I don't think you are expecting too much but I'm feeling pretty frustrated right now. I have had to be away from my classes for three weeks due to a family emergency (my daughter had to have heart surgery and needed someone with her in Houston). At first I had someone cover for me, but that only worked for about a week. I've been posting study guides and other material on Blackboard and I just assigned them an open-book test. One of the chapters covered on the test was one I expected them to read on their own. They had a study guide that I developed for them, they had the textbook, they had the CD that came with the book, and I told them they could use any other source they wanted except each other. I just got an angry e-mail from one student about how she thought it was unfair that I was testing them on material not covered in class. I guess things weren't working as well as I thought. On the other hand, I also expected...I don't know what I expected. Too much I guess.
Carol Carol L. DeVolder, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology Chair, Department of Psychology St. Ambrose University 518 West Locust Street Davenport, Iowa 52803 Phone: 563-333-6482 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] web: http://web.sau.edu/psychology/psychfaculty/cdevolder.htm The contents of this message are confidential and may not be shared with anyone without permission of the sender. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sun 11/18/2007 4:11 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) 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] --- ---
<<winmail.dat>>
