Teachers - advice on student performance differences

[geenamercile]

Here is a question, of the ones who did it wrong is it a common error with all of them?  I have found I may read something and think there is only one way to interrupt it but others will find a different way to do so. If this was a on campus class I would suggest sitting down with one or two of the students, especially if these are normally strong students, and asking them to explain using the rubric and directions on why they did the project the way they did.  One way you could do this is have the students "grade" themselves using the rubric but require them to use support for there choices from the project.  For example a student could write I gave myself a 3 on this category because I completed X,Y, and Z in the project on these pages while following the example on page 56 of the text.  This may at least let you know where their head is at.  

   

[tskeeter]

Feb 26, 2017 14:08:10 GMT -5 giramomma said:

Feb 26, 2017 9:06:52 GMT -5 Rukh O'Rorke said:

Hi All,


I referred them specifically to a chapter in one of the textbooks, and said do this assignment according to the guidelines for x way to do it. some of them I'm wondering - did you purchase the book? what is this weird thing you've invented here? The assignment instructions said use x way, chapter y, smith and wesson textbook.

Experienced teachers - are some always going to do poorly? Since these are masters students, I really expect professional level work, that does not need spoon feeding (read the book and figure it out). Some did do that. Others, not so much....

Am I ok?

Yes. You are OK.

I work with master's students. Many of them don't read/follow directions. (Personally, I don't see how folks get promoted to mid level managers or are considered "rising stars" when they chose not to follow basic directions..and this is in STEM fields.)

Instructors grade them accordingly.

And as support staff, I've had to direct students to read a specific paragraph on a specific page in a course syllabus for directions, because the student argued that the direction didn't exist.

We are judicious with having our students buy books. Out of 10 courses, three don't have text books. We have another two courses that run under $100 for textbooks.  Of the remaining courses, most of the ones we use one can obtain by renting through amazon.

FWIW, the amount of spoon feeding, I think has gotten worse over the decade or so that I've been at my job.

In one class, the instructors always use rubrics to grade assignments. The instructors knew the students were not looking at the rubrics. So, last year, the instructors required the students to turn in a copy of the rubric with their assignments in hopes that students actually look at them and perhaps eve use them.

Regarding your dismay over grad students from the business world that don't read/follow instructions, you might consider how different those worlds are.  My bosses would typically tell me something along the lines of you need to go to New York.  It was up to me to figure out route, mode of transportation and the like.  By comparison, it sounds like folks in the academic world are more likely to use a follow this recipe exactly approach.  Testing how well people follow detailed instruction rather than evaluating only how effectively they accomplished a specific outcome.  

I do recognize that academia puts more focus on format than the business world.  Makes sense when you are preparing people to perform academic  research, etc.  Those skills are less relevant for most business people.

[resolution]

One thing you might want to double check if you changed an assignment, is if you changed it on all the associated areas of the site.  It is really easy to make a change to one set of instructions and miss a corresponding set  of instructions that is posted somewhere else on the website.

I am currently enrolled in a Master's program from my state university, and they made a change to the projects last summer, but they reused the old syllabus and old structure for assignment folders. So the syllabus has due dates for projects that are no longer required and doesn't contain the new ones that are required, and when it is time to turn in an assignment, half the students in the class are uploading them into the wrong assignment folder.

As a student it has caused me a tremendous amount of stress, especially when the instructor went about a week and a half without responding to my requests to please just tell me what the due date is for the next project.

[finnime]

I've taught several semesters of master's level classes in a brick and mortar setting. The topic (advanced project management in an IT discipline) was not what you might call intuitive for a number of students. There was always a lot of variability in work they submitted. A couple of things helped: every class we went through one major component of project work in a participatory way. Students also got a grade on class participation, which I went back and forth on until I just decided some students would always struggle with some concepts, and this allowed them to not be shut out of getting at least B-level grades. Those students were the very disciplined ones who would follow directions but could not extend principles to application. Some students did badly, because they simply did not do assignments as outlined and did not participate or even show up to a number of classes. I figured they chose their grades.