Hi Annette,
I meant to type this before hitting send, but I was momentarily distracted:
As much as the 1 in 25 striving for an A (if that is, in fact, how students
interpreted
the question), I was struck by the apparently high frequency of "pass the
course"
responses. Thus, even if I would only be expecting to give 1-4 As in a
class of 25,
I would surely expect more people to be striving for Bs than for Ds. Of
course, the
anecdote I relayed doesn't give us sufficient information to really know
what the students
were thinking, but it's made me curious enough to try asking some
systematic questions
about student goals and expectations at the outset of my courses next semester.
-MIke
At 06:50 AM 2/28/01 -0800, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>Mike:
>
>On the other hand, how many A's do you expect to give in a class of 25?
>That is,
>how many students do you expect to be TRULY OUTSTANDING. I think I'd
>expect to
>give only one or two As. Partly it depends on the course. I only get such
>small
>enrollments in courses like research methods or statistics, in which case the
>1/25 rule is probably a good metacognition for most students!
>
>annette
>
>Quoting "Michael J. Kane" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I just came from an on-campus teaching workshop, and was struck by an
> > anecdote passed along by one of the participants.
> >
> > At the beginning of a freshman course last semester, this instructor
> > asked students to indicate, anonymously, what grade they hoped to earn
> in the
> > course. Out of 25 students, only one indicated that they wanted an A. The
> > modal response was to "pass" the course.
> >
> > I'm sure that similar data would vary widely across courses, and I'd
> expect
> > that even the most motivated students would strive for less in some classes
> > than in others. But one person in 25?. It gives one pause...
>
>
> >
> > -Mike
> >
> > ************************************************
> > Michael J. Kane
> > Department of Psychology
> > P.O. Box 26164
> > University of North Carolina at Greensboro
> > Greensboro, NC 27402-6164
> > email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > phone: 336-256-1022
> > fax: 336-334-5066
> >
> >
>
>
>
>Annette Taylor, Ph.D.
>Associate Professor of Psychology
>University of San Diego
>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
************************************************
Michael J. Kane
Department of Psychology
P.O. Box 26164
University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Greensboro, NC 27402-6164
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
phone: 336-256-1022
fax: 336-334-5066
