Rant:
I do not understand why students walk away from a whole one, even two, letter grades by not showing up prepared on speech days. They don't even seem remorseful about it. I offer extra credit (a whole half a letter grade) to students who come see me with a completed speech before speech days start, and only one or two students show up. I don't understand this culture. They seem happy with low grades.
I really need to go watch how other teachers teach here to get a better sense of what strategies people are using in the classroom.
Ah well.
10/05/2007
Disappointment at BRCC
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2 comments:
That is weird. Though maybe it's not entirely a bad thing...the annoying alternative is students who expect to "get" an A just for showing up. I've noticed that most at schools where there is general grade inflation. Or they have the customer service mindset; they're paying lots of money in tuition (or their parents are paying) so they deserve the higher grade.
Do they not care about learning the material itself? Is this a required course they need to just pass and they're taking other courses that are higher priority? Are you getting students who are taking their first college level courses? I wonder if in a public speaking class you get more students who are just starting school and for many reasons aren't the most prepared or motivated students and may end up dropping out.
I also wonder if you have students with some stage fright who would rather take the bad grade than risk getting up in front of the class.
It's always good to see what other teachers are doing in the classroom, though. I wish everyone did that routinely!
I agree that it is less annoying than having students with a sense of entitlement. And thankfully BRCC, while being oriented to serving the community, does not use a lot of customer service metaphors.
Many of the students seem pretty apathetic. The course is not required. I don't know how many students are first timers. BRCC has high attrition rates. And stage fright is always a problem.
But stage fright doesn't explain why people don't do the bonus work, for instance. I offer a half a letter bonus on each speech for students who come to see me with a completed outline before their speech is due. Very few take me up on that. I also offered an entire letter grade for a library scavenger hunt. Perhaps 1/4 of the students at best did the assignment. It's very disappointing. I just got midterms back and I haven't graded them yet, but I will see how they went when I grade them this weekend.
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