This reflects an obvious reality that for some reason people are turning
summersaults attempting to deny: College students of today are
approximately at the base knowledge level of junior high-high school
students of just a few decades ago. It's happening as fast as global
warming.
Paul Okami
----- Original Message -----
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)"
<[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, November 18, 2007 5:11 PM
Subject: [tips] Am I expecting too much?
Perhaps times are changing and my students know different vocabulary than
mine, but I have had some laughers on the last two tests, except it has me
concerned that I may be getting so old that I am losing touch; or the
students are truly ill-prepared for life in general. I would except
students to be knowledgeable about life in general just from reading.
Maybe these students, whose *average* GPA in high school (these are
incoming freshmen in intro psych and I have all of their admissions data)
EXCEEDED 3.8 because of honors and AP classes are getting short-changed?
I used a standard item on the learning test and asked for the schedule of
reinforcement for various behaviors. I used fly fishing as one item. I got
the most outrageous answers: the fish will learn to fly to get fed; you
can catch more flying fish; fish will go faster if they fly than if they
swim, etc. And then there were at least a dozen students who gave simply
incorrect answers without embarassing themselves (probably didn't
understand schedules of rf anyway) and another dozen who flat out came up
and asked me what 'fly fishing' is.
Ok, I let that slide. So now we have another exam, now over the
developmental chapter: M A N Y students came up to ask me the meaning of
the words "innate" and "longevity" and many more missed an item on Head
Start. We talked about Head Start in class, but I didn't go into
explaining what it is all about. I guess I'm teaching kids whose families
would never have qualified and they never heard of it because the exam
item required them to go a bit beyond what we talked about and very many
of my students couldn't because they had no context for what they had
memorized by rote. One of the foils on the multiple choice item referred
to "middle-class" and was clearly incorrect because middle-class children
wouldn't qualify for Head Start. Many selected that foil as correct, and
wrote in the margin their explanation (I allow this on items the student
wants to challenge) and I got all kinds of answers about middle this and
middle that.
Wow, what's up with all this? I'm feeling either very very old or
exceptionally well educated in a broad way.
Annette
Annette Kujawski Taylor, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology
University of San Diego
5998 Alcala Park
San Diego, CA 92110
619-260-4006
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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