Re: [Phys-l] Federally mandated homework

["Edmiston, Mike" <edmiston@bluffton.edu>]

In his recent post (below) John Denker begins with a series of "We have given up on..."

I respond to that with... I personally have not given up on any of those things.  But I see faculty and administrators who never had any of those things to begin with.

And the fact I am discussing it here shows I am more than "willing" to talk about honor and integrity; I am talking about it and trying to do something about it.

The reason the time-on-task laws exist (and have existed way before now) is because too many educational institutions  and/or administrators and/or faculty members  lost their integrity (or never had it).

When a student pays tuition for a course (and the government helps pay for it), how can we make sure they get their money's worth?  I'll never say that we can absolutely assure this.  I'll never say that time-on-task assures this.  But I will certainly say that if there is zero time on task, then we pretty much can assure the tuition dollars are money down the drain.

For as long as I have been in education, we have used "credit hours" as some sort of measure of how much exposure a student has had to the subject material of the course.  The number of credit hours for the course, coupled with the student's grade, is interpreted as some measure of how much the student knows about that subject.  We also award diplomas after the student has completed some number of credit hours at some minimum grade level in some specified distribution of subjects.  This is the system we have.

Some people don't like this system.  John Denker seems to be one of them.  I understand that.  I agree the system has many of the flaws that John has pointed out over the past years.  But I don't agree with people who want to throw it out... at least I don't want to throw it out before we have something better to put in its place.

If we are going to stick with grades and credit hours for at least some amount of time, then it seems to me we have to have to regain some control over grade inflation, and we have to regain some control over what a "credit-hour" means.

Over roughly a 40-year period I am aware that some institutions have eroded a semester from 18 weeks down to as low as 12 weeks.  This means in some cases the "school year" has gone from 36 weeks down to 24 weeks.  I didn't check to see how long the Ohio code has specified the length of a semester/school year, but I do know it been for a fairly long time.  The school year for higher education is codified as 30 weeks of instruction.  That can be broken down into two semesters of 15 weeks each, or into three quarters of 10 weeks each, or some other calendar.  Whatever calendar is used, the school year is 30 weeks of formalized instruction.

My wife regularly gives me static about this, because the school year for K through 12th grade for schools in Ohio is codified as 175 days, which amounts to 35 weeks of formalized instruction.  They are held accountable to this.  Our local school absolutely abides by this.  My wife constantly jabs at me, usually every Sunday afternoon... "Do you teach tomorrow, or is your semester over already?"

 To make matters worse, my university started cheating on this when we converted from quarters to semesters.  On the quarter system we had 33 weeks in the academic year.  Each quarter had 10 weeks of "formalized instruction" (that is, 10 weeks of classes), followed by one week of final exams.  Thus, when we were on the quarter system, we were meeting the mandate of 30 weeks of "formalized instruction."

Upon switching to semesters, the administration (with the blessing of many faculty members) shortened the school year to 28 weeks of classes... two semesters of 14 weeks of classes (plus one week of final exams each semester).  In our year-long science courses (such as my calculus-based physics course) I found myself with 28 weeks to cover what I had been trying to cover in 30 weeks.  I strongly fought against this, and even pointed out it was illegal in Ohio.  The administration said the Ohio law did not pertain to private institutions (I still disagree)... and many faculty told me to shut up because the administration was offering to pay us the same salary for two weeks less work.  Hallelujah!

On top of that, I routinely become aware of professors who assign little (if any)  homework.  All "learning" takes place in class.  Or, I am aware of professors who assign an essay, or term paper, and then cancel class for a week or two to give students time to work on the assignment.  When confronted, they say they are available for the students to come and seek help/advice with their writing.  But I know few students do that.  And good grief, the professor should still be holding classes, and the students should be writing papers outside of class, and if they need advice they should go see the professor during "office hours."  Since when are we allowed to have "office hours" during the time periods we are supposed to be in class.

I am also aware of professors who come to class on the hour, start with a bit of small talk about the soccer team having a good win, then ask if there are any questions (usually not, because if a student asks a question, the other students groan), and then say, "Okay, read the next 20 pages for tomorrow", and then dismisses the class.  By now it's probably 20 minutes past the hour.  The class lasted less than half the time it was scheduled for, and didn't really involve any "formalized instruction."  But aren't the students held responsible for the material?  Well... yes... if you think "being held responsible" means taking an in-class multiple choice exam on Friday that was distributed to the class on Thursday.

So... if students in those kinds of courses with those kinds of professors are paying for and receiving 3 semester hours of credit, then how much credit should my students get if we meet in class three days a week for the full 50 minutes, every week of the term, and my students have to do several hours of out-of-class work each week?  Oh... wait... I know the answer.  My students get three hours of credit just like the students in those other classes.

I don't feel any guilt about charging 3 or 4 or 5 hours of tuition for the courses I teach.  I am accountable to my students and to the taxpayers who give my students grants and subsidized loans.  For myself, my only remorse is that I should be doing what I do for 15 weeks rather than 14 weeks.

On the other hand, I am ashamed that my institution lets some professors get away with very little on-task time both for themselves and their students.  I am ashamed that my institution has 14-week semesters.  I get depressed when some of my students tell me I am the most demanding prof they've ever had,  and I need to lighten up.  To quote John Denker, this is "the Nth circle of hell" I live in.  Since Ohio law hasn't prompted my institution to push for some degree of uniformity in instruction and credit hours, I am hoping the feds might have some success.  I don't hold out a lot of hope, but if we risk losing the ability for our students to receive federal aid if we cannot offer some documentation that we follow federal credit-hour standards, then we might indeed make some progress.  That's why I don't have a problem with this law.  My fear is that my institution might ignore it and get away with it.

Michael D. Edmiston, PhD.
Professor of Chemistry and Physics
Chair, Division of Natural and Applied Sciences
Bluffton University
Bluffton, OH 45817
Office 419-358-3270
Cell 419-230-9657


-----Original Message-----
From: phys-l-bounces@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu [mailto:phys-l-bounces@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu] On Behalf Of John Denker
Sent: Friday, November 04, 2011 12:36 AM
To: Forum for Physics Educators
Subject: Re: [Phys-l] Federally mandated homework

On 11/03/2011 08:58 PM, LaMontagne, Bob wrote:

> You are confused as to what the real issue is here. It's hardly about 
> learning - it's about providing numbers that can allow an admistrator 
> to satisfy the administrator above him in the food chain that 
> regulations have been met.

I'm not as confused as you might think.  Perhaps my earlier sarcasm was too subtle.

Let me spell it out again, without the subtlety.

We have given up on teaching honor and integrity, to the point where we don't even talk about it.

We have given up on insight and creativity, to the point where we don't even pretend to teach such things.

We have given up on imparting a love of learning, personal responsibility, et cetera.

We have given up on measuring actual knowledge and accomplishment, so instead we claim to measure "effort".

But no, we don't even measure effort; instead we measure "time on task".

But we don't even do that in a serious way; instead we use a computer program to measure how much time students /pretend/ to spend on the task.

This satisfies a federal regulation as to /minimum/ time on task ... not mean time, not median time, not two-sigma likely time, but minimum time.

And then multiple people on this list say they "like" having that regulation out there.

==========

Wake up and smell the brimstone.  This is the Nth circle of hell.

> It's hardly about learning

Indeed!  That's the point I've been trying to make all day.

Have we all completely lost sight of the fundamental purpose of what we are doing?  Have we all lost sight of the fundamental reason why schools and teachers exist?
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