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Mandatory attendance and homework in higher education (pg. 2)
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| Jon_Snow |
| I came from a big family and my parents could only help pay for my living expensive but I'd be responsible for the tuition loans. As it turned out it was a great motivator to study and get a job after graduating. |
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| Dykes_on_Jay |
| quote: | Originally posted by Jon_Snow
I came from a big family and my parents could only help pay for my living expensive but I'd be responsible for the tuition loans. As it turned out it was a great motivator to study and get a job after graduating. |
Are you 52 yet? |
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| Dykes_on_Jay |
Homework is only useful to let you know a student understands.
Like IGK is only useful on a Chris Hansen Easter special. |
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| Lira |
Thanks for the input, everyone! Here's just a couple of quick replies (I'll be addressing everyone little by little).
| quote: | Originally posted by Silky Johnson
Attendance was not mandatory, and homework was not graded. The expectation at that level is that students are able to manage their workload independently, without spoon-feeding and/or micro management. |
This is what I've always believed in. I'd always tell my students on the first day that they're grown ups and I shouldn't have to coddle anyone. That's why I was caught off-guard when a group of (mediocre) students blamed this for their poor performance and raised hell.
Granted, they blamed just about everyone, from senior students who were "useless" to overachieving colleagues who wouldn't "help them out", but I can't be arsed to deal with this sort drama before I get my tenure next year. Hence my looking for foolproof compromises :p
| quote: | Originally posted by Jon_Snow
I get the feeling Brazilian students are more lackadaisical because higher ed isn't as expensive or free? |
Actually, this is far from the default behaviour, that's why I didn't even think about it for a decade. If anything, this semester was a one off because just about everything that could've gone wrong for them in previous semesters did go wrong.
Problem was, they were lagging behind due to a series of disruptions (from a student protest that ended the previous semester a couple of months before scheduled to a bureaucratic mishap that made them change lecturers 3 times in just one semester). Also, I'm usually seen by the students as "the cool professor", so they assumed my classes would be easy and fun - and then they realised the reason I make my classes fun is precisely because the subject is anything but easy if you don't pay attention.
Most students are sweethearts and quite responsible, actually. |
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| Jon_Snow |
Sorry Lira I didn't mean to label all Brazilians as lackadaisical, I'm sure there must be a few exceptions to the rule. :p
So securing your tenure is what this is all about.
Maybe you should forbid these under performing slackers from associating outside of class. It's you and your tenure against them. For god's sake its time to put a stop to your nice guy image before it's too late. |
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| sensorium |
Mandatory only makes way for the lamest of excuses often used in lower grades.
It depends on the type of course the student is enrolled in. If it is only lecture and you have a big class, more than 50 at a time, then it is tougher to control I suppose. Introductory courses often have those or higher number of students here. For the average age of professors teaching introductory courses in the US, I can guess the older professors will not care to spend more than a minute dedicated to attendance. Like it has been stated already, students are paying for their education and they choose whether they want to show up or not.
With that said, the cheating philosophy is out of control. Some create a system to only show up the first day, during exams, and of course the final. No need to read a book, or buy it for that matter, because the exams from previous semesters are collected in this system and certain depts. are too lazy to make significant changes to assessments. How about paying someone else who likes the subject to show up and take the exam for you? Well, that can be done as well. There's a bunch of creative ways.
For courses considered seminars, there's the three day rule, which in theory should be applied to every type of course. And even there, some students find a loophole to get away with just showing up enough to pass the class. By enough, I mean way more than three days of absences.
I can understand this type of behavior from students in the early years of university classes but it is a shame in the upper level classes. It was sometimes irritating going to seminars and having discussions where you knew only about three or four did the assigned reading/homework.
Even if homework were to be penalized, it would be a tough job for something like readings. Plus, it would take time away from weekends and/or time of rest.
I remember a specific time when a colleague and I decided to expose the students who were not doing the reading. This was upper-level. Professor begins the discussion, "Tell me your thoughts about this short story." My colleague begins talking normally about it, setting, theme, etc. but purposely changes the name of one of the main characters. Students around nod in agreement with everything that has been said. Professor asks for more input. I add in a small comment contradicting the theme, providing citations but adding a non-existent character. What happens next? A class discussion of more than an hour about elaborating a bunch of details of this non-existent character by students choosing my side and also of students saying the wrong name of the other character when they choose the side of my colleague. To be fair, it was the most fun I ever had in a class.
We had estimated the joke to last no more than 3 minutes but even the professor hadn't done the reading so nobody corrected us. This professor clearly stated at the beginning she was almost perfect spotting students who were not doing the readings.
