At 05:16 PM 12/18/2005, you wrote:
One area for improvement that could lead to higher levels of adult
literacy, in evolution as well as other subjects, is student
testing.
The big driver in my experience is student interest in the subject, not
testing per se. Profs who generate or enhance interests turn out
the better students.
How
many professors reading paleonet assess their students' progress with
exams that force students to formulate a cogent and coherent response and
then express that response in an intelligible, organized, and
grammatically correct manner?
Probably all of them.
Alternatively, how many professors hand out multiple-choice exams that
can be processed through a scantron machine?
Probably all of them.
It is not usual that these are alternatives. The reason for these
answers is that we teach smaller classes that are amenable to essay
questions and writing assignments or research projects that demonstrate
knowledge and writing skills (and we do it regularly), and we also teach
courses with way too many students in them to know the students or to
test with any other means than machine grading. (and we do them regularly
too) I have had experience with courses between 100 and 650
students, and have yet to figure out a way to test them as you suggest
within the cheap budgets we get. Think about the
practicalities of it: a 5 page essay or exam means reading between
500 and 3250 pages, usually in a short time. While a dedicated prof
can read 500 pages or 100 pages a day for a week, quickly, it is more
difficult and time-consuming to make sure that they meet the standards
you list above. 3000 pages are impossible for one prof to
do.
An alternative is to employ graduate students (TAs) to grade essay exams,
and that is done in some large classes. The students may
benefit from writing answers out, but the grading and feedback is
variable. Probably better than machine grading, but way, way
more expensive.
I have offered the following options in large classes, knowing that the
interested students may take it over those who are just filling a
requirement: Write an original library, research or field trip
paper or build a web site, as a substitute for an exam.
Although this just about kills me to do the grading in a class of 100-200
if just 25% of them do it, it is more satisfying to me. On the
other hand, the number of purchased and copied papers is increasing and
harder to detect (web sites exist to track this and that is helpful, but
takes time).
We all know that what you say is true, but practicalities, money and
facilities dictate what we do.
While
at Amherst College in the mid-1970s, I don't recall having taken a single
multiple choice test. I've seen some college exams since that would be a
professional embarrassment for a middle school teacher. In my own high
school classes, I haven't ever given a multiple-choice, true-false,
fill-in-the-blank, match-the-items test.
And how large are the classes? And how many people grade
them? And do you have any other duties?
Statements like you write are not generally true across the board and
must be tailored to different situations differently.
As for
the teaching of evolution (or any subject with an important conceptual
component): students who are required to communicate their own
understanding of the subject, and who receive feedback from an instructor
if their understanding is deficient, are more likely to walk away with
the skills advocated by adult literacy proponents than students who are
told simply that answer 'a,' 'b,' or 'c' is correct.
Again, absolutely true. In Biology 1 with 650 students, I have no
idea how well they understand evolution because I can't talk to all of
them, but in my freshman seminar on evolution vs creationism with 12
students I know a great deal about how they think, and they know a great
deal about how I think.
Numbers matter, as most teachers know (I bet you know that too,
Tom).
The
moral of the story: if you want to have higher levels of performance, you
must have higher levels of expectation. Students can only while away
their time with Facebook or other distractions if there are no academic
consequences. If students are only assigned 50 pages to read a week, and
correctly conclude that reading half that will yield a good grade, is the
diminished learning the student's fault, or the professor's?
Or the system's fault? Let's get it straight--most students would
like to learn what they are interested in, but they have to take required
courses. Most professors would like to teach them in the way you
suggest or even better ways, but there's not enough professors or rooms
or dollars to make it happen. That is equally true in
many American high schools.
But it's not as bad as you think. While we do offer and teach
large classes, we also teach many more small classes where we know the
students and do not use mechanical grading or multiple choice or
true-false exams. The large classes are chiefly Freshmen and
Sophmore classes and the smaller ones are mostly Junior and Senior
courses. Because of this trend, universities have instigated
Freshmen Seminar and Research courses that are limited to a number that
allows the prof to interact, to know and to properly assess the
students. These are a joy to teach; students take them because they
are interested and their reactions Overall the students do
get a good deal of feedback and training as you suggest, but not in all
of their classes. That' s the practicality of it in many
places.
I exclude from this the few professors and teachers that really don't
like to do it.
Again, it is a complex issue because people
teach and learn in many different ways. Some students will
like some teachers, while others will not. Some respond to writing
while others do not.
Tom
DeVries