Not much to add to responses to Mike's post or Linda's, but we do
have a "writing center" here that is of help in Intro and other classes when
they do written work (Our Gen Psych has about 60 students in each section).
Our Academic Support staff have one or two Gen Psych tutors that can also
help. They also have people who can drop by our classes to talk about study
skills and note taking and I have also developed lectures on those topics,
and put together a How to Study Booklet available to them. We have a
special General psych section developed by our cognitive psych faculty that
provides special help in studying, note-taking, etc. There might be ways
that your upper level psych majors could get credit or just volunteer to
help you out as tutor and other things. Great experience for them and help
to you.
As far as Mike's grade distribution, this is not uncommon in our intro
classes and lately, for me in my Personality Theories class of all things!
IF you are happy with the exam and feel students need the help in
reading/studyiing (I find reading comprehension is poor), then I stick with
the scores but emphasize they can improve as we have other things coming:
Homework assignments, class quizzes, class participation points, more exams.
I never curve, but if I had 4 or more exams, I might consider dropping the
lowest or making it worth less. Hopefully, the straight talk, resources,
and encouragement will allow their performance to levitate ;-)
Gary Peterson
Gerald (Gary) L. Peterson, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Psychology
Saginaw Valley State University
University Center, MI 48710
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
1-517-790-4491
----- Original Message -----
From: "Linda Walsh" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, September 20, 2000 10:25 PM
Subject: Grades, Curving
> I've appreciated all the great responses to Mike's questions since I, too,
am
> struggling with a similar distribution in a large introductory class. Most
of
> the students are new freshmen with poor study skills, so I've really tried
to
> work on those since day 1. Nevertheless about 70 of the class of 210 got
D's
> and F's. Anyone have particular suggestions workable in a large class? I
tried
> written test corrections but felt guilty that I couldn't meticulously
correct
> their corrections (some still hadn't gotten it right).
> Linda Walsh
> One other small suggestion when you are considering [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> routinely take a special look at those questions missed by more than hal