Anyway, even for seminars, it's tough to enforce homework. Many manage to feed on the comments of others to make a lively discussion. It sucks for the students who do the reading but aren't as outspoken during discussions.
Both attendance and homework are easier to enforce in higher level classes because they are smaller and it is easier to track and less work to grade. But even then, it will not be entirely enforced.
If you are going to enforce it, get a T.A. to help with grading and attendance. That way you don't spend (waste?) any energy on the matter. But check that the T.A. is honest and doesn't have any friends in any of your classes. It can be done. |
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| Sykonee |
Attendance wasn't too bad for most of my time at college, though some would grow very lax as a semester wore on. Some classes had Attendance marks, though not often.
In one of my classes, where it was clear a lot of students were skipping out on lectures, the teach' would have super-easy pop quizzes for bonus marks for those who were still attending. Wouldn't be worth a whole lot, but sometimes those extra few percentage points are the difference makers in your GPA. |
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| Woony |
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
To return parabolically to the original point, at that age I thought it was affront that you could be kicked off your course for poor attendance. We were paying good money (or someone's good money, at any rate) for this education. We were customers. We should be allowed to do whatever the hell we wanted with all that expensive education we'd purchased. Nowadays I'm more inclined to think that any student who complains about being made to attend is, at best, an entitled and lazy wit, and would clearly benefit from being stringently policed into fulfilling the solitary worthwhile obligation they have at that age. |
What about students that aren't bankrolled by their parents though? It's obviously not the typical student but there are students that have other obligations at that age. A friend of mine went to some US college campus recently and there were kids (adults legally) getting into ridiculous debts to be treated like 16 year olds on a class trip, it's ridiculous. Not to mention, there are many people that are getting a degree when they are older and have to juggle higher education with a real career, kids and what not.
When my parents were studying in the 70s and early 80s, it was completely normal to around for a couple of semesters, check out things from other faculties etc. Here in Germany the whole bachelors/masters system was only introduced in the last ~15 years. What came along is what we call "Verschulung" (school-ification) of higher education. The funny thing is that literally everyone in the university system complains about it but nobody can do anything about it because the government decided long ago that we need to abide by Bologna. The sad thing is, at this point a lot of students literally can't handle anything where they're not told exactly what to do. These 18 year old kids come out of 12 years inside of the modern school system and are so conditioned by that they can't handle anything else. You give them a tiny bit of freedom and their brain short circuits, I've seen it many times. |
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| SYSTEM-J |
| quote: | Originally posted by Woony
What about students that aren't bankrolled by their parents though? It's obviously not the typical student but there are students that have other obligations at that age. A friend of mine went to some US college campus recently and there were kids (adults legally) getting into ridiculous debts to be treated like 16 year olds on a class trip, it's ridiculous. Not to mention, there are many people that are getting a degree when they are older and have to juggle higher education with a real career, kids and what not.
When my parents were studying in the 70s and early 80s, it was completely normal to around for a couple of semesters, check out things from other faculties etc. Here in Germany the whole bachelors/masters system was only introduced in the last ~15 years. What came along is what we call "Verschulung" (school-ification) of higher education. The funny thing is that literally everyone in the university system complains about it but nobody can do anything about it because the government decided long ago that we need to abide by Bologna. The sad thing is, at this point a lot of students literally can't handle anything where they're not told exactly what to do. These 18 year old kids come out of 12 years inside of the modern school system and are so conditioned by that they can't handle anything else. You give them a tiny bit of freedom and their brain short circuits, I've seen it many times. |
If you haven't got much money to start with, that's all the more reason to take your investment seriously. It's now £9000 a year in the UK just for tuition fees. That's a lot of debt to take on just to stay in bed on a comedown instead of going to your seminars.
Bit the point of my story is more that it doesn't really matter. What I'd lean towards now is the total opposite of what I actually did, so I'd be a hypocrite to condemn anyone's behaviour at the age of 18. I left university unable to wake up for 9 am. I still learned how to be an adult very quickly when I had to. |
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| Lews |
It is a complete waste of everybody's time, in my opinion, to force anyone to attend lecture/seminar who does not want to be there.
Also, more people should be failing in higher education.
And, less people should be going into higher education, overall.
