Re: Extra Credit (was Where Have All the Boys Gone?)

["Daniel L. MacIsaac" <Dan.MacIsaac@NAU.EDU>]

Joel:

> A question I have is how do you find time to do this grading of the reading
> summaries?
>
>  I find it hard to imagine that in my situation I'd have the time to do all
> the other tasks required of the courses and administration, preparing
> tests,
> grading them etc and grade these summaries; other than in the most cursory
> and superficial manner (probably literally a check-off to see if it was
> done, or faked-up well enough by the student that it could get by a quick
> glance my tired eyes.)

Should have added: no more than 1/2 page (one face) per textbook section may
be used in a reading summary.

Originally I graded them out of 3 pts, giving most of my students a cursory
2/3, with outliers either way.  Reading summaries are worth very little
overall in the course grade (about 1.5%) but students freaked a little when
I 'casually handed them a C' (bad morale does interfere with learning :^().
So next I went to half points 0.0 - 3.0 by 0.5 point increments. Now
I just do 1-10 in full points, with the common grades being 7,8 & 9.  I
can grade a class set of 150 in about an hour, but I will confess I can
grab a future physics teacher from my undergrad stable and get them to do
this for $6/hr.  In the past I paid out of my own pocket and considered it
money well spent, but now I have some grant funds for future teachers and
escape that way.  To grade this quickly I use Napoleonic code (Guilty until
proven innocent) style reasoning on ambiguous papers, and encourage
students to challenge any grade within 10 days in writing (attach a clear
and separate letter to the original graded work and hand it back in).

I agree with the problem of additional grading load.  I know Mazur has tried
similar reading assignments at Harvard (instead of reading quizzes, I believe
he no longer does these to start his classes, contrary to his book),
and has tried only grading them 'sometimes'.  I do have the resources to grade
them all, and consider frequent and sustaioned feedback to be both important
and achieveable with my classes.

> I have little to argue about regarding the ideas behind the summaries;
> other
> than to rather sadly note that it represents what is probably the reality
> that this is mostly remediation for learning schools that I'd ideally hope
> the incoming freshman would already possess.

Well, if I don't help my freshmen develop these skills I'd have to award some
of them 'A's without having ever seen these things, unfortunately. I use
similar logic to justify things like batteries-and-bulbs level activities;
the alternative is to give 'A's to students who can play the game on
exams but can't do very elementary things associated with our subject.
They don't get past me without at least some exposure to stuff I consider
critical even apart from traditional 'content'.  On the plus side, many
students appreciate summaries -- they enjoy preparing to study like this and
getting recognition/credit for it.  MCATs takers love this.  Upper Division
and graduate students hate it, but they already have their problems if they're
enrolled in my freshman physics course.

On a follow up note, some of the ideas behind the summaries are NOT remedial
according to the literature.  Conceptual change requires first articulating
concepts.  Reading summaries start students thinking about the concepts
(although in a very elementary way) and encourages students to try and relate
the text material to their own lives.  Eliciting and recognizing initial
student beliefs before instruction is not remedial, nor is freeing lecture
time for active engagement.  While these may be things we might like to
automagically expect of all students and their instructors, they are not
remedial or trivial -- we should explicitly recognize and pursue them.

> Joel Rauber
> Joel_Rauber@sdstate.edu
Joel, thanks for helping me articulate stuff I am trying to write about
elsewhere and sorry for pontificating,

Dan M

Dan MacIsaac, Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy, Northern AZ Univ
danmac@nau.edu          http://purcell.phy.nau.edu         PHYS-L list owner