
amounts of extra work to earn a higher mastery grade. The majority
are far more likely to get by on grit and willpower to make up for
what they might lack in intellectual ability and I was thinking that
was troublesome. But maybe I'd better shut up and be happy I have
students willing to bust their buns for mastery.
My speculations center on more local demographic details.
Don't know what kind of school you are; we're a second (charitably)
tier state university (normal school => state college => state
university).
Nominally we have some admission standards, but any high school
graduate can be admitted with a recommendation from their high
school, any student who drops out for three years becomes
'nontraditional' and has no admission requirements, and we must
accept any transfer from any community college in the state.
Functionally, therefore, we're open admission, and it shows.
I've had students in my class who were in the bottom quarter of their
high school classes.
Students like this have never experienced an A; it's not part of their reality.
Further, many of my students are parents (I often find out when they
excuse an absence by saying that their day care fell through, or they
bring their kid to class ;-).
For whatever reason, many of them feel that they can be a full time
college student in their spare time.
BTW -- extra credit in a mastery system?
--
The best argument against Intelligent Design is that fact that
people believe in it.
* PAUL K. BRANDON [EMAIL PROTECTED] *
* Psychology Dept Minnesota State University *
* 23 Armstrong Hall, Mankato, MN 56001 ph 507-389-6217 *
* http://krypton.mnsu.edu/~pkbrando/ *
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