I have very strong feelings on all three points, but I'm incredibly hungover right now and, thus, unable to elaborate :o |
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| Woony |
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
It's now £9000 a year in the UK just for tuition fees. That's a lot of debt to take on just to stay in bed on a comedown instead of going to your seminars. |
Jeez! For all the america-fication here one thing they're still doing right here is the study fees, I pay about 300 euros per semester (so around 600e per year). Obviously, a lot is covered by state subsidies (I think the real cost is about ~3ke per student for the humanities) but from what I've seen from the US, no matter how large the fees are, they'll find some way to spend them, so you end up with all these glamorous buildings and equipment that noone really needs. The buildings and classrooms can look pretty worn down here but I'm sure most students will prefer that over 30-50k+ in debt.
| quote: | Originally posted by Lews
Also, more people should be failing in higher education. |
I don't know how it is in the UK/US but here the amount of people that drop out or fail is huge. In the more empiric sciences a lot of subjects have ridiculous drop out rates in the first semester. And even in the humanities, while people may not be failing tests, the amount of people that either change faculties or straight up drop out is huge. I reckon about a third (at most) of the people I started with are actually finishing their bachelors in the same subject. And then a large amount of those don't even start their masters. The educated middle class has always been very good about keeping the lower classes out here ;) Maybe the low fees are more encouraging towards dropping out since you'll only be out of the time spent and not also 20 grand or god knows how much.
Again, I don't know how it is in the anglosphere but here I see a lot of people push that "less people in higher education - more people in the trades and crafts!" rhetoric as if anyone could just walk in and get a great trade job and it's bull - yes, there are trade jobs, but with pay and in areas where no young person would want to live. In big cities all that ends up happening is that the lower middle class pushes out the precariat for these kind of jobs. |
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| Lews |
| quote: | Originally posted by Woony
Jeez! For all the america-fication here one thing they're still doing right here is the study fees, I pay about 300 euros per semester (so around 600e per year). Obviously, a lot is covered by state subsidies (I think the real cost is about ~3ke per student for the humanities) ... I don't know how it is in the UK/US but here the amount of people that drop out or fail is huge. ... Maybe the low fees are more encouraging towards dropping out since you'll only be out of the time spent and not also 20 grand or god knows how much. |
Yes, there's a very strong correlation between those low fees and high drop-out rates in most of the world.
To be honest, I'm still not sure how I feel about university fees and student debts in general, despite having been in academia for, , eight years now. Libraries, fancy lecture halls, top instructors, etc. all cost a lot of money. Why should the state pay for all of that, not students? And debt isn't necessarily a bad thing; it can be a great motivator. The Western world has such odd views on debt, this weird moral sense that having debt is a sin. The only sinful debt is debt that is not being paid :o
And, on the topic of Americans with student debt, which feeds into my next point, a lot of the debate is not well informed. I cannot find the exact data right now, for the aforementioned reason of being quite thrashed, but while the 'average' American has some $40,000 in student debt, most debt is divided up into 3 types of borrowers: borrowers with $25,000 in debt; borrowers with $100,000 in debt; and borrowers with $250,000-500,000 in debt.
However, the higher up in debt, the lower the default rates... Most people with $25,000 have a BA, or dropped out from a BA, and not a very good job. Most people with $100,000 have an MA and a good job. Most people with $250,000-500,000 have an MD, JD, PhD, or MBA and a very good job. Just having a lot of debt is not necessarily a risk, it can be a very profitable investment in one's future. The problem, from a societal perspective, is all the people with $25,000 in debt and a BA that they most likely did not need whatsoever. Most Americans who default on their student loans, actually, went to for-profit colleges, which have both horrific drop-out rates and poor career prospects.
| quote: | Originally posted by Woony
The educated middle class has always been very good about keeping the lower classes out here ;) |
In Britain, interestingly, despite the higher fees in the past several years, there is a larger percentage of people from 'working class' backgrounds at university than ever before.
| quote: | Originally posted by Woony
Again, I don't know how it is in the anglosphere but here I see a lot of people push that "less people in higher education - more people in the trades and crafts!" rhetoric as if anyone could just walk in and get a great trade job and it's bull - yes, there are trade jobs, but with pay and in areas where no young person would want to live. In big cities all that ends up happening is that the lower middle class pushes out the precariat for these kind of jobs. |
Well, I think in society in general we need to stop thinking that people with degrees are smart and people without degrees are dumb. So many people in university are incredibly dimwitted and should probably not be there, but society says that one can only get a good job with a degree, so everybody goes. And, of course, in the Anglo world everyone spends so much bloody money on things they don't need because everyone is so damn materialistic. [Rant about society here edited for length.]
And I think we need to be doing much more to support apprenticeships in trades and crafts, etc. I know I've read articles in the past about how some of the most highly paid city employees in some American cities are specialist construction workers, like mortar specialists; so few people know how to do the jobs, the few people who do know have to do insane overtime to do all the work.
So many people with unrealistic dreams, basically. |
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