Chronology Current Month Current Thread Current Date
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] [Date Index] [Thread Index] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Prev] [Date Next]

Re: [Phys-l] not our majors now!



On Thu, 05 Oct 2006 07:26:24 -0500, Monce, Michael N. <mnmon@conncoll.edu> wrote:


My colleagues in the department are tired of hearing me complain so I'm taking this to a higher authority: PHYS-L. :-)
I'm teaching E&M to a class of 8 majors. I'm using Griffiths as I've done for over many years, and actually think I'm doing a better job in teaching the course than ever (practice makes perfect). I think the "disease" that seems to be infecting the general student population has made its way into our majors. The students are not engaging the material; i.e. they are not putting in the work to stay up with the course and often wait until the last night to start the problem assignment. They don't seem to have a grasp of even basic concepts from the intro. course. I gave a pop quiz to confirm my suspicions which consisted of intro course level problems and except for 2 students, the other 6 failed. I've talked to them about keeping up, how this is a challenging course for majors, etc. etc. etc. The worst of it is for the "6" their problem sets are near perfect and closely resemble Griffiths' solution manual, yet when I ask them basic question in class, none can come up with the answers. I've told them that I can't stop them from using such a manual, but it will do them no good on the exams, and will probably contribute to their failure if they are not truly trying to work on the material. I've never expected this from junior level physics majors. GE students in an intro course, yes, but not here. I've taught this course probably 15 times and this is the first instance that I've seen such a lack of effort on the part of the students. Oh, by the way, the 2 who seem to be keeping up are both foreign students, the "6" are American.
Rant off. Any ideas folks?
Mike Monce
Connecticut College

Hi Mike -

This is funny (not ha-ha funny, but ironic funny). I just got
out of my quantum mechanics class this morning, (with 8 majors)
and after complaining to a colleague who teaches many of the same
students in E&M, I got your email.

Our students are exactly in the same boat - they are basically just
letting life go by, and seemingly unconcerned that they're getting
70% scores on homework. I gather they think they'll all get B's and A's.
I may have to scare them a little with the first exam they're taking
on Tuesday.

They just aren't working very hard on this material, and it is
almost universally the case that they start the assignments the
night before they're due, even though I give them a week on each
one. Some of the comments I got this morning - "can the assignments
be due later in the day so that we can ask you questions about it in
class"... to which I responded, 'you can always email me if you can't
find me to ask questions' - to which I heard 'were you up last night
at midnight?' to which I responded 'you have had the assignment for
a week...' to which I heard 'well this isn't our only class...'

This for a five problem assignment that they've had for 7 days.

For this particular crew, it's particularly bad - and I've had
lesser-skilled groups in the past in this course who I suspect
will have done better than this one in the end. It seems to be a
disease that's getting worse with time. By far my best class was
my first, four years ago - things have gone downhill slightly until
this year which has been very 'dead'. They're just not with it.

Todd

--
___________________________________________________
Todd K. Pedlar
Assistant Professor of Physics, Luther College
pedlto01@luther.edu
___________________________________________________
"A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and
won't change the subject." -- Winston Churchill