A case of grade inflation out of my hands.
I'm a TA for a fairly difficult sophomore level biology course. It's essentially half a semester of botany and half a semester of zoology, with plenty of content to know. I teach a fairly intensive lab with another TA. There are three lab sections overall.
This semester our students had a serious case of "The Dumb". The law of averages apparently decided that I needed to pay for my awesome lab section from last semester... these folks were quite challenged. It seemed like no matter how much effort us TAs or the instructors put in, these students refused to budge from an F-majority. They also seemed to have a serious issue with entitlement. Did I mention that the majority of the ones who were failing only came to talk with me about "fixing" it after Thanksgiving break was over?
What do the instructors do? They make a curve. At current writing, in this course, an 82 or an above is an A. I'm ashamed. The instructors argue that "well, only 5 people out of 120 will have an A with this new curve." That's not the big issue though. The issue is that you're giving D level students C grades, and that means that they continue in this major. It also cheapens MY degree. It's also unfair to the company that will eventually hire the student, and to the people that they will serve. Would you really want a medical doctor who made it to med school because of grade inflation? A patient dies and the doctor just shrugs and says "I didn't study the gall bladder, I thought it regulated temperature." And yes, that was a real answer on today's lab practical.
All I can say is that it's over and I'm really glad. When I'm a professor, things will be done differently in my classroom.
Amendment
I'd like to clarify that not all of the students in the class are failing. Some of them are. Some of them should be, but aren't thanks to this curve. A few of them are doing consistently well. It just seems like a "bad" crop this semester for a historically-challenging course and I was venting my frustrations at what I feel is special treatment to this particular semesters' students. This generally hasn't been a problem in the past two years that I have TAed this course with these instructors.
This semester our students had a serious case of "The Dumb". The law of averages apparently decided that I needed to pay for my awesome lab section from last semester... these folks were quite challenged. It seemed like no matter how much effort us TAs or the instructors put in, these students refused to budge from an F-majority. They also seemed to have a serious issue with entitlement. Did I mention that the majority of the ones who were failing only came to talk with me about "fixing" it after Thanksgiving break was over?
What do the instructors do? They make a curve. At current writing, in this course, an 82 or an above is an A. I'm ashamed. The instructors argue that "well, only 5 people out of 120 will have an A with this new curve." That's not the big issue though. The issue is that you're giving D level students C grades, and that means that they continue in this major. It also cheapens MY degree. It's also unfair to the company that will eventually hire the student, and to the people that they will serve. Would you really want a medical doctor who made it to med school because of grade inflation? A patient dies and the doctor just shrugs and says "I didn't study the gall bladder, I thought it regulated temperature." And yes, that was a real answer on today's lab practical.
All I can say is that it's over and I'm really glad. When I'm a professor, things will be done differently in my classroom.
Amendment
I'd like to clarify that not all of the students in the class are failing. Some of them are. Some of them should be, but aren't thanks to this curve. A few of them are doing consistently well. It just seems like a "bad" crop this semester for a historically-challenging course and I was venting my frustrations at what I feel is special treatment to this particular semesters' students. This generally hasn't been a problem in the past two years that I have TAed this course with these instructors